The contact

THE CONTACT WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ISSUE - 642, 24 NOV. - 30 NOV. 2015 PH: (905) 671 - 4761

HOW TO STOP

ISIS

SURGE

Because Islamic State is weaker in Iraq, I would suggest that international and indigenous troops try to defeat it there before taking the fight to within Syria.

So far, the Kurds have done well and a push towards IS’s Iraq stronghold of Mosul cannot be too far off. The Kurds’ efforts on the ground will be critical.

We should also include the anti-IS vigilante groups around Mosul. Most importantly, we must persuade the local Sunni tribes to switch sides. Without their support, IS are stuffed – they’ve had it.

It will take a lot of negotiation and money – that is the reality of this part of the world.

While Special Forces should play a key role, regular British infantry should stay out of this fight; after the Iraq War there is too much baggage involved.

Though President Assad is a butcherous dictator who barrel-bombs his own people, we must negotiate with him and involve his military personnel.

Continued on Page 2

6 PAK-BORN BRITS HELD Six Pakistani born British men were arrested in Belgium yesterday after being spotted in three ‘old ambulances’ at a petrol station used by Paris terrorist Salah Abdeslam. Armed police in six armoured trucks swooped in to arrest the men at around 2pm yesterday. They screamed at them to get out of the vehicles parked at an Esso garage said to be used by on the run Paris gunman and Europe’s most wanted man, Abdeslam. The Britons were arrested just 20 miles from Brussels which was locked down for a second day today over fears of an ‘imminent’ Paris style attack.

Continued on Page 2

Issue - 642 (2)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

how to stop...

Continued from Page 1 A military solution also requires Russian and Iranian involvement.

The potential for civilian casualties is great and deeply concerning. But this must not be used as a reason for us not destroying IS. Sadly, we’ve flapped around and left it to the US, the French and the Russians to fight the aerial campaign. It is militarily nonsensical not to bomb IS in Syria when we’re doing it in Iraq.

David Cameron must also play a leading role in the negotiations in Vienna.

Thought must be given to what Syria is going to look like after the war.

Eventually, Assad has to go, but not yet.

In the meantime, we should confront states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey which have financed IS and bought its oil supplies on the black market.

The Special Air Service has won a battle to keep a fleet of transport aircraft which were due to be scrapped – because the planes are playing a vital role in the war against Islamic State.

The dozen C-130J Hercules planes, flown in secret missions over Iraq and Syria, will remain in service

after a U-turn by defence chiefs.

The decision will be confirmed tomorrow by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon as part of the Government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review.

An SAS source said: ‘We’re breathing a sigh of relief. To have retired such a reliable, versatile aircraft would have been a very stupid way for the Ministry of Defence to save money.’

The aircraft, flown by the RAF’s Squadron 47 at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, are equipped with the latest countermeasures against missiles fired from the ground and can carry 72 SAS troops to parachute them into a war zone.

Defence expert Howard Wheeldon said saving them ‘removes a serious capability doubt’ from SAS operations.

Mr Fallon is also expected to announce that the MoD will buy reconnaissance aircraft to protect Britain’s coastline.

Royal Navy personnel are sailing into war against IS aboard the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the MoD confirmed last night. Eight or nine officers will take part.

6 PAK-BORN BRITS....

Continued from Page 1 Police officers, who inspected the contents of the three old ambulances overnight, were under orders to take them alive, Matthew Drake of the Sunday People reported.

Officers found clothes, food and money inside the ambulances which were parked beside the E411 highway in Bierges, raising fears they may have been heading to Syria, it was reported.

The arrested men, one of whom is known to British police, did not speak French but have cooperated with detectives, a Belgian police commissioner said.

He told the Sunday People: ‘Shortly before 1400 hours (2pm), we found the -presence old ambulances, now transformed into vans, on the highway rest area.’

One of the petrol station’s workers said Abdeslam, who is believed to have taken part in the Paris massacres which killed 130, was a regular at the garage and remembers him being ‘quite nice, smiling’.

Abdeslam is said to be hiding out in the Belgian town of Molenbeek, which is considered the ‘jihadi capital of Europe’.

Police are investigating

Paris attacks fugitive ‘visited gay bars, flirted with men and took drugs’ One of the Paris gunmen was reportedly a regular at gay bars in Brussels, smoked cannabis, and spent most of his time playing Playstation.

Salah Abdeslam has been on the run since the attacks in Paris last

Friday, in which at least 130 people died.

He is now believed to be in disguise in a wig and glasses, going by the name Yassine Baghli.

But no one who saw the 26-year-old Belgian citizen on a night out could have guessed he would become a jihadist, and Europe’s most wanted man.

‘We had him down as a rent boy, he was always hanging out with that kind of crowd,’ Julien,

the bartender of a club visited by Abdeslam, told the Sunday Times.

After images of the terror suspects were released, bar owners in the area recognised Abdeslam and went to the police.

Officials are now trawling through CCTV from the

district, Brussels’ Saint Jacques quarter.

This is a confusing revelation, because Isis regards homosexuality as forbidden and regularly murders people it identifies as being gay.

Other videos released by the terror group also show them flogging and beating people who have drunk alcohol or smoked.

Abdeslam’s brother Ibrahim, who blew himself up outside the Comptoire Voltaire Cafe,

ran a bar in Brussels’ n o w - i n f a m o u s Molenbeek district.

Their friend Karim told the Sunday Times that the bar was closed down a week before the attacks because Ibrahim had used it as a den to sell drugs.

‘[Ibrahim] and Salah spent most of their days smoking hashish and playing on Playstation i n t h e b a r, ’ h e s a i d .

‘There was nothing to suggest they were radicalised.’

Around 2,000 officers have now been tasked with hunting down Abdeslam.

Belgium raised its terror threat level to the highest in the wake of the attack, warning of an ‘imminent’ threat.

links to ISIS because using old ambulances is said to be one of the terror group’s methods to conceal jihadis.

The Wavre police force, who responded to reports of the suspicious ambulances

vehicles suspects on the motorway area of Bierges.

‘These events are not related to the current terrorist context, contrary to the information given in some media.’

closed its metro system, shut shops and flooded the streets with armed police yesterday as the hunt for Paris gunman, Belgian born Abdeslam, was stepped up.

Brussels’ historic Grand

said on its Facebook account yesterday: ‘This afternoon, the police of Wavre was called and intervened following the presence of people and

Belgian security officials will meet today to decide whether the extend the security measures which turned Brussels into a ghost town. The capital

Place, usually bustling with tourists, has been quiet and empty over the weekend, save a few soldiers and the armoured vehicle stood outside the town hall.

Pfizer to buy botox-maker Allergan in Rs 10.60 lakh crore largest-ever pharma deal Pfizer Inc on Monday said it would buy Botox maker Allergan Plc in a deal worth $160 billion (nearly Rs 10.60 lakh crore) to slash its US tax bill, rekindling a fierce political debate over the financial maneuver.

The acquisition, which would create the world’s largest drugmaker and shift Pfizer’s headquarters to Ireland, would also be the biggest-ever instance of a US company reincorporating overseas to lower its taxes. US President Barack Obama has called such inversion deals unpatriotic and has tried to crack down on the practice.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton pledged to propose measures to prevent such deals. The merger was also slammed by her rival Senator Bernie Sanders as well as by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“The fact that Pfizer is leaving our country with a tremendous loss of jobs is disgusting,” Trump said in a statement.

It was not immediately known how many jobs would be lost as a result of the merger.

Shares of Allergan fell 3.4% and Pfizer closed down 2.6% as investors learned the merger, under discussion since late October, would bring lower cost savings than they had hoped.

Pfizer also disappointed some investors by delaying by two years a decision on

whether to sell off its division consisting of products facing generic competition.

To avoid potential restrictions, the transaction was structured as smaller,

Pfizer’s postponing their break up,” said Gabelli Funds portfolio manager Jeff Jonas. He called the delay decision “pretty conservative and a little late.”

Dublin-based Allergan buying Pfizer, although the combined company will be known as Pfizer Plc and continue to be led by Chief Executive Officer Ian Read.

The US Treasury, concerned about losing billions in tax revenue, has been taking steps to limit the benefits of tax inversion deals, but it admitted last week that it would take legislation from Congress to stop such moves.

The deal enhances offerings from both Pfizer’s fastergrowing branded products business, with additions like Botox, and its older established products unit.

Still, investors had hoped Pfizer would sell off the lower-margin business in 2017, a move now put off by the time required to integrate Allergan.

“The only thing I’d really say I’m disappointed about is

Others were disappointed by other aspects of the deal, including the projected cost savings, and a lack of details on potentially increased share buybacks.

“Synergies of $2 billion (Rs ?13,256 crore) plus in the third year are less than the $4 billion (Rs ?26,512 crore) we had estimated in year 1,” said Cowen and Co analyst Steve Scala.

On a conference call with analysts, Pfizer said the merger would give it enhanced access to its tens of billions of dollars parked overseas and allow for more share buybacks, dividend payments and business development. The combined company would have annual sales of about $64 billion (Rs ?4.24 lakh crore). The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2016.

Issue - 642 (3)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Issue - 642 (4)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

The lure of IS for young men Khalid Ben Larbi lived a hedonistic lifestyle similar to other European youths and rarely went to the mosque in Molenbeek, the mainly Muslim Moroccan immigrant area where he and three of the suspected Paris attackers grew up in Brussels. It was the same inner-city disenchantment that leads other youths to drugs and crime, not the preachings of a radical imam, that neighbors, local social workers and imams say changed Ben Larbi from raucous adolescent to Islamic State foot soldier, drawn by the promise of adventure and glory The families in Molenbeek and other areas are often shocked to discover their children have been recruited by a mix of back street preachers, social media and a growing network of hometown jihadists spreading tales of derring-do in Syria.

Ben Larbi was a “regular guy”, liked the movies, was comfortably off. Then one day last year, he disappeared to fight in Syria before returning to Belgium in January

THE CONTACT STAFF: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sunny Bains Lt. Hon. President : Dr. (Prof.) Darshan Singh Executive Editor: Kanwaljit Kaur Bains EDITOR Vinny Bains Foreign Editor: Syed Asif Shahkar (Sweden) Sr. Assistant Editor: Prempal Bajwa Marketing Executive Vinny Bains Special Correspondents: Balkar Chatha France Financial Advisor : Sarabjit Singh Sagoo Photographer: Sandeep Brar 647 294 4948 Head Office: 2-7015 TRANMERE DRIVE, MISSISSAUGA ONTARIO CANADA L5S 1T7 For Advertisement : Call Kanwaljit 416-899-2548 Tel: 905-671-4761 TOLL FREE: 1-888-371-2548 FAX: 1888-982-2818 EMAIL: INFO@AJITWEEKLY.COM

The Contact Weekly and people associated with it are not responsible for any claims made by the advertisers and don’t endorse any product or services advertised in the Contact Weekly. Please consult your lawyer before buying/hiring/ contracting through the ads published in the newspaper. The Contact Weekly is in the business of selling space and claims made by the advertisers are not tested/ confirmed by an independent source.

when the 23-year-old was killed in a police raid, Kalashnikov in hand. “His mother was totally shocked. Even now, months later, she doesn’t go out,” a local woman who knows the family told reporters as police searched Brussels for Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Nov. 13 IS attacks in Paris. “He said he was going to see friends. Next thing they knew, he was calling from Syria.” Ben Larbi’s family could not be contacted for comment. He joined up in Syria with another Molenbeek man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected planner of the Paris attacks who was killed by French police last week. They posted Internet videos, some gory, some jokey.

Abaaoud, 28, who shocked his own family by heading to Syria in 2013 according to interviews with his family in the Belgian media, dubbed himself the “tourist terrorist”.

For the past 10 days, the city of Brussels, which is both the capital city of Belgium and the capital of the European Union, was essentially shut down completely, after Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel warned that the threat of one or more terror attacks in the city was “serious and imminent.” The terror alert system was raised to its highest level over reports of an “imminent threat” of a gun and bomb attack similar to the one seen in Paris. The metro system was shut down, and all restaurants and cafés were closed by 6 pm. Citizens were warned to avoid large gatherings, such as concerts, train stations and shopping malls.

Belgium-based jihadists are increasingly at the heart of the investigation of last week’s Paris attacks, since it’s been learned that three of the attackers have roots in Brussels’ Molenbeek district which, as we described earlier, has a large ethnic Moroccan population and is a hotbed for radical Islamists. Brussels police have intensified raids in Molenbeek and other immigrant districts, hoping to prevent a repeat of the Paris attacks.

Belgium’s interior minister is calling for house-to-house checks for all homes in Molenbeek.

In particular, there is a big manhunt under way for Salah Abdeslam, a 26 year old French citizen, who is believed to be one of the attackers, and is hiding out in Brussels. Abdeslam traveled from Paris to Belgium on the morning after the Paris attacked and was stopped by police officers for identity checks, but was permitted to continue to Belgium because he was not suspected at that time. Police have issued an international arrest warrant for Abdeslam, who is described as armed and dangerous. Friends of Abdeslam told ABC News they had spoken to him on Skype and said he was hiding in Brussels and desperately trying to get to Syria, to

link up with the socalled Islamic State SUNNY BAINS (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).

Having paid little attention to Muslim practices in the past, where dozens of young men filed in for families often only realize their sons have Friday prayers. changed when they take their relatives to As a child, Salah visited the Attadamoun task for lax observance, says Olivier Mosque in Molenbeek but then stopped Vanderhaegen, who works for a new going, Habbachich said. He said some service set up by Molenbeek borough this imams are too steeped in tradition to talk year to combat youth radicalization. “That over the everyday challenges the youths is clearly a final phase of radicalization; face. Only one in two of the borough’s imams even speak French, he said. “So they look elsewhere,” Vanderhaegen said, lured by recruiters who speak the “language of the street” such as sharia4belgium, a social media savvy organization whose leader and dozens of members were convicted early this year in the Flemish city of Antwerp of enticing dozens to fight in Syria.

Molenbeek Mayor Francoise Schepmans, who described her borough as a “breeding ground for radical violence”, admitted authorities have yet to come to grips with the problem. Since and it’s usually only then that families 2014, four officers are on the watch for realize there is a problem; and often extremism among the 220,000 almost too late,” he said at his office near inhabitants of the police district Abdeslam’s home. With Brussels locked Molenbeek is part of. “It’s not enough,” down for three days for fear Salah Schepmans said.

Abdeslam or others could mount new, With at least 350 people from Belgium Paris-style attacks, their story has put having gone to Syria to fight - the highest the spotlight on Molenbeek. On the wrong per capita number in Europe - and side of the city’s canal, the borough is becoming heroes to others, many feel afflicted by overcrowding and high youth more needs to be done. “Sharia4belgium unemployment, the same problems that walked our streets for years before the are blamed for delinquency and authorities intervened,” said Habbachich. ghettoization in other inner city Although the number of new departures communities. That is combined with a has more than halved from 10-12 per feeling among some of Moroccan descent month in 2012-2013 to about 5 per month that they belong neither in Morocco or this summer, counter-terrorism expert Belgium. “The radicalization we see is Rik Coolsaet said, today’s new essentially an identity crisis,” said generation of would-be IS fighters are a Vanderhaegen. Abdeslam, 26, who ran a less idealistic, more “hard-core” group local bar in trouble with the drug squad, of “sadism, adventure, thrill seekers. In knew Abaaoud in prison, security officials this no-future atmosphere, it is a new say. Both men did time for petty larceny outlet for deviant behavior,” he said. “One four or five years ago. Noone thought he which gives them some kind of cared about religion. But, his elder brother belonging.”

Mohamed told Belgian television on In a correctional home for minors in Sunday, he began to notice earlier this Brussels, where Mohamed Azaitraoui year that Salah and another brother, works as a Muslim counsellor, four out Brahim, started to pray and stopped of 80 of his charges have been picked drinking alcohol at social gatherings. up by the security services on suspicion Brahim, who owned the bar Salah ran, of having IS ties. He recently spent blew himself up outside the Comptoir months counselling a 17-year-old, whom Voltaire cafe in Paris. The brothers, like he believes dealt directly online with a most of their neighbors, are the children Syrian recruiter. Azaitraoui’s professional and grandchildren of Moroccan migrants experience has made him particularly invited en masse by Belgium in the 1960s watchful even of his own teenage children. to plug labor shortages. “My grandfather “Better not to wake up one day and find worked for 25 years in the coal mines, they’ve gone,” he said. “Teens think they my father died there, and people still look are Rambos: invincible. They are told at me sideways,” said Fatima, 42, outside they’ll be offered salvation in Syria. It’s a a mosque tucked away on the first floor delectable myth.” of a residential building in Molenbeek, (Editing by Anna Willard)

2013 Hyderabad blasts: Indian Mujahideen used gay porn novel to plan attack It is very rare that terrorism and porn comes together. Such was the case in the February 21, 2013, Hyderabad blasts in Dilsukhnagar in which 17 people lost their lives and 120 people were injured. The blasts were carried out by the Indian Mujahideen under the command of Riyaz Bhatkal.

Bhatkal had begun planning the February blasts in 2012 and had roped in his second-in-command Yasin Bhatkal and had charged him with the responsibility to execute the blasts. Riyaz was also accused of having arranged and

delivered 35kg of explosives that were used in the 7/11 Mumbai blasts and is

said to have masterminded the blasts not just in Hyderabad but also in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi. Yasin Bhatkal in turn recruited three other IM members to help him plan and execute the blasts . Over the course of the planning and prepartion Riyaz instructed the four crack team members to communicate with him only via email or via the social networking site Nimbuzz. In order to facilitate smooth communication and not be tracked, fake email IDs were created which were changed every month.

Issue - 642 (5)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

SAD puts up show of strength at Bathinda, hits out at Cong

If you want to get to a particular place, you had best plan a route. Is that easier said than done? It may be if you feel sure about where ‘there’ is but are laboring under a misapprehension about the actual location of ‘here’. No map, no matter how accurate, can help the traveler who is so lost that they don’t know their current position. And nobody is more lost than the lost person who feels sure they are not lost!

Don’t let a delusion create an illusion! Let life show you what you truly need to know. !!!

Someone is keen to let you know how a relationship needs to change. Either they want something out of it that they’re not getting, or they are getting something out of it that they don’t want!

Unless they are neither getting, nor not getting, anything because the whole thing is hypothetical, and they feel they need much more persuasion before they put it to the test. Either way, your challenge now involves showing that you can listen and that, once you have heard a message, you can respond constructively to it. !!!

We all keep long lists in our pockets or at the backs of our minds.

Things we feel we need to do, supplies we are running low on, promises we want to keep and preparations that we ought to make. And those are just on the top of the first page. Then there are the missions we feel we must pursue, the roles we yearn to play and the principles we seek to uphold. That is a lot to attend to. No wonder things get stressful at times. But soon, you will be pleasantly surprised by how much you accomplish.

!!!

Sometimes, we have to do what’s difficult. This becomes the only way to make life easy once more. That does not mean we must do anything abhorrent. How can that ever be justified?

But we may need to put up with something that we find tiresome or endure a stressful situation or make a gesture of sacrifice out of respect. The cosmos now calls on you to go beyond a boundary. You won’t have to be dreadfully brave or at least, not for long. But the positive repercussions may last for years. !!!

There are times when we begin to feel that life is one long struggle to keep a certain person sweet. Or perhaps, there are several individuals that imagine we ought to pacify. Yet are we really supposed to live in fear of those whose company we surely should be enjoying?

There is a delicate distinction to be made now between the need to make a gesture of compromise and an urge to give too much away lest all is doomed to failure. Through a mixture of sensitivity and selfdiscipline, you are about to strike the right balance. !!!

Someone holds you in high regard. Are they right to feel such admiration?

Someone else, it seems, looks upon you disapprovingly. Is their opinion ill-informed? Now, while we are assessing the relative merits of other people’s ideas, we might also pause to assess the validity of some of your own preferences and prejudices. Are you sure that you are supporting the right team and that those with whom you are finding fault, deserve all that criticism? Be led by loyalty by all means but don’t be blinded by it.

CHANDIGARH Holding the Congress and pro-Khalistan forces responsible for “disturbing” peace in Punjab, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in a display of its “mass base” during the Sadbhawna rally on Monday dubbed the Congress and Sikh radicals as “two sides of the same coin”.

With impressive attendance of workers and supporters in what was billed as the litmus test for the party and state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders giving the much-needed support, the SAD launched a no-holdsbarred attack against the Congress, cautioning people against peacevitiating designs of opposition and the radicals.

After nearly two months of unrest in Punjab due to protests, mainly led by Sikh radical organisations, against incidents of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib, Monday’s massive show of strength organised by the Akali Dal was an attempt to retrieve the lost ground and bounce back politically.

Akali Dal patriarch and chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, in tandem with SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, linked the Congress with the pro-Khalistan forces accusing them of

disrupting peace to damage the ruling SAD. “This rally is the beginning of the 2017 electoral battle,” Sukhbir thundered, challenging the Congress leadership to organise another rally at the same venue to see how many people were with them.

unleashed by the “antiPunjab forces”.

Referring to the “dark days” which left Punjab “way behind other states,” Badal said the “two forces” had again joined hands with the sole aim of disturbing the hard-earned peace and communal

you want to become the state president of the Congress which had attacked the Golden Temple, while Bajwa ji, you are the chief of Punjab Congress, the party which is responsible for the massacre of Sikhs.”

However, in an appeal to all

“The Chabba function (venue of ‘Sarbat Khalsa’) had established the fact that radical groups, who were bent on disturbing peace, harmony and tranquillity in the state, and the anti-Sikh Congress were the two sides of the same coin,” Badal said, pointing out that “overwhelming participation of people” vindicated the SAD’s stand that people would never be swayed by the false propaganda

harmony.

“Mann (SAD Amritsar president Simranjit Singh Mann) has said that the Chabba congregation was not for ‘paschatap’ (repentance)....Everyone knows why it was held...to make money…It has become their habit,” Badal said.

In a twin attack on Amritsar MP Capt Amarinder Singh and state Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa, Badal said, “Amarinder Singh ji,

opposition parties, especially Congress leaders Amarinder and Bajwa, Badal asked them to shun “divisive politics” and also advised them “not to play with fire with the ulterior motive to disturb peace and harmony in the state”.

Badal said, “The flames of hatred politics would not only destroy the social fabric of the state but would also engulf them (opposition leaders).”

Rally a success, may help Akalis regain people’s confidence

BATHINDA Facing the heat of politicoreligious upheaval in the past over one month, the surprising presence of people in Monday’s much-

hyped Sadbhawna rally is likely to help the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) regain confidence of people in the backdrop of a series of sacrilege incidents.

The SAD had refrained from calling it a show of strength, which it turned out to be with the message to the party cadres that they should be ready for the 2017 assembly polls and

“expose” the agenda of the Congress and Sikh radicals among the masses.

With this in mind, the chief minister even asked for deputing volunteers in

villages to spread the party’s message.

Indeed, the effect of the recent sacrilege incidents was visible as the speakers referred to the crowd as ‘Khalsaji’, instead of ‘Veero (brothers)’.

However, majority of the SAD-BJP leaders who spoke on the occasion reiterated their old allegation against the

Congress, Simranjit Singh Mann-led SAD (Amritsar) and Panthic organisations for pushing the state back to the days of terrorism.

Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal charged up the atmosphere by sounding the poll bugle for the 2017 assembly elections. Interestingly, Sukhbir gave credit to the CM for all “propeople decisions” the SAD-BJP government had taken.

Sukhbir said the probe into the desecration incident at Bargari was handed over to the CBI not under any pressure but to ensure a thorough investigation. “The investigation by Punjab Police had revealed foreign links. Punjab Police can’t probe the foreign links, so the probe was handed over to the CBI,” he said.

He also targeted Delhi chief minister and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal for claiming that AAP would make Punjab free of drugs, saying Kejriwal should first get rid of the “drinking” habit of his party MP Bhagwant Mann.

Dalit man, daughter beaten up in Hisar, forced to consume cow dung

HISAR A middle-aged Dalit man and his daughter were allegedly beaten up and forced to consume cow dung by three persons belonging to upper castes at Majadpur village in the district on Sunday evening.

Victim Ramdhari alleged that he and his daughter were thrashed black and blue by the accused, before being forced to consume cow-dung. Ramdhari’s family members took him and his daughter to Hisar’s civil hospital for treatment.

Ramdhari alleged that the accused, namely Manoj Kumar, Krishna Devi and Pappu of the same village, asked him to take away cow-dung cakes kept by his family at a place for drying up.

Issue - 642 (6)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Alberta PC MLA Manmeet Bhullar killed in car crash EDMONTON Progressive Conservative MLA Manmeet Bhullar was killed in a car crash Monday afternoon.

It’s believed Bhullar was killed in a collision on the QEII north of Red Deer at around 2:20 p.m.

According to an RCMP release sent out shortly after 8 p.m., a 35-year-old Calgary man died of injuries he sustained while trying to help at the scene of a collision near the Blindman River Hill.

RCMP said two vehicles stopped to help after another vehicle rolled into the median. At the same time, a northbound semi-

truck lost control and struck the back of the first vehicle that stopped to help.

The semi continued into the median and stuck the driver of the second vehicle, who was outside his vehicle. The driver was identified by RCMP as a 35-yearold Calgary man.

The driver was taken to hospital with serious injuries where he later died.

Condolences quickly began pouring in for Bhullar Monday night, including a heartfelt statement from Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

Earlier Monday, Bhullar was in

6 pilgrims, woman pilot die in Katra chopper crash

UDHAMPUR A helicopter crash at Katra on Monday killed six Vaishno Devi pilgrims and a woman pilot flying to the cave shrine in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district the first fatal aircraft accident in a long

time at the holy town. A bird hit in the tail rotor soon after takeoff around 1.05pm caught the 2010make private chopper of Himalayan Heli Service in flames mid-air. “The pilot crashed while trying to land in clear space Katra’s new bus stand, which is not operational yet,” Jammu’s inspector general of police (IGP)

Danish Rana told the media.

Pilot Sumita Vijyan (from Hyderabad originally) is one of the three victims from Delhi besides Sachin Solanki (32) and his daughter, Akshita (6), of Rohini. The other four are from Jammu Arjun Chhib (25) and his wife, Vandana Chhib (22), from Ghoh Manasa; Maheshwer Singh (19) of Poorkhu Domana; and Aaranjit Singh (52). It was a routine sortie from the Katra base camp to the Sanjhi Chhat helipad in Trikuta hills, a kilometre from the 700yearold temple dedicated to Mother Goddess, a centre of Hindu faith at an altitude of 5,300 feet in the Shivalik range of the Himalayan foothills. Many pilgrims looking to avoid the 13km mountainous trek from Katra, 56 km north of Jammu, opt for the helicopter service to reach the cave shrine.

Calgary for the release of the results of the Alberta Men’s Survey. Bhullar, who previously served as Alberta’s Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of Human Services and Minister of Service Alberta, was first elected to the Alberta Legislature in March 2008.

As Human Services Minister, Bhullar was heavily involved in getting changes made in Alberta that allow the publication of names and photos of children who die in government care.

“It is the basic right of each and every one to express grief publicly or to protect privacy in a

period of tremendous stress,” Bhullar said in April 2014 when the changes were made.

“This is not a decision for the government to make.”

Bhullar was born in Calgary. He received a Bachelor of Arts from

Athabasca University, with studies at Mount Royal University. He also earned a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Windsor.

He was re-elected in the Calgary-Greenway riding in April’s provincial election.

Drones, mobiles, internet: How Indian farms are going hi-tech New Delhi When this year’s rabi or winter crop in Haryana’s Kurukshetra ripens, drones will circle them as part of a series of simultaneous experiments in three other states Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The country’s vast and antiquated agriculture sector has largely been a stranger to such hightech, although it feeds a billion people.

Yet, slowly, the country has realised that without technology, its farmers aren’t going anywhere beyond eking out a tough living. Frequent weather shocks push them back into poverty.

Food-price spirals annoy consumers and hobble policymakers.

From traditional handholding

measures, such as subsidies, farm solutions are now moving to the Internet, a vast rural mobile phone subscriber base and space-telecom technologies.

The drones, for instance, will

scan two select districts in each of these four states. They will carry out special imaging with the help of one among a constellation of homegrown satellites. The images will be

transmitted back to scientists at the Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre in the Capital’s Pusa campus, a state-run farm science hub set up to harness space technology in agriculture.

The drones will give a wealth of information they could tell accurately if climate is impacting yield. Some innovations are a lot simpler. The country’s growing cell phone subscriber base projected to overtake the US next month is proving to be handy to tell farmers what to grow or actions to take in case of pest attacks in real time.

India’s Internet user base is expected to see a 49% jump over the past year to reach 402 million in December. Of this, 153 million are rural subscribers.

AAP not eyeing 2019 polls, will win Punjab: Kejriwal New Delhi The AAP has not set its eyes on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections but is confident of taking power in Punjab in 2017, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriewal said on Monday.

Addressing the AAP National Council meeting here, Kejriwal also made it clear that he remained opposed to RJD leader Lalu Prasad’s corrupt past and dynasty politics despite hugging him in Patna.

Nine months after he led the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to a sweeping victory in Delhi, Kejriwal said the growth of the country’s youngest political party was “a miracle in itself”.

“We are not here for power politics,” the AAP leader told the delegates at a close door gathering. “People ask ‘2019 ki race mein ho kya?’,” he said, referring to the next Lok Sabha battle. “’Hum kisi race mein nahin hain.

Dilli ki jeet karishma hai’ (We are not in any race. The victory in Delhi is a miracle.)

“We just have to keep working

hard and honestly. Don’t run after elections,” he said.

But he quickly added that Punjab, which elected AAP’s all four Lok Sabha members in 2014

swearing in at Patna on November 20.

He said Lalu Prasad was on the stage. “He shook hands, pulled me towards him and hugged me.

and where assembly elections are due in two years, would be an exception.

“All indications are that you (are) going to get the same opportunity in Punjab (as in Delhi),” he said.

Kejriwal also sought to clear the air over the criticism he faced for hugging Lalu Prasad at Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s

And held my hand and raised it.

This was projected (widely) and questions were asked.

“We have not formed an alliance (with RJD). We are against his (Lalu Prasad’s) record of corruption and will always oppose it. We are against his dynasty politics. “His two sons are ministers. We are against that too.”

Kejriwal added: “I am happy that questions are being asked because people have hope (in AAP), because they think we are different.

“Nobdoy asks (these) questions when other leaders hug Laluji. This is good for us.”

The AAP leader defended his support to Nitish Kumar. “Nitish is a good person. People have told us that Nitish has done good work. We worked against the BJP there and supported him.”

An income tax commissioner-turnedactivist-turned-politician, Kejriwal said four years back he and his colleagues had never thought of even contesting elections.

“This three-year journey is a miracle in itself. It was beyond us. If we think we are doing it, we are wrong. It’s a divine scheme,” Kejriwal said.

He said battling corruption by bringing in a Jan Lokpal and ushering in Swaraj were the

AAP’s aims. He said in the last 10 months, the AAP had bettered the performance of the erstwhile Shiela Dikshit government.

He also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had the entire nation was at his disposal but even he did not do what the AAP had done in Delhi.

“Let’s talk about corruption first,” he said, adding there had never been an instance when a government sacked its own minister found involved in corruption.

“We see how governments keep brushing corruption cases under the carpet, specially against their own ministers. “But in case of our government, nobody knew about it. Someone had sent a clip on WhatsApp. We saw it and felt the minister was involved.

“We analyzed it and summoned the minister and confronted him.

He confessed and we sacked him in an hour,” he said, referring to the ousted minister Asim Ahmed Khan.

Issue - 642 (7)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Outrage as five-year-olds get sex-education book On how to achieve orgasms and put on a condom in Germany German school children as young as five were given a sexeducation book giving graphic advice on how to put on a condom and how to achieve orgasms.Outraged parents complained when youngsters at a school in Berlin were given the book, called ‘Where Do You Come From?’, which features explicit cartoon depictions of sex.The book, which shows a couple called Lisa and Lars engaging in various of stages of intercourse, shows Lisa putting a condom on Lars and another image of the pair having sex.According to Spiegel Online, the school in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin did not initially respond to parents’ complaints.

It was only when the local press got wind of the controversy and complaints were made to the city’s governing body, the Berlin Senate, that anything was done. The book is still said to be available at the school but not readily accessible by pupils.Parents were not only concerned by the images

featured in the book, but also by some of the explicit descriptions used.The book, aimed at educating children aged five years and upwards, reads: ‘When it’s so good that it can’t get any better, Lisa and Lars have an orgasm,’ and ‘the

vagina and penis feel nice and tingly and warm.’ Politician Dorothee Baer of the Christian Social Union party in Bavaria said: ‘Sex education should accompany the development of children, but not speed it up.’

Monika Grutters from the Christian Democratic Union Party told the Die Welt newspaper that she is against ‘unnecessary zeal’ in sex education.

Where Do You Come From? was first published by Loewe Verlag in association with German family planning group Pro Familia in 1991.

The publishing house said that the book is no longer being produced as some of its messages are out of date and added that it is being replaced with a book called ‘Was I in Mummy’s Stomach Too?’ which the publishers say is less explicit.

The outrage comes as teachers in the UK have been encouraged to introduce pornography into the classroom, using sex education lessons to explain that porn is ‘not all bad’ and ‘hugely diverse’.

The recommendations, included in an educational guide, suggest that teachers confront ‘myths’ about porn and inform children as young as five about sexualisation.

The guidance could have significant influence in British schools after the Government’s decision to keep sex education lessons voluntary, leaving schools to devise their own ways of teaching the subject.

Forget lengthy gym workouts Good news for male couch potatoes - just 12 minutes of exercise a week is enough to become fit and healthy.New research found that four minutes of vigorous activity three times a week improves fitness in otherwise inactive men.It’s well known that regular training improves oxygen uptake, which is a well-established measure of physical fitness.However, just how much exercise, and how intense that exercise should be to deliver the biggest benefit,

remains to be defined. Now, researchers at the Centre of Exercise in Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim have found that just three short high-intensity sessions a week can make a substantial differences in the fitness of inactive men.

Study leader Arnt Erik Tjonna said: ‘Our data suggests that a single bout of high intensity exercise performed three times per week may be a time-efficient strategy to improve oxygen uptake.’He said one of the advantages of this approach is that it is easy for people to incorporate short bouts of exercise into their daily lives.

The researchers measured changes in oxygen uptake and traditional

cardiovascular risk factors in 24 inactive, but otherwise healthy overweight men after they completed a 10-week training session that involved three weekly highintensity interval sessions.

One group of 13 followed a protocol that has previously shown to be effective, consisting of four intervals of 4 minutes of high intensity exercise at 90 per cent of full heart rate.

The other group followed a programme of one four-minute interval highrate exercise.

After training, oxygen uptake increased by 10 per cent in the group that had just one highintensity session three times a week , while the group that had four minutes of exercise four times a week increased oxygen uptake by 13 per cent.

Both groups saw decreases in their blood pressure, but the single exercise group’s blood pressures showed greater decreases than their four exercise bout counterparts.

But Dr Tjxnna said that people who are active probably won’t benefit as much as the inactive participants did from the single bout training regime.

He said: ‘It has to be noted that the subjects were previously inactive, and the same effect on physical fitness cannot be expected in active individuals.

‘Nevertheless, since we know that more and more people are inactive and overweight, the kind of improvement in physical fitness that we saw in this study may provide a real boost for inactive people who are struggling to find the motivation to exercise.’

The Croatian ‘bomb bees’ That can sniff out landmines from THREE MILES away Scientists in Croatia have unveiled specially-bred colonies of bees that can detect buried landmines from more than three miles away.The bees are trained by being fed an irresistible sugar solution mixed with the smell of

line for them,’ said Professor Mateja Janes, who trained the bees.Croatia is still riddled with unexploded landmines from the violent independence struggles in the Balkans during the 1990s.

‘We have been refining their abilities for many years and they are faster and safer than sniffer

explosives.Experts have spent several years training and perfecting the training technique.

A hive of bees sits at one end, with several feeding points for the bees set up around the tent.But only a few of the feeding points contain food, and the soil immediately around them has been impregnated with explosive chemicals. The idea is that the bees’ keen sense of smell soon associates the smell of explosives with food.’Eventually they come to associate the smell of any explosives with easy food and will literally make a bee

dogs.’Another advantage is that when they’re not working they make delicious honey too,’ added the professor.When the project began in 2007, training the bees to find mines takes place in a large net tent pitched on a lawn at the university’s Faculty of Agriculture.Minefields in Croatia cover 683.4 square kilometres (263.9 square miles) of territory, and the area is thought to contain approximately 90,000 land mines as well as unexploded ordnance left over from the Croatian War of Independence.

Issue - 642 (8)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Magnetic proteins in pigeons’ eyes act like a compass Beijing They undertake some of the most audacious journeys in the animal kingdom, navigating across thousands of miles to arrive at a precise location. Now scientists

have unraveled exactly how migrating birds, butterflies and other animals are able to use the Earth’s magnetic field to help them find their way. They have discovered proteins that ‘act like a compass’ are produced in the retina and nerve cells running from the eye to the brain. These molecules form a rod-like complex with light sensitive proteins and orientate themselves in a north to south direction in a magnetic field. Perhaps most astonishingly, the researchers discovered that humans also express these same proteins, albeit in far smaller amounts, raising the prospect that we too have some ability to sense the magnetic field. Dr Can Xie, a molecular biologist at Peking University in China who led the research, said the proteins appear to act just like a compass needle and send information to

the nervous system. Writing in the journal Nature Materials, Dr Xie and his colleagues said: ‘The notion that animals can detect the Earth’s magnetic field was once ridiculed, but is now well

established. ‘The biocompass model we present here may serve as a step towards fully uncovering the molecular mechanism of animal navigation and magnetoreception.

‘The existence of a human magnetic sense remains controversial but geomagnetic fields are thought to affect the light sensitivity of the human visual system.’

Many animals are thought to use the Earth’s magnetic fields to help them navigate including sharks, sea turtles, birds, insects, wolves, whales and even worms.

However, exactly how they do this has remained a mystery.Some researchers previously identified specific cells in the eyes and beaks of birds like pigeons that seem to respond to a magnetic field. The exact source was unknown, and some researchers identified clumps of iron bound by molecules as being responsible,

Zimbabwe’s Mr Ugly pageant turns ugly

HARARE A 42-year-old unemployed man was crowned Zimbabwe’s ugliest man at a pub pageant in Harare - but the contest turned ugly when the runner-up accused judges of bias. Maison Sere, who was missing several teeth and dressed in torn overalls, beat off five other contestants for the $500 Mr Ugly prize - a large sum in a country facing massive unemploment. “I want to thank God for winning this title, last time I came fourth. I just want to thank the judges for recognising me as the winner,” Sere told

journalists during a night of festivities Friday attended by 200 revellers. But William Masvinu, a three-time Mr Ugly winner who walked off with a $100 second prize this year, cried foul. “The judges were not fair, the organisers must look for new judges to start the contest afresh. I did not lose today,” Masvinu said. Show organiser David Machowa said he created the pageant in 2012 to celebrate “beauty in ugliness”. “The show last night was very successful, and I still have plans to host Mr Ugly world,” he said.

while others attributed it to lightsensitive proteins called cyrptochromes.The research by Dr Xie and his team, however, has found that these two systems in fact work together to form a navigational complex inside the cells of these animals. In particular, they discovered a gene called MagR that produces a protein that combines with cryptochrome to form a cylinder shaped complex.

Ten cryptochrome molecules encase 20 MagR proteins to form this rod that then aligns itself with a magnetic field. They were so magnetic that the researchers had to develop special plastic tools to conduct their research.

The scientist found these molecules are particularly highly expressed in the retinal neurons running from the eye to the brain.

Fruit flies, monarch butterflies, pigeons and humans all produce these molecules while other creatures including minke whales and naked mole rats also have these magnetic proteins.

The researchers say their findings may also now lead to a new area of research that could have numerous biological and industrial applications. It could lead to new types of genetic treatments that respond to magnetic fields or ways of increasing magnetic sensitivity.

Canada to fly in 900 Syrian refugees a day

OTTAWA Canada plans to fly in 900 Syrian refugees a day as of next month, according to media reports, as the defense minister said showing compassion for these people sends a message to Islamic State extremists.

Canadian officials said details of a plan to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by year’s end would be announced Tuesday.

The Canadian media reports come amid fears that IS jihadists could slip into the country posing as refugees, in the wake of last week’s attacks in Paris that killed at least 130 people. Citing a leaked document, local media said the government was planning to fly in 900 Syrian refugees daily from Jordan to

Montreal and Toronto, starting December 1. From there, they would be transported to two military bases in Ontario and Quebec, where they would be temporarily housed, according to the reports. They pegged the cost of the ongoing operation at Can$1.2 billion over six years.

The cost and other details will be revealed on Tuesday, Immigration Minister John McCallum told reporters in Ottawa. Health Minister Jane Philpott, however, said the leaked information was “outdated and not expected to be accurate.” At a security forum in the Atlantic port city of Halifax, Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said by welcoming Syrian refugees, Ottawa was also striking at IS.

so I thought about doing something creative.

“I really wanted to do it in an original way. She was using her phone and I thought she can pay attention to this and not to

and I think I managed to teach something to people right here.”

Ms Lucking told the BBC she was “completely bewildered” at the response to her tweet,

her phone. “I had been studying there for awhile because this Masters is so hard, and she was really pretty, and I thought why not try it.” He said the reaction to his missive “struck” him down, with offers from around the world to meet for a coffee.

He added: “I came to this country to learn a lot of things,

saying she “had no idea it would get so much attention”.

She added: “I thought the effort was great, definitely the most creative way anyone’s ever asked me on a date.

“I don’t think I would reconsider his offer, mainly because I have a boyfriend, but judging by Twitter there are a good 30,000 people who would.”

WhatsApp-style date request goes viral

Southampton A student who asked a woman out on a date via a handwritten note in the style of a WhatsApp message has spoken of his surprise after it went viral. Alfonso, a 25-yearold student at Southampton, made the offer to Naomi Lucking in the university library. She turned down his request for a coffee, but his inventive effort has led to other date offers after she tweeted his handiwork.

He called the reaction a “really great experience”. Ms Lucking’s tweet, which was shared more than 30,000 times, said: “Some guy in the library gave me this and it was the most awkward experience of my life.

“10/10 for creativity though.”

The message reads: “Sorry to disturb your studies, but I really need to ask would you like to have a coffee with me someday?”

The note gave two possible replies: “Sure! Why not? Life is short,” and “No thanks! I have a 7ft tall boyfriend.” Ms Lucking later tweeted: “I just laughed and said ‘actually he’s 6ft 3’.

He looked so crushed.”

Alfonso, who is from Mexico City but did not want to give his full name, said: “I wasn’t supposed to talk to someone because it was a quiet room,

Issue - 642 (9)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Canada’s Indian-Chinese community basks in Chen’s electoral success Toronto While a record number of IndoCanadians were elected to Canada’s House of Commons in the elections this October, one name invariably did not figure in any list of MPs from the community.

Shaun Chen was elected from the new riding, as Parliamentary constituencies are called in Canada, of Scarborough North in the Toronto region.

The 35-year-old Torontoborn MP belongs to a minuscule minority, that of the Chinese-origin diaspora that migrated to Canada from India.

Chen occupies a very rare hyphenated space in the country, as he said, “I find myself in a very unique position as someone who was born in Canada of Chinese descent and with an Indian heritage through my parents.”

His parents, mother Yueh Ming and father Kuo Tsai Chen, were both born and raised in India, before they emigrated to Canada in the 1970s as their family business in Kolkata faltered. “My parents speak Hindi. When I was younger, they would speak Hindi to one another and I would not understand a single word,” Chen said. In fact, that also provided a sort of linguistic advantage during the campaign leading up to the October federal elections in Canada.

As Chen said, “Certainly, my Dad, who speaks Hindi, had a great way to talk to people. He was my best canvasser, he went

door-to-door and talked to many residents in Hindi and it was very fascinating for a lot of them.Residents that had read about my background didn’t talk about the election or any issues on the national stage, they were asking me about my background and how that came about. It was a conversation piece.”

There are estimates of nearly 20,000 of those of Hakka (guest

people in the original dialect) Chinese origin in Canada, with the vast majority from India and living in the Greater Toronto Area or GTA, especially in townships like Scarborough or Markham.

Among them is another who has succeeded politically, Markham regional councillor Joe Li. Li said, “I cannot deny I’m Indian by birth, neither can I deny I am Chinese by descent. And I’m Canadian by choice.” Li attended the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas in Jaipur in 2012 where he met the then Gujarat CM and current PM Narendra Modi and introduced himself, saying, “Mera dil Hindustani hai.”

His mother-in-law’s family ran the Double Happiness restaurant in Kolkata and that tradition has been maintained in Toronto where his brother, Simon Li, established what may be the first

No ‘material evidence’ of Indian involvement in Pak says Sartaj

Islamabad Pakistan’s advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz has said the dossiers on India’s alleged involvement in Pakistan’s unrest have no “material evidence” but only narrative to protect witnesses.Aziz addressed the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on Thursday.The Dawn reported that Aziz said the dossiers instead contained the “pattern and narrative” of Indian involvement while testifying before the committee.“The dossiers have been meticulously prepared, but material evidence cannot be shared for the sake of protecting the sources,” he said.

Aziz maintained that the proofs

could have only been provided to others in the narrative shape.

The advisor had a plan to hand over three dossiers to Indian officials in a meeting in August which was cancelled.

Later, they were shared with the UN and US officials.

The dossiers, according to previous official statements, contained proofs about Indian involvement in Balochistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in Karachi.

Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry told the committee that the contents of the dossiers could be shared with the members of the panel in an ‘incamera’ session due to “the sensitivity of the matter”.

Indo-Chinese restaurant in Canada, Federick’s, a quartercentury back in Scarborough.

Somewhat fittingly, the second branch of that eatery is located on New Delhi Drive in Markham.

At one point, the peak population of Hakka Chinese in India was approximately 30,000.

That number has dwindled to a few thousand now and part of the reason for the large-scale migration from India was due to alienation as the 1962 war before India and China led to the internment of nearly 3,000 of them in a camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. Even in Canada, as representatives of the Chinese government reached out to the community, Indian officialdom was mostly aloof. That changed recently.

“The first one to call me Joebhai was Akhilesh Mishra,” Li said, referring to India’s current consul general in Toronto.

That process of rapprochement may take another step forward as Li, joined by about another 100 members of the community, go to Kolkata in February next year to celebrate the Chinese New Year there.

And Scarborough-native Chen, who says he is “first and foremost a Canadian”, is proof that this tiny minority isn’t shy about its roots.

Bangladesh executes two opposition leaders for 1971 war crimes DHAKA Executed two opposition leaders on Sunday for war crimes committed during the 1971 war to break away from

Pakistan, a senior police official said, in a move likely to draw an angry reaction from supporters. “Both of them were hanged simultaneously on two separate platforms,” the police official said. Islamist opposition leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, former legislator from former premier Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were hanged shortly after President Abdul Hamid rejected their appeals late on Saturday for clemency.

Mujahid, 67, of the Jamaat-eIslami party, and Chowdhury, 66, were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail. The Supreme Court had previously rejected their appeals against a death sentence imposed by a special tribunal for genocide and torture of civilians during the conflict.

The Border Guard Bangladesh paramilitary force has been

deployed across the country to tighten security. Muslimmajority Bangladesh, until 1971 East Pakistan, has seen a rise in Islamist violence in recent months, with two foreigners and four secular writers and a publisher killed this year.

Mujahid was found guilty on five charges including torture and the murders of intellectuals and minority Hindus while he commanded Al Badr, an auxiliary force of the Pakistani army, during the war to break away from Pakistan.

Chowdhury, former legislator from former premier Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was convicted in October 2013 on charges of genocide, religious persecution, abduction and torture during the war. “While we are saddened that we have lost our father by way of a motivated and predetermined trial and where the country is gagged from speaking out, we find hope in the fact that the international community recognises the injustice and that fairness and truth shall be restored in Bangladesh,” Humam Quader Chowdhury, a son of Chowdhury, told Reuters. “We fought for them under the law and we have been defeated in the legal fight,” defence councillor Khandker Mahbub Hossain told Reuters.

Canadian couple cancels wedding to help Syrian refugees

Ottawa A Canadian couple has decided to cancel their large wedding so they could help a Syrian refugee family.Samantha Jackson and Farzin Yousefian had a civil ceremony instead and asked guests to support a Syrian family’s bid to live in Canada in lieu of gifts.The Toronto couple was planning their wedding when they saw a photo of Aylan Kurdi, a young refugee who died on the shores of Turkey.They realised then their wedding could be an opportunity for fundraising.

Canada plans to release details on its pledge to take in 25,000 refugees from Syria by the end of the year next week.The couple told the BBC that Ms Jackson

had been working on helping Canadians to become private refugee sponsors before deciding to forego their traditional wedding.“We could not stop

thinking about the difficult decisions that many Syrian families are forced to make, immediately began redrawing our plans with the hope of helping a Syrian family start a new life in Toronto,” Mr Yousefian said.

Family and friends were supportive of the couple’s decision, he said. They planned their wedding fundraiser in three weeks. The message was clear, said Mr Yousefian - that refugees are welcome in Canada.

The couple has raised C$22,750 (£11,224) so far and hope to raise C$27,000 (£13,300), which is the cost to sponsor a Syrian family of four. “Our decision is a reflection of the very values that Canadians hold so dear,” Mr Yousefian said. “We are certain that our initiative will inspire others, just as the acts of others have inspired us. We are truly privileged to have had the opportunity to use our wedding for a greater cause than our own.”

Births in Syria down more than 50 percent since war DAMASCUS The annual birth rate in Syria has fallen by more than half since the civil war broke out in 2011, AlWatan newspaper reported on Tuesday. Salah al-Sheikha, dean of Damascus University’s faculty of medicine, told the newspaper that before the war Syria recorded around 500,000 births per year. This year, the number has plummeted to just 200,000, medical sources told Al-Watan, which is close to the government.The sources attributed the drop to “the

reluctance of young people to get married, in addition to emigration... which has had the biggest effect on the number of births dropping to this low level.”

Since 2011, four million Syrians have fled abroad. Millions more have been internally displaced,

while at least 250,000 have been killed. Syria’s passport control office said a record 5,000 people per day had requested new passports in 2015, compared to 1,000 per day in 2014.

Sheikha said the “steady drop” in the number of births was a result of “emigration outside of Syria, especially for young men who are old enough to get married.” The impact of the war on purchasing power may also have discouraged parents from having more children, Al-Watan said.

Issue - 642 (10)

Arora Punjabi male, 60 yrs. old, 5'-7" tall, well educated, well settled Canadian citizen, divorcee, looking for a compatible life partner, between 50-60 of age, from G.T.A. only. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: palsachdeva@hotmail.com or call: 289-242-6292 ***644*** Seeking a match for a Jat Sikh Doctor, practicing in GTA. 29 Yrs old, 5’- 10”, slim build, clean shaven, born and raised in Canada, family settled in Toronto, Family oriented, well versed in both cultures. Family is well settled in Toronto. Girl should be born and raisedinCanada, professionally compatible, slim, having similar values. Preferably family in the GTA. Please Send your biodata & recent picture to: gtamatch86@gmail.com or call: 647-295-8532 *** 643 *** Saini Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance from the GTA for their slim, fair, beautiful, 5’2"/ ’83 born daughter, born, raised, educated in Canada, Bachelors in Business Management, and employed in the Finance division of a reputable Canadian company. The boy should be clean shaven, born, raised and educated in Canada & professionally employed. Please email sub2405@gmail.com or call 416-741-0777 *** 642 *** Ramgarhia Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-8” tall, Dental Surgeon in India at present in USA on visitor visa, belongs to a very well settled family. The girl should be American Citizen, beautiful and family oriented.

Please email recent picture and bio-data to: piarausa@hotmail.com Or Call: 1662-347-9532 ***642** Ravidasia parents seek a suitable match for their daughter, 32 yrs. old, 5’-3” tall, Canadian Citizen, professionally employed. Boy should be highly educated, professionally employed and Canadian Citizen. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: san1622002@yahoo.com ***642*** Jat Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their Canadian born daughter, 30 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Post graduate degree in Clinical Psychology, professionally employed, well versed in born cultures can speak Punjabi as well. The boy should be well educated., professionally settled, between 28-34 yrs. of age, lower Mainland area prefered. Please Call :1-604-317-7576 ***642*** Mazbi Sikh parents living matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 37 yrs. old, 5’-4” tall, Bechelor in Computer Science from Canadian University, well employed in govt.sector as senior Analyst, never married before. The boy should be professionally

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

educated and employed, with family values. Caste no bar.

Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: joginder1943@icloud.com Or Call: 416-885-3265 ***642 *** Ad-dharmi family seek a suitable match for their Canadian Citizen daughter, 25 yrs. old, 5’-5” tall, Graduate, having good job, beautiful fair, family oriented. The boy should be professionally qualified, tall, family oriented.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to : harbhajan59@hotmail.com Or Call:1-604-724-5333 ***642*** Ad-dharmi family seek a suitable match for their son, 27 yrs. old, 5’-9” tall, Graduate, Diploma in Electronics, having goðd job, Canadian Citizen, handsome. The girl should be beautiful, equally qualified, atleast 5’-3”-5’-5” tall.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to : harbhajan59@hotmail.com Or Call:1-604-724-5333 ***642*** Seeking a match for a Jat Sikh Doctor, practicing in G.T.A, 29 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, slim build, clean shaven, born and raised in Canada, family settled in Toronto, family oriented, well versed in both cultures. Girl should be born and raised in Canada, professionally compatible, slim, having similar valused, preferably from GTA. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: gtamatch86@gmail.com Or Call: 647-295-8532 ***642*** Jat Sikh parents looking for a suitable match for their daughter, age 38 yrs, 5’-7” tall, Canadian Citizen, issuless divorced, very beautiful, well versed in both culture. The boy should be educated, well settled, Canadian Immigrant/Citizen. Please send your recent picture and bio-data to : issapur12@gmail.com Or 905-230-7129 ***642*** Khatri Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, born in Dec. 1987, 5’-8” tall, Canadian Immigrant, B.Com. M.B.A. degree holder, well settled and doing govt. job. The girl should be Canadian/American Immigrant/Citizen, professionally qualified, beautiful and family oriented, girl on student visa may also be considered. Family is well settled in Canada (Toronto).

Please Call : 647-523-0399 Or : 647-200-7669 ***642*** Tonk Kashtriya family seeking a suitable match for their American Citizen daughter, 28 yrs. old, 5’3” tall, P.A. (Physician Assistant), bachelor’s in Neuro Science, professionally Employed in U.S.A. The boy should be American Citizen, Doctor/ Engineer/P.A. Caste no Bar. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to : kaurraj527@gmail.com Or Call : 1-559-314-4642 ***642***

Kamboj Sikh parents invite matrimonail alliace for their handsome son, 28 yrs. old, 6’ tall, Canadian Citizen, University graduate, completed CPA and working as financial Analyst with a reputed company. The girl should beautiful, professional and family oriented. Parents are well qualified and professionally well settled in Canada. Family owns rural/urban properties in India.

Please email recent pictures & bio-data to : beantbir@hotmail.com Or Call 416-303-7711 ***642 *** Rajput Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their son, born in 1994, 5’-7” tall, handsome, fair complexion, at present doing diploma in Mechenial Engineering from ITI Patiala. The girl should be Canadian Immigrant or Citizen with family values. Please email recent pictures & bio-data to : devinder11@outlook.com Or Call : 011-91-80543-81343 ***642*** Ramgarhia Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their daughter 28 yrs. old, 5’-3” tall, B.Sc. Nursing degree holder, registered nurse, at present living in India.

The boy should be Canadian/ American, Immigrant or Citizen.

Please email recent pictures & bio-data to : sohalsp@gmail.com Or Call : 647-829-5872 (Leave Message) ***642*** Punjabi parents seeking suitable match for their son 29 years old, clean shaven, 6.1”, Canadian Citizen, working in TTC as Transit Operator. Girl should be professionally qualified & employed, having PR or citizenship with a good family background. Please send bio-data & photo to email: tarsemsinghmann60@gmail.com ***642*** Saini Sikh parents invite matrimonail alliace for their son, 39 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, athletic built, Honor’s Bachelor degree from a Canadian University, working as technical consultant, innocently divorced (no kids) belongs to a urban and upper middle class family. The girl should be Canadian/American beautiful (between 33-36 yrs.) educated with family values and willing to relocate to Toronto.

Family background is main consideration. Caste no bar.

Please email recent pictures & bio-data to : r.saini1877@gmail.com Or Call : 647-688-1877 ***642*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their daughter, born and raised in Canada, 38 yrs. old, 5’10” tall, working as Pharmacist.

The boy should be atleast 6’ tall and professionally employed.

Vancouver area prefered. Please Call :1-604-596--4945 Or : 1-778240-8051 ***642*** Down-to-earth, handsome, intelligent, family oriented Jat Sikh boy living in US since 1998, belongs to well educated, humble

family, age 29 yrs., June 1986 born, 5’-10” tall, US Citizen, slim and atheletic, graduated from UCLA and working as a Mortgage Loan Officer. Girl should be educated and residing in US/ Canada/UK. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to : gsranu@yahoo.com Or Call :1559-540-4851 ***642 *** Ramgarhia Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their son 26 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Bachelor in Engineering, living in India. The girl should be Canadian/American Immigrant or Citizen, bearutiful and family oriented. Please email recent pictures & bio-data to : sohalsp@gmail.com Or Call : 647-829-5872 (Leave Message) ***642*** Parents invite alliance for their daughter, a US Citizen, unmarried Sikh MD Specialist 41, 5' 6".

Seeking tall gentleman any profession aged 38 - 42. Respond with recent photo and biodata to: air2par@gmail.com *** 642 *** Hindu Punjabi Nai Parents seek a suitable match for their Son, 39 yrs. Old, 5'-8" tall, handsome, educated, Canadian immigrant, divorced after 3 months short marriage. The Girl should be educated, beautiful and family Oriental, Girls on student visa/work permit can also be considered. Call : 1-604-615-9374 *** 642*** Well settled Jat Sikh parents looking for a suitable match for their handsome son, Canadian born, 32 yrs. old, 6’ tall, University graduate and working. Girl should be educated , beautiful and family oriented. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: dgig97@gmail.com or call: 647-987-1653 *** 642*** Ramgarhia Sikh family from Toronto seeking a well educated, suitable match for their daughter 29 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, Unversity graduate with honor’s bachelor degree in human resources management persuing C.H.R.L. designation, Ontorio only. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to : skb4531@gmail.com Or Call: 289-752-5031 ***642*** Ramgarhia Sikh family invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 34 yrs. old, 5’-9” tall, teetatoler, Bechelor in Computer Application, Working with Multinational Company (MNC, IT) in India, mutually divorced after short marriage, at present in Canada on visitor visa belongs to a well settled family. The girl should be Canadian/American Immigrant/ Citizen, educated and family oriented. Brother is well settled in Canada. Boy has already applied for Immigration. Please email recent recent picture and bio-data to: soisukhdeep@gmail.com Or Call: 647-203-6979 ***642*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their well settled daughter, DOB 1981, 5’-6” tall,

born and raised in Canada, well versed in both cultures, family oriented, chartered professional accountant designation and professionally employed in senior management position. The boy should be well educated, professionally employed with family values. Please Call: 647298-9665 ***642*** Tonk Kashtriya familly seeking a suitable match for their Canadian Citizen daughter, 28 yrs. old, 5’-3” tall, CGA, B.Com, working in Govt.

Job. The boy should be well educated, professionally settled.

Caste no bar. Toronto based family is preffered. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: singhjag_@hotmail.com Or Call : 1-416-722-9771 ***642 *** Mair Rajput parents seeking a suitable match for their son, 32 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, Canadian Citizen, Certification in computer networking and graphic designing, working as a manager in a reputed company in Surrey, divorced (No Kids). The girl should be bearutiful, educated and family oriented.

Parents are Canadian PR. Caste no bar.Please email recent picture and bio-data to: ikdesigns999@gmail.com Or Call: 1-604-551-0523 ***642*** Jat Sikh Atwal parents looking for a suitable match for their son 1984 born, 6’-4” tall, Canadian Immigrnat, M.Com degree holder.

The girl should be family oriented, educated, Candian Immigrant, Citizen, Strudent visa may also be considered. The boy’s family is settled in catgory Canada. Call: 403-615-4958 ***642*** Businessman/Professional from respectable, well established in Canada /USA Sikh family match for Slim Beautiful Tall 25yrs age doing Masters belonging to a highly respectable well established and reputed Khatri Sikh business family based in Canada. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: inderwoodbridge@gmail.com or call: 416-831-2300 *** 642*** Toronto based Ramgharia Sikh parent seeks Doctor match for their M.D. girl (Passed USMLE 1and 2), height 5 feet 3 inches, born 1984, waiting for residency, working as research assistant in USA now.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to:ajitjhita@rogers.com or call: 905-672- 0411 or 416-274-4196 *** 642*** Well educated Jatt Sikh Gill family seeks highly qualified professional match for Vancouver based Canadian PR daughter, born 1984, 5'-8" tall, never married, Convent Educated, Registered Nurse from Canada, Working as RN, born & brought up in India. Parents settled in USA. Divorcee please excuse.

Early and simple marriage. Serious inquiries only. Respond with bio-data including family details and recent photographs to: matrimonial1907@gmail.com or call: 1-510-303-9173 *** 642***

Issue - 642 (11)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Bees and pesticides missing link found

Paris Scientists say they have found the “missing link” in the debate over the risk of pesticides to bees. French researchers say neonicotinoid pesticides harm individual honeybees, but whole

whether harmful effects seen in lab studies occur in real-life conditions and cause population declines.

The new research provides an explanation for the “missing link”, say French researchers.

Their monitoring of tagged

colonies are able to recover in the wild. This accounts for discrepancies between lab and field studies, they report in Royal Society journal Proceedings B. A Europe-wide ban on neonicotinoid use on flowering crops is due to be reviewed at the end of the year. It was introduced two years ago. The debate over the use of neonics has centred on discrepancies between toxicity assessments in the laboratory, where bees are dosed artificially with insecticide, and the findings of field trials in the countryside. The big unanswered question is

honeybees in the wild suggests bees foraging around treated crops die off at a faster rate than normal.

However, colonies are able to make up for those dying off by boosting the number of worker bees in the hive.

Lead researcher Dr Mickael Henry of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, INRA, in Avignon, said the average life expectancy for an individual honeybee foraging on crops treated with neonics is lower than expected.

He told BBC News: “We could find evidence of troubles at the individual scale in the field but these

troubles were compensated for by the colonies. “The population inside the hive was able to compensate for the increased loss of worker honeybees by increasing brood production.”

Dr Scott Hayward of the University of Birmingham, who was not connected with the study, said the work “re-ignites arguments to ban neonics”, and similar studies are now needed on other pollinator species.

His comments were echoed by Dr Christopher Connolly of the University of Dundee. “It is important to remember that all other insect pollinators do not possess the enormous buffering capacity of honeybees and are therefore more acutely at risk to the impact of pesticides,” he said.

Dr Peter Campbell of the pesticide manufacturer Syngenta said while the study raised unanswered questions “reassuringly... there were still no effects reported at the colony level”. And Dr Alan Dewar of Dewar Crop Protection Ltd, added: “The conclusions from this work, which are very simple in contrast to the study itself, show that bees, or at least honey bees, can compensate for adverse effects of pesticides in their environment.”

Polar bear numbers to fall as Arctic ice shrinks OSLO Polar bear populations are likely to fall by more than 30 percent by around midcentury as global warming thaws Arctic sea ice, experts said on Thursday in the most detailed review

“Climate change will continue to seriously threaten polar bear survival in the future,” Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General, said of the study, based on updated counts and new projections of sea

of the predators to date.

The report, by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), estimated there are between 22,000 and 31,000 polar bears in the Arctic and said they will be increasingly vulnerable as their habitat shrinks.

ice since a previous review in 2008.It said there was a high probability that “the global polar bear population will decline by more than 30 percent over the next 35 to 40 years”, broadly reaffirming findings from 2008. Andersen urged almost 200 nations,

meeting at a U.N. summit on climate change in Paris from Nov. 30-Dec. 11, to restrict greenhouse gas emissions to slow the melt. The IUCN groups scientists, governments and other experts.

Polar bear numbers have risen some regions in recent years because of better protection and bans on hunting, but estimates of overall populations from past decades are vague.

The shrinkage in sea ice, which in September 2012 was the most severe since satellite records began, will make it ever harder for polar bears to catch seals that live on the ice, the report said.The IUCN said a Red List of animals and plants that it compiles found that 23,250 species were endangered of 79,837 assessed so far. Polar bears are listed as “vulnerable”, the least endangered category on a scale that ends with “extinct”.

Planet still growing in its stellar womb CAPE CANAVERAL Astronomers have taken the first images of a planet still in formation, a discovery expected to shed light on how giant planets manage to beef up early in their lives, research published on Wednesday showed.

Astronomers used a telescope in Arizona to peer at a young star located about 450 lightyears away in the constellation Taurus. The star, known as LkCa 15, is similar to the sun, but only 2 million years old.

Unlike the 4.6 billion-yearold sun, LkCa 15 is still surrounded by a disk of gas and dust, the raw materials for planet building. Within the disk is a big gap, some 50 times wider than distance between Earth and the sun.

Astronomers previously suspected that a giant planet was orbiting in the gap. Research published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature confirms the find with infrared images of the planet, along with what appear to be one or two sibling

planets. Scientists also for the first time discovered the chemical footprints of superheated hydrogen gas streaming from the dust disk onto the planet, evidence that it is still forming, said Stephanie Sallum, a University of

Princeton University astrophysicist Zhaohuan Zhu said the discovery will help scientists hone their theories about how planets are formed. For example, more work is needed to explain the giant planet’s location

Arizona astronomy graduate student who led the team.

“This young system provides the first opportunity to study planet formation and disk-planet interactions directly,” Sallum and colleagues wrote in Nature. Of the nearly 2,000 confirmed planets discovered beyond the solar system, none are still in the formation stage.

In a related commentary also published in Nature,

and why it is still growing.

Scientists also cannot account for how the planet is generating the massive magnetic fields that are believed to be responsible for supercharging its hydrogen gas feeding lines. The discovery also demonstrates a technique to find other baby planets by searching for the telltale hydrogen gas emissions.

Issue - 642 (12)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Islamic State claims attack on Italian priest in Bangladesh Dhaka The Islamic State group on Thursday claimed responsibility for shooting and wounding an Italian priest in Bangladesh this week, the latest in a spate of recent attacks on foreigners

claimed by the jihadist network.

Piero Parolari, a priest and doctor who worked at the Suihari Catholic Mission in the northern city of Dinajpur, was shot at close range by three gunmen on a motorbike on Wednesday.

“Security detachments of soldiers of the Caliphate in Bangladesh carried out some unique operations (including)...

Targeting the Italian Crusader foreigner Piero Parolari,” the jihadist monitoring organisation SITE quoted IS as saying in a message posted on Twitter.

The priest’s shooting followed the murders of an Italian faith-based

aid worker in late September and a Japanese farmer last month, which were also claimed by IS. An IS radio bulletin also quoted

by SITE on Thursday said: “An Islamic State cell tracked and targeted an Italian crusader

missionary on his way to work... shot him multiple times, leaving him critically wounded and subsequently hospitalised.”

Bangladesh police said they had no proof who was behind Parolari’s shooting in Dinajpur, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) from the capital Dhaka.

“Unless we can find out who has actually executed the operation, we can’t say who or which group was behind the attack,” Dinajpur police chief Ruhul Amin told AFP. The attack on the priest bore “some similarities with the previous attacks on foreigners,” who were also shot by gunmen

Islamic State threatens to blow up White House in new video

Islamic State militants released a video on Thursday threatening the White House with suicide bombings and car blasts and vowing to conduct more attacks on France.

The six-minute video released by Islamic State fighters in Iraq applauds last week’s Paris attacks, according to a translation of the Arabic provided by the Maryland-based SITE Intelligence Group.

The latest threat comes one day after the militant group put out a video showing scenes of New York City, which suggested it was also a target.Islamic State, which controls a large territory in Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility for last Friday’s attacks in Paris in which 129 people were killed.FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday he was not aware of any credible threat of a “Paris-type attack” in the United States. State Department spokesman John

Kirby told CNN that Thursday’s video was being examined to determine its “veracity.”

“Everybody here in the United States government are taking these threats seriously,” he said.

The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video.The video opens with television news clips of the Paris attacks and then shows two militants separately speaking to the camera.Titled “Paris Before Rome,” the video shows an Islamic State fighter threatening to “pound” French monuments and vowing to strike at the White House.“We will blow it up, the same as we blew up the idols in this good land,” one fighter says, referring to the White House.The second fighter threatens U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande. “We will grill them with (explosive) belts and car bombs.

riding on motorbikes, he added.

Aged in his 60s, Parolari has been based at Suihari Catholic Mission in Dinajpur for more than 30 years, according to another priest, Anthony Sen, who lives in the same city. Bangladesh authorities have previously said there is no evidence that Islamic State militants are active in the country. According to SITE, IS on Thursday also claimed the shooting of a Baha’i community faith leader and the killing of a Sufi Muslim shrine chief earlier this month in Rangpur, close to where Parolari was shot.

Police officials however told AFP they believed “internal disputes” were behind the deaths of the Baha’i and Sufi leaders.

Bangladesh has been reeling from rising Islamist violence in recent months, including a series of machete murders of secular bloggers and a publisher, claimed by a local Islamist group.IS has claimed responsibility for stabbing a group of police in Dhaka this month, killing one, as well as a blast at a major Shiite shrine in October, which left two people dead.Police have blamed a banned local Islamist outfit for those attacks.

UK teen who spent student loan travelling to join IS jailed

London A 19-year-old who spent his student loan travelling to the Turkey-Syria border and wanted to join the Islamic State group is behind bars in Britain, police said Thursday.

Yahya Rashid paid £906 (1,300 euros, $1,400) for himself and four friends to travel to the Turkish border town of Gaziantep in February.

He stayed in an IS safe house but shortly before he was due to cross into Syria, he changed his mind and returned to Istanbul.

Rashid, aged 18 at the time, was then detained by Turkish police and deported back to Britain, where he was arrested on his

arrival.Police believe his travelling companions did cross into Syria and are still there.

Rashid, whose family is originally from Somalia, was sentenced to five years in a youth offenders’ institution Wednesday for terrorism offences.

“You told the jury you had never held a gun in your life and there is no reason to believe that is untrue,” Judge Philip Katz told Rashid as he passed sentence.

“But goodness knows what you would have gone on to do as a foot soldier of ISIS” (another term for IS).Rashid’s lawyer Mark McDonald insisted his client had wanted to live in an “Islamic utopia” but not fight.

Mali terror attack: Al Qaeda splinter group claims responsibility At least 27 people have been killed and nearly 170 taken hostage as gunmen attacked a famous hotel in Mali’s capital city of Bamako. According to the External Affairs Ministry, 20 Indians, who were inside the hotel, have been rescued.

Meanwhile, an African Jihadist group affiliated with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Friday for the attack and ongoing hostage-taking. AlMourabitoun, a group based in northern Mali and made up mostly of Tuaregs and Arabs, posted a message on Twitter saying it was behind the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel, where hostages are still being held.

Officiala have confirmed Belgian diplomat Geoffrey Dieudonne were among those killed in the Mali gun attack.

Men shouting “Allahu Akbar” and armed with guns and throwing grenades stormed into the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali’s capital Friday morning and seized 170 hostages.

The US Embassy in Mali asked citizens to shelter in place amid reports of an “ongoing active shooter operation” at the hotel in Bamako. People in the area ran for their lives along a dirt road as a soldier in full combat gear them to safety.

Malian army commander Modibo Nama Traore said 10 gunmen stormed the hotel shouting “Allahu Akbar” before

firing on the guards and taking hostages. The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel said the assailants have “locked in” 140 guests and 30 employees.

Some guests were able to escape the hotel. Monique Kouame Affoue Ekonde, an Ivorian, said she and six other

number and identities were not confirmed. The official spoke anonymously in line with presidency policy.

China’s official state Xinhua News Agency quoted a Chinese guest as saying via a mobile chat app that several Chinese were among the guests trapped at the hotel.

people, including a Turkish woman, were escorted out by security forces as the gunmen rushed “toward the fifth or sixth floor.”

“I think they are still there. I’ve left the hotel and I don’t know where to go. I’m tired and in a state of shock,” she said.

The US and French embassies told their citizens in Bamako to take shelter wherever they are.

A top official at the French presidency said French citizens were in the hotel but could not give more details because their

A staffer at the Radisson Blu hotel who gave his name as Tamba Diarra said over the phone that the attackers used grenades in the assault.

Following a military coup in 2012, Islamic extremists took control of northern Mali, prompting a French-led military intervention in early 2013 that forced the extremists from northern towns and cities, though the north remains insecure and militant attacks have extended farther south this year.

Issue - 642 (13)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Tablets eroding children’s digital skills Canberra Children’s growing use of mobile devices may hamper their learning of key technology skills, says a report.An Australian educational body noted a “significant decline” in IT literacy among some students since 2011. Its report said children learned very different skills on tablets and smartphones to the basic technology skills required for the workplace.Changes to the way that ICT was being taught in Australian schools could explain some of the decline, it said. The report added that significant alterations in the types of devices people use could also be behind some of the changes.The report by Australia’s National Assessment Programme looked at technology literacy among two groups of children - one just leaving primary school and another in its fourth year of secondary school. More than

10,500 students took part.

It compared digital literacy scores from 2011 with those from a survey carried out in late 2014.

“This report shows a significant decline in their ICT literacy performance when compared to previous cycles,” it said. Both age groups saw a decline in IT proficiencies, it added. Statistics revealed that the average performance of 16-year-olds in the 2014 group was lower than the average in any other year.

In addition it found that the number of children meeting basic ICT literacy standards in these age groups had dropped. “These declines in performance are concerning and warrant serious attention,” said the report.

Children’s growing use of mobile devices may hamper their learning of key technology skills, says a report.An Australian educational body noted a “significant decline” in IT literacy among some students since

2011. Its report said children learned very different skills on tablets and smartphones to the

said.The report added that significant alterations in the types of devices people use

children - one just leaving primary school and another in its fourth year of secondary school. More

basic technology skills required for the workplace. Changes to the way that ICT was being taught in Australian schools could explain some of the decline, it

could also be behind some of the changes. The report by Australia’s National Assessment Programme looked at technology literacy among two groups of

than 10,500 students took part.

It compared digital literacy scores from 2011 with those from a survey carried out in late 2014.

“This report shows a significant decline in their ICT literacy performance when compared to previous cycles,” it said. Both age groups saw a decline in IT proficiencies, it added. Statistics revealed that the average performance of 16-year-olds in the 2014 group was lower than the average in any other year.

In addition it found that the number of children meeting basic ICT literacy standards in these age groups had dropped. “These declines in performance are concerning and warrant serious attention,” said the report. Pupils now made “increased” and “extensive” use of mobile technology and it was possible that this meant they were “practising fewer of the skills that have been associated with ICT literacy,” it said.

Vietnam PM urges pure and clean Internet HANOI Vietnam’s prime minister posted a letter online on Thursday urging the public to use the Internet responsibly and build a civilised web environment, in rare comments promoting cyberspace in a country renowned for crushing dissent.In a letter more than 1,100 words long posted on the government’s website and its new Facebook page, Nguyen Tan Dung said the Internet was key to transparency and “contributes to the assurance of freedom, human rights and civil rights”. While Internet usage and smartphone sales have soared in Vietnam, its

communist government has dealt harshly with its online critics, with rights groups angered by the arrests, intimidation and jailing of dozens of bloggers and activists. Reporters Without Borders has previously dubbed Vietnam an “enemy of the Internet” for its suppression of online dissidents.

Dung, whose government has been credited with steering a series of liberal reforms to the economy to court more investors, is one of only a few

among Vietnam’s leaders to have advocated the use of Facebook.

The ruling Communist Party has until recently steered clear of a platform used by more than a third of its 90 million population. “We saw clear risk of abusing Internet to disperse information that is fabricated, unverified, without reliable source, toxic and offensive that aims to slander and smear individuals, organisations and brands, spreading ideas and

Johannesburg A 1,111 carat “high quality diamond” has been discovered at a mine in Botswana, said to be the biggest find in more than a century, according to the mine

world second largest gem quality diamond ever recovered and largest ever to be recovered through a modern processing facility,” the Stockholm listed company said a statement.

“The significance of the recovery of a gem quality stone larger than 1,000 carats, the largest for more than a century....cannot be overstated,” said William Lamb, the president and chief executive of Lucara.The stone is yet to be evaluated, but commodities and mining analyst Kieron Hodgson, said it has “the potential to be one very expensive diamond.”

“Valuation will depend on potential inclusions, how it would behave in cutting, optimal shape as well as final colour,” he told AFP.“All these things will need to be evaluated prior to bidding.”

The biggest diamond discovered is the 3,106-carat Cullinan, found near Pretoria in South Africa in 1905.

It was cut to form the Great Star of Africa and the Lesser Star of Africa, which are set in the Crown Jewels of Britain.

Lucara indicated on its website that the Karowe Mine had also this week turned up further finds -- an 813 carat stone and a 374 carat stone, prompting Lamb to laud “an amazing week” for the company.

organising terrorism, vandalism,” Dung said.

His letter mentioned big international tech names as familiar to Vietnamese such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Viber and some local news websites.

At a ministerial meeting last year, Dung asked officials to be more active on social networks, which have become one of the prime sources of information in his country.

Vietnam has 49 percent of its population on the Internet, higher than the world’s average of 40.4 percent and the AsiaPacific region mean of 32.4 percent, the letter said.

Largest diamond in 100 years Mother writes an exam in hospital bed before found in Botswana mine

company.The gem, only second in size to the Cullinan diamond which was unearthered in South Africa in 1905, was mined by Lucara Diamond Corp.

“The magnificent stone, which originated from the south lobe of Lucara’s Karowe Mine, is the

Shares in Lucara shot up 34% to 14.2 kronor in morning Thursday trading in Stockholm.

Botswana is the world’s second biggest diamond producer, and Lucara said the gem was the largest ever to be recovered in the country.

delivering her baby

Washington 20 hours into her delivery, she was steadfast about completing her college exam in the hospital bed. Tommitrise Collins was admitted to the Coliseum Medical Centre in Macon, Georgia last week, but before she could bring her baby into this mad mad world she had to complete her online psychology examination. Now that’s what focus and determination is all about. She surely proved her resilience for pain by giving an exam during an excruciating

labour. In a Facebook post, her sister, Shanell Brinkley Chapman wrote that Collins’ contractions were just three minutes away when she clicked a picture of Tommitrise sitting on the hospital bed with her laptop.

The photo has since gone viral on social media with over 15,000 shares. Tommitrise made her delivery look like a cake walk in the picture.

The new born baby girl named Tyler, has an incredible story to share with her friends and family when she grows up.

Issue - 642 (14)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Bhatkal man detained in Dubai for ‘IS activities’ Indian authorities are hopeful that Damudi, an accountant by training who was last known to be employed as an assistant delivery coordinator at the World Trade Center in

Dubai, would be deported soon. He was detained a couple of months ago, and sources said his present status is “not known”.

Since the detention, Damudi’s “suspect” online activities have come to a halt, sources added. The Twitter account allegedly linked to Damudi, with the handle @AdnanDamudi, that would propagate IS ideology has been defunct over the last year along with his YouTube subscription.

Indian and UAE phone numbers suspected to have been provided by Damudi on online forums are also inactive. Damudi’s alleged IS links reportedly came to the fore in the course of an investigation by the Telangana Police into an attempt last year to recruit four Hyderabad youths. Damudi is alleged to have influenced the four engineering college dropouts to travel to Syria

as well as arranged funds for their travel, before the authorities were alerted and the youths detained near Malda in West Bengal and brought back to Hyderabad.A commerce

graduate from Karnatak University in Dharwad, Damudi was allegedly also in touch with Sultan Armar from Bhatkal, who was reported by IS-linked websites to have been killed in Kobane in Syria in March this year. Apart from the four Hyderabad youths, sources say, investigations showed Damudi to be in touch with several other Muslim youths in India. An alleged active participant in online platforms linked to the IS, he was a subscriber a year ago to a YouTube channel operated by controversial Australian proIS preacher Robert Musa Cerantonio, who was deported to Australia from the Philippines last July.

Investigations into the attempt by the four Hyderabad youths to make their way to IS ranks in Syria had revealed that they were initially handled online by a Karnataka-origin man

based in the Gulf.According to sources, initially six youths from Hyderabad had been convinced into signing up for the IS and visas were to be arranged for their travel

via Istanbul. However, two had later dropped out after their parents got wind of their plans as well as the person who was to arrange their visas backed out.

The four youths who eventually decided to leave first went into hiding in the Karimnagar district of Telangana and, out of desperation, allegedly contacted Damudi on an Indian number provided by him.Damudi allegedly put the youths in touch with Sultan Armar, who was suspected then to be on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Investigators say Armar spoke to the four youths via Skype, and promised to help them join the IS. Sources say it was Armar who then directed the four to travel to West Bengal, assuring that they would be taken to Dhaka from where arrangements for further travel would be made by his associates.

IS product of ‘anti-Islamic Western countries’, says LeT Dubbing the Islamic State as “a production of antiIslamic western countries,” banned militant

LeT spokesperson Dr Abdullah Ghaznavi told a local news agency in a telephonic statement.

outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on Saturday said the IS had no role and scope in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Kashmiris don’t want aid and support from an external group. They are capable enough to fight against the Indian aggression themselves,”

“The IS is production of anti-Islamic western countries. To link our struggle with IS is mere propaganda unleashed by India.

The world community is well aware of this Indian drama,” he added.The LeT was reacting to general officer

Commanding, 16 Corps, Lt General RR Nimbhorkar’s remarks in which he had expressed apprehensions that “the IS could join hands with LeT to launch attacks in India.”

Another militant outfit Tehreek-ul-Mujahid (TuM) said: “India is defaming the Kashmir struggle by linking it to IS and the al Qaida. ”United Jihad Council secretary general and TuM chief Sheikh Jamil-urRehman said, “There is no scope for the Al-Qaeda and the IS in Jammu and Kashmir. Ours is a local and indigenous struggle, the government of India wants to kill our youth and defame our sacred struggle in the name of alQaida and ISIS.”

Two Chennai men deported from Turkey for ‘trying to join IS’ Two youths from Chennai have been deported from Turkey after they tried to enter Syria, allegedly to join the Islamic State (IS).

A senior intelligence officer said both of them landed in Bengaluru two days ago.

Officials said one of them is a 23-year-old commerce graduate from Royapettah, Chennai. He used to work at a textile shop run by his father. The other is a 22year-old from a village in Karur district. He was staying with his relatives in Chennai, where he used to work at a store.

After they landed in Bengaluru, both men were counselled by the police and were eventually allowed to return with their families. They were also warned that they will be under surveillance.

According to a senior police officer, while no other Indian seems involved in the case, they are probing the origin of an email ID that guided the two men to the Syrian border.

“Both of them were fed up with life. Together, they started searching online for information about the Islamic State. They believed they will get better jobs and a meaningful life in IS-ruled territory in

Syria,” said an official, adding that they first met at a mosque in Purasawalkam.

arrested from a hotel near the Turkey-Syria border and were soon deported to India, with an intelligence

“They were reluctant to cooperate with us. But once their families were called in, they changed their mind. One broke into tears, while the other seemed shaken. Still, they kept insisting that they went in search of jobs to Malaysia,” said the officer.

The state intelligence is looking at their online activities and data logs to find the “recruiter” who guided them to the Syrian border.

According to an officer, the two first went from Bengaluru to Dubai in August 2015. There, they stayed for a while, possibly to confirm when it was safe to enter Syria, said an official. However, tightened security at the Turkish border ensured they got caught. They were

note which referred to them as possible “IS aspirants”, said the officer.

Tamil Nadu has seen cases linked to the IS in the past as well. In August last year, 26 youths posed for a photograph in front of a mosque in Ramanathapuram district, wearing black T-shirts with the IS emblem.

The photo went viral online, but the police had to let them off with a warning. In September 2014, there were reports that a Chennai youth who joined the IS had killed himself in a suicide bombing. In August 2015, The Indian Express reported that a 40-year-old engineer from Vellore had joined the IS, and had taken his wife and four children along with him.

Issue 642 (15)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

For Daniel Craig’s James Bond, the writing on the wall is easy to read Cast: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Ralph Fiennes, Monica Bellucci Direction: Sam Mendes Ratings: 3 Stars When Daniel Craig was announced as James Bond after Pierce Brosnan, the Daily Mirror went to press with the headline ‘The Name’s Bland James Bland’ (April 14, 2006). Craig astounded the Mirror and the world with his debut Bond in Casino Royale stint.

dead. In a perfectlytailored tux and tie, Bond (Daniel Craig) observes his target from behind a mask. In a few minutes, he’s eliminated two people and brought an entire block down. A fight in a helicopter follows. Bond kills the person he’s been tailing, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), after receiving a posthumous message of sorts from the exM (Judi Dench). Sciarra’s widow Lucia (Monica Bellucci) leads Bond to Spectre, a global criminal syndicate with a stylised octopus for a symbol, and its master-

Craig isn’t bland; not even in his fourth James Bond outing. Not sure if the same can be said about Sam Mendes’ Spectre.

The film opens in Mexico City, on the Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead). The entire city is out on the streets to celebrate the

mind Ernst Stavro Blofield/ Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz).

Back in London, the current M (Ralph Fiennes) is faced with orders from Max Denbigh (C, played by Andrew Scott) to shut down the ‘00’ programme.

Power struggles continue

in the UK. But Bond is back in business, aided by Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw), and aided and distracted

by Dr Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux). There are battles to be won, babes to be bedded, and Aston Martin prototypes to be driven. And Bond does it all spectacularly well.

Craig plays his Bond to perfection, albeit with that slight hint of weariness. As Bond, he’s burnt himself out or something of the sort, it feels. Christoph Waltz, on the other hand, doesn’t really come across as very convincing as the villain. Even when he’s got a scar running right across his right eye, he’s hardly menacing.

Comparisons with Skyfall creep in inevitably. So when Waltz’s Oberhauser is at his scariest, one misses Javier Bardem’s Silvo.

Lea Seydoux is vulnerable when needed, but knows when to rise to the occasion and kick some butt.

Fiennes, Scott, Whishaw, Harris, Bautista, Bellucci all slip into their characters effortlessly. The acting is among the strengths of Spectre.

Hoyte van Hoytema’s camera captures Mexico, Morocco, London and Rome

Secret In Their Eyes Directed by Billy Ray Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, Joe Cole, Michael Kelly, Zoe Graham Rating 4 Stars This remake of an Argentinian Best Foreign Language Oscar winner deals with passion and obsession, and how these frame and dictate lives. A pretty girl is murdered in the most horrific manner, leaving her police officer mother, Jess (Roberts), and Jess’s friend Ray (Ejiofor) in a desperate hunt for the killer. A prettier district attorney, Claire (Kidman), struggles to balance the demands of her office and

the unrequited love between her and Jess. And all this happens against the backdrop of 9/11, with the nervous Los Angeles authorities as obsessive about any leads to prevent a possible attack. The fact that the girl gets murdered near a mosque that is under watch has stirred up many troubled waters.

The film, spanning 13 years, is essentially about the hunt for that killer. It’s not about joining the dots either, as the identity of the guy is established pretty soon. There are also many scenes of him running and being chased. But what makes this film still work is that it’s about what the chase does to the chasers.

The Argentinian film was set against the politics and dirty killings of late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Ray, also the cowriter, does well to base his film around the paranoia post9/11.

Both Jess and Ray are working on counterterror efforts in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office where Claire has just joined as a hotshot appointee from Harvard.

Almost immediately, it is clear that Jess and Ray are very good friends, that Ray really likes Claire, and that she is aware of it.

Soon after, Jess and Ray are called upon to investigate a body that has been found in a garbage bin next to a suspicious mosque. In

in all their glory. The Jaguar C X75Aston Martin DB10 chase by the banks of the Tiber in Rome is one of Spectre’s most enjoyable sequences. The Day of the Dead celebrations

a powerful scene, Ray approaches the body first and immediately recognises it as Jess’s daughter. As the ashen Ray turns to Jess, she jumps in and breaks down completely.

Warned to keep off the case as it is the job of the homicide department, Ray persists due to Jess and gets some clues on a guy called Marzin (Cole). However, the hurdle Ray keeps running up against is his own team, as Marzin is a “snitch” inside the mosque who is promising to give up a “sleeper cell”.

All the three protagonists are excellent Ejiofor in his earnestness, Kidman in her perfect detachment that only just cracks, and especially Roberts in her complete devastation.

scene, again, deserves some loud applause.

It is the story where the film loses steam. Like Thomas Newman’s title theme says, ‘The writing’s on the wall’; indeed, just that it is

too easily readable for all.

There are no twists in the story, and even if you fall asleep for a bit in between, you can wake up and realise you haven’t missed much.

Issue 642 (16)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Daisy Shah reveals her relationship with Salman Khan Daisy Shah’s entry to Bollywood happened alongside Salman Khan in the 2014 film Jai Ho. After her big Bollywood break, courtesy Dabangg Khan, Shah’s film scene hasn’t really seen much happening. Daisy has now got Vishal Pandya’s Hate Story 3 in her kitty.

And ever since the steamy trailer of the film was released, the actor has had much discussion centering on her. There were rumours that Salman Khan had objected to Daisy working in Hate Story 3, given its high-on-erotica content, but the latter had refuted all of them. Speaking to IANS, the actor had said, “He liked it and was happy the way we are

moving forward with our career. He also mentioned that he has allowed us (Daisy and Zarine Khan, her co-star in the film) to work in this movie. So, whoever thinks that he advised me not to take the film, Salman made it clear for them.” Back when Jai Ho was being filmed, the grapevine had found its fodder in the Salman Khan-Daisy Shah equation. Several gossipmongers had also tried to dig out a romantic angle out of the friendship between the two, but both Salman and Daisy always stuck to their just-friends stance. Now, speaking to the Times of India, Daisy opened up about her relationship with Salman Khan. When asked if

Salman is her ‘2am friend’, Daisy said, “I am fortunate enough to have that kind of access to him, but I won’t take advantage of this fact.

Salman can be a mentor, friend and Hitler, depending on the situation. He dons different roles for those he likes. But if I know he is sleeping

Ranbir can’t get married till I allow him says Deepika Padukone

at 2am, I won’t call him (laughs).” Daisy, who is playing the role of a businesswoman in Hate Story 3, will be seen alongside Zareen Khan, Karan Singh Grover and Sharman Joshi in the film.

Ranbir Kapoor follows Aamir and Salman for Sanjay Dutt biopic As an actor, it’s my responsibility to make the audiences believe that it’s not me on screen but the characters we play.

Questions pertaining to Ranbir Kapoor’s marriage to Katrina Kaif have been the talk of the town but his ‘Tamasha’ co-star Deepika Padukone says the actor will not wed till the time she gives her nod. Ranbir, 33, who dated Deepika for a year, shares an amicable relationship with the actress post their split. “Ranbir can’t get married till I allow it...,” Deepika told PTI. To which

Ranbir, who has been dating Katrina for sometime, added, “It’s a very big question about my life. I completely believe in the institution of marriage. When I will get married, I will let the whole world know about it.”

Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Tamasha’ is Ranbir and Deepika’s third film together after ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ and ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’. The co-stars took a train ride from

Mumbai to Delhi to promote their upcoming film, which is slated to hit the screens this Friday. Ranbir and the ‘Piku’ star started their career in 2008 with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Saawariya’ and Shah Rukh Khan starter ‘Om Shanti Om’, respectively. “It feels just like yesterday. I saw Deepika outside ‘Saawariya’ sets walking across to ‘Om Shanti Om’ set.

Ranbir Kapoor is all set for his new project which is a biopic on Sanjay Dutt.

The biopic on Dutt will be directed by filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani. The Bombay Velvet star will be seen doing a biopic for the first time and said physical transformation is very important for an actor. The Tamasha actor will go a step further to look like Sanjay Dutt.

According to a report published in DNA, Ranbir Kapoor said, “When I do Raju Hirani’s film on Sanjay Dutt, I will try to look like him. Unka jo body type thin tha, then thode mote ho gaye the, ek samay par. As an actor, it’s my responsibility to make the audiences believe that it’s not me on screen but the characters we play.

So the physical transformation will be an important part of the film.”

When asked about how much weight he might have to gain for the film, Ranbir said, “I still don’t know how much I will have to pile on. When me and Raju sir sit down for discussion, maybe we will talk about it and I would know exactly how much weight I have to gain. Honestly, I have been trying to do this for the last 8 years but abhi tak kuch body nahi bana, main same single pasli hoon.”

Ranbir Kapoor is currently busy with the promotions of his upcoming film Tamasha with Deepika Padukone and will also be seen in Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

Issue 642 (17)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Nicole Kidman named best actress in London stage awards

I feel like a ‘lone wolf’ says Jessica Alba Actress Jessica Alba says she feels like a “lone wolf” as the CEO of The Honest Company as there

are not many female CEOs around.

The “Sin City: A Dame To Kill For” star, who is also a chief executive officer (CEO) of lifestyle brand The Honest Company, admits she

found it hard at first to be among only a small number of female CEOs, reported Female First.

“You feel like a lone wolf surrounded by men who have done it all before.”

However, the 34-year-old actress insists she has experience about being labelled differently than men brought over from her time in the film industry.

“I’ve actually felt this more in the entertainment industry. People never say a male actor is difficult, they call him smart, but if a woman did the same thing, she would be considered a b***h.

“I find it funny when I get called ambitious! I’ve even had my agents do intros and say, ‘She’s a very ambitious young lady.’ And I’m always like, ‘What does that mean?!’“

Taylor Swift is ‘like a sister’ to Selena Gomez Singer Selena Gomez says her best friend Taylor Swift is nothing less then a sister for her.

The 23-year-old “Good For You” songtress and Swift, 25 have been friends since eight years and consider each other like a family, reported Female First.

“She’s like a sister to me. Taylor and I dated Jonas bothers together. We met when she was 18.

I was 15 or 16. She was so great to me. Then we became best friends. She would fly out to see me when I was going through something really hard.

We’d eat a lot of fattening food and vent,” Gomez said.

She also thanked the “Bad Blood”

hitmaker for encouraging her to be more open and make more friends in the industry.

“Taylor is a lot more trusting than I am. I have trust issues, given my situation. She’s very open, so she brings out this other side of me,” she said.

James McAvoy won best actor for a revival of The Ruling Class while Imelda Staunton took the award for best performance in a musical for her portrayal of Momma Rose in a revival of the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy.

Nicole Kidman won the best actress award for her performance as a DNA researcher in the play Photograph 51 at the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards on Sunday.

The Oscar-winning Kidman, performing on the London stage for the first time since 1998, has won rave reviews for her portrayal of Rosalind Franklin, whose use of Xray diffraction images helped lead to the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure.

In other categories, the award for best play went to The Motherf**ker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis and the best director award went to Robert Icke for his revival

of Aeschylus’s Oresteia.

The award for best design went to Anna Fleischle for Hangmen while Molly Davies received the award for most promising playwright for God Bless the Child.

The emerging talent award was won by David Moorst, for his role in Violence and Son and the newcomer in a musical award went to Gemma Arterton, for her musical theater debut in Made in Dagenham.

Actors Judi Dench and Ian McKellen served as co-hosts of the event, along with the Evening Standard’s publisher Evgeny Lebedev.

Jennifer Lawrence terms sex scene with Chris Pratt ‘bizarre’ While talking about her upcoming sci-fi film in The Hollywood Reporter’s annual actress roundtable, the powerhouse performer says she found the sex scene with actor Chris Pratt ‘bizarre’.

‘I had my first real sex scene a couple weeks ago, and it was really bizarre. It was really weird.

Everything was done right; nobody did anything wrong. It’s just a bizarre experience.’

‘I got really, really drunk. But then that led to more anxiety when I got home because I was like, ‘What have I done? I don’t know.’ And he was married.

And it was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach,’ the actress said.

Lawrence said though she knew it was her job, she could not bring herself to shoot the scene until she spoke to her mother.

‘I couldn’t tell my stomach that’.

Also read: Jennifer Lawrence reveals details about her new project with Amy Schumer ‘I called my mom, and I was like, ‘Will you just tell me it’s okay?’

It was just very vulnerable.

And you don’t know what’s too much. You want to do it real, you want everything to be real, but then... That was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been,’ she added.

Directed by Morten Tyldum, Passengers follows Lawrence and Pratt’s characters who travel on an interstellar spacecraft and make the journey to a new planet.

Issue 642 (18)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Obama ‘optimistic’ about Paris climate summit success MANILA US President Barack Obama said Wednesday he was optimistic an elusive deal to contain global warming could be forged at an upcoming crunch summit in Paris, and insisted an ambitious deal would boost a flagging world economy.

In a speech to an AsiaPacific business conference in the Philippines, Obama said there was still a “lot of work to do” to ensure success at the United Nations summit. “Nevertheless, I’m optimistic that we can get an outcome that we’re all proud of, because we understand what’s at stake,” Obama said.

The goal of the climate summit in the French capital, which begins on November 30, is to forge a pact to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming. The meeting will try to negotiate a pact to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6

degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels. Scientists warn that unless drastic action is taken quickly, warming temperatures will

lead to rising sea levels and natural catastrophes that threaten mankind. The Paris event represents the first bid for a truly global climate rescue pact since the chaotic 2009 summit in Copenhagen ended in bitter disappointment. Previous efforts have failed because governments and businesses have struggled to break free from fossil fuel dependency that has driven economic growth

since the industrial revolution.

In the latest example, the Republican-run US Senate on Tuesday rejected key

rules wanted by Obama’s administration to limit greenhouse gas emissions by power plants. “There is not a contradiction between growth, development and being good stewards of the planet, they are complementary,” Obama said at the conference, which is taking place ahead of the annual AsiaPacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) gathering.

“The old rules that said we

couldn’t grow our economies and protect our environment at the same time, those are outdated. We can transition to clean energy without squeezing businesses and consumers.” Obama insisted an ambitious deal in Paris would spur investment, as it would signal to businesses that they should “go all-in on renewable energy technologies”.

“If we can get an agreement done, it could drive new jobs and opportunities, and investment in a global economy that, frankly, needs a boost right now.”

After his speech to the business leaders, Obama led a panel discussion with Chinese tech-billionaire Jack Ma and Aisa Mijeno, a young Filipina engineer turned entrepreneur.

Mijeno explained how she invented a cheap lamp that runs on salt water and can charge a cellphone part of a bid to provide poor villagers in remote areas of the Philippines with clean electricity.

Syrian journalist wins French media freedom prize STRASBOURG A Syrian journalist who lives and works in the warscarred city of Aleppo was awarded the Reporters without Borders Prize in France on Tuesday for her defence of press freedom.

The Paris-based media rights group singled out Zaina Erhaim for her “determination and courage” in covering the conflict in Syria, which is deemed the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. Over the past two years Erhaim has trained around a hundred print and television journalists, a third of them women. Her efforts have led to the emergence of a number of independent newspapers and magazines. Her uncle accepted the prize on her behalf at a ceremony in the French city of Strasbourg.

Reporters without Borders (RSF) also honoured centre-left Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, which won the watchdog’s Media of the Year prize for its “independent and courageous journalism”. In May, Turkish President Recep

Tayyip Erdogan brought a criminal complaint against the paper for publishing a video it said showed a convoy of vehicles bound for Syria with weapons supplied by the Turkish intelli-

gence agency. Erdogan vowed the paper’s editorin-chief would pay “a heavy price” for the report which raised questions about Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian conflict. The paper was also the first in the Muslim world to reprint parts of the first Charlie Hebdo issue featuring a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed - released after January’s deadly Islamist attacks on the French satirical magazine in Paris.

Issue 642 (19)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

What if 2°C isn’t good enough? China shows public toilets PARIS Locking in an action plan to cap global warming at two degrees Celsius will be the ultimate yardstick for success or failure at the Paris climate summit that opens in a week.

Under the UN flag, the 2 C (3.6 Fahrenheit) target has been embraced by 195 countries, most of whose leaders will descend upon France’s terror-struck capital

on November 30. But is that goal truly adequate to shield humanity from record heat waves, superstorms engorged by rising seas, and other devastating impacts?

Is two degrees, in other words, good enough? The consensus view of thousands of climate scientists who have huddled on this question over the last six years is: “probably”.

The fuzzy answer stems in part from the target’s confused heritage.

It emerged from the nearly collapsed 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, where world leaders cobbled together a face-saving, non-binding

“accord” with 2 C as its centrepiece. “The traceability to the science is not clear,” Peter Cox, a professor at the University of Exeter in England, told AFP. “It is definitely a political target.”

Which does not mean it is arbitrary - science says that reaching this goal will stave off worst-case scenarios.

Keeping the mercury from going up by more than two notches, the UN’s climate

science panel has concluded, will help prevent mass migration, water wars, and expanding vectors of disease and poverty. It’s certainly better than the 4 C world we are headed for if we do nothing to curb fossil fuel emissions.

But the 2 C boundary is best seen as an “upper limit” and not a “guardrail,” cautions a scientific report published by the UN’s climate body in June. “In some regions and vulnerable ecosystems, high risks are projected even for warming above 1.5 C (2.4 F),” the report says.

For many, this comes as no surprise. Indeed, 43 nations

home to a billion people banded together this month in a bloc called the Climate Vulnerable Forum, which is pushing for a 1.5 C cap over pre-Industrial Revolution levels, instead of 2 C. At the very least, they want to see the lower threshold included in the Paris agreement as an option. It is not hard to see why. The global thermometer has so far risen one degree, but already many nations are living a climateaddled nightmare.

“Today we experience extreme weather, have floods on some of our islands and drought on others, and have severe erosion, coral bleaching and saltinundation in our food crops and ground water,” Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister for the Marshall Islands, told AFP. “Can you imagine what it would be like if we get another degree?”

Low-lying river deltas in Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and Egypt face similar threats, while people in SubSaharan Africa are already retreating from expanding deserts.

Ultimately, it is money, and not just extreme weather, that will determine who can best adapt to these changes.

A subsistence farmer in the Sahel - an arid zone that stretches across the African continent - is far more vulnerable than his counterpart in California’s Central Valley, even if both are confronting historic drought.

Russia tRies to lay Royal Remains Row to Rest MOSCOW Locked in a safe in Russia’s state archive lie two white cardboard boxes holding a few fragments of darkened bones, each numbered and stored in a plastic bag.

Geneticists, forensic experts and investigators have long been certain who these remains belonged to - Alexei, the 13-year-old son of the last tsar Nicholas II, and his sister Maria, who were shot along with their family by the Bolsheviks in 1918. But despite DNA evidence of their identity, objections from the country’s powerful Orthodox Church mean the bones remain unburied almost a century after the brutal slaying. Now a new probe is aiming to finally lay the controversy to rest - and the remains too, next to the other members of

Russia’s last royal family, interred back in 1998 in their former capital Saint Petersburg.

“What’s at stake is whether to recognise the supposed remains of the tsar’s family as holy relics,” Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida

told a recent press conference. The Church does not accept that any of the remains of the tsar’s family are authentic and says it needs to make sure beyond doubt, as it has proclaimed all the family members saints

and martyrs.

Russia’s government went ahead regardless with the other burials in 1998 but is now seeking to resolve the row with the Church before burying the others. This summer, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev renewed calls to lay Alexei and Maria to rest with their parents and sisters. The Church broke the stalemate, agreeing with the government to reopen the probe into the murders and carry out additional DNA testing of the other Romanovs, with clerics present as samples are taken. To satisfy them, investigators reopened the tombs of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra, and are set to exhume Nicholas’s father Alexander III.

completed with Wi-Fi

Beijing With the squat toilets, dim lights and likely a shortage of bog rolls, the idea of going to the public bathrooms in China could be daunting.

But the country’s capital city Beijing yesterday unveiled its new super high-tech restroom aiming to refresh the image of Chinese public toilets.

The cutting-edge facility, named ‘The Fifth Space,’ comes with WiFi, vending machines, ATMs and flat-screen TV sets. Also charging stations for the country’s popular electric scooters, reported the People’s Daily Online. The first new-generation bathroom opened to the public on Thursday in front of the government offices of the Fangshan District in south-west Beijing.

The event is timed to celebrate the ‘World’s Toilet Day,’ which falls on the same day, and is a part of the first ‘China Toilet Revolution Propaganda Day.’ According to a flatplan displayed outside of the building, the spacious beige-tiled restroom has 11 different sections, including male toilets, female

toilets, unisex toilets, accessible toilets, baby-changing facilities, an e-commerce area and an ATM room. The entire area has available Wi-Fi and there are vending machines selling different type of soft drinks. Each toilet or urinal is equipped with a flat-screen TV set nearby for entertaining the user. More impressively, charging stations have been installed outside the building so that customers can leave their electric bikes to be powered while answering the call of nature. Residents can also pay their utility bills in the toilets using multi-purpose public phones. It seems designers hope the new facility will be a meeting point for residents away from home and work. A spokesman from Beijing Environmental Sanitation Engineering Group told the People’s Daily Online that they hope the new public restroom will become ‘the fifth space’ besides the family space, work space, leisure space and cyber space.

Hence, the sign of the restroom will be changed from ‘WC’, a traditional sign for public toilets in China, to the number ‘5.’

Issue 642 (20)

,6,6 75($76 ,1',$1 5

By ABHISHEK BHALLA Indians who joined the terror outfit Islamic State, also known as ISIS, have been subjected to discrimination, used as foot soldiers ready to be sacrificed at any given point and always viewed with distrust by the top brass who are mostly Arabs.

A report submitted to the union home ministry by central intelligence agencies said recruits from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are considered inferior and the practice of Islam in these countries is thought to be apostate.

South Asians are also more likely to be killed in battle since they are used as foot soldiers while

Arabs are preferred for the officer grade and given better salaries and accommodation, the report said.

According to the report, second-class treatment to Indians and South Asians is apparent in every aspect of life as a jihadi and even the lure of “jihadi brides” to attract fighters from all over the world is a privilege reserved for a select few.

“There is a priority list wherein the senior commanders and ethnic Arab fighters get the first preference. The foreign terrorist fighters from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Sudan are mostly denied jihadi brides since they are considered ethnically inferior to breed the next generation of jihadi fighters in ISIS territory.”

After getting inputs from their counterparts in countries neighbouring Iraq and Syria, a detailed analysis of Indians who joined ISIS has been done by Indian intelligence agencies.

It is now known that six of the 23 Indians who joined the terror group were killed. While two have returned, 15 are still part of the ISIS. Kalyan-based youth Areeb Majeed and a young girl living in Qatar are two Indian recruits who succeeded in returning from the battlefronts of ISIS after facing tough times there.

Tricked into attacks The report attributed the high casualty among Indians and South Asians to the fact that they are tricked into suicide attacks.

“Usually they are given a vehicle loaded with explosives and asked to go near a targeted destination and call a person on a certain number, who would purportedly come and meet them to explain the mission. However, as soon as the number is dialled, the car explodes due to a preset mechanism aimed at destroying a specific target.”

The intelligence report also suggests that there is a disproportionately high level of casualties among the South Asian and African foreign terrorist fighters.

“The Arab fighters with better battle experience are mostly positioned behind these fighters and hence their casualties are proportionally less in terms of their total numbers. This explains why so many Indians from a

small Indian contingent have died,” it said.

Indians and South Asians are not trusted by the ISIS leadership and are always under the surveillance of its police who are mostly from Tunisia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria.

“There is a clear trust deficit between the dominant Arab fighters and those from other nationalities, who are mostly attracted to ISIS through its sophisticated propaganda techniques on the internet,” the report said.

The report added that ISIS considers Islam as it is followed in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh a departure from the original teachings of the Quran and the Hadith, which makes them less motivated towards Salafist Jihad.

There are authentic reports of the brain-washing of fresh recruits from South Asia and certain other countries by invoking the fear of ‘Jinn’, considered supernatural creatures in Islamic mythology. The aim is to ensure that the recruits from these countries do not return to their countries of origin on the premise that the ‘Jinn’ will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives if they do so. “Further, passports of foreign terrorist fighters from South Asia and certain African countries are usually burnt upon their arrival in Iraq-Syria to prevent them from going back to their countries.”

There have been several cases where Indians who were attracted to the ISIS ideology made efforts to travel to Syria to join the group, but were intercepted by Indian intelligence agencies.

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday pledged strong support to France in its bid to gain international backing for efforts to crush the Islamic State (IS) group in the wake of the Paris attacks.

“I firmly support the action President Hollande has taken to strike ISIL in Syria,” Cameron said after talks in Paris, using

(21)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

5(&58,76 $6 6/$9(6 Belgian police give virtual cat food for terror tweet paws

6$,17 '(1,6 /$1'/25' ,6 $ &219,&7(' 085'(5(' The landlord who allowed ISIS were killed when police killers responsible for the commandos raided the early on Paris attacks to hide in his apartment flat is a convicted killer and Wednesday morning. Ait notorious gangland leader, it Boulahcen was blown to emerged tonight. News of pieces by an unidentified Jawad Bendaoud’s conviction third man, who let off for stabbing a teenage victim explosives tied around his to death came as he was body as police stormed remanded in custody for a towards the building. In 2008, Bendaoud, who is in fourth night in a row. He his 30s, was has admitted lending sentenced to eight his rundown years in prison for apartment in the killing a 16-yearnorthern suburb of old college student St-Denis to the with a large meat ringleader of the knife. The pair massacres that had been ‘arguing left 130 people Abdelhamid Abaaoud over a mobile dead on November 13. Three suspects phone’ and Bendaoud including ISIS operative ‘insisted he was acting in self Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his defence’, said a legal source cousin Hasna Ait Boulahcen in Paris.

&DPHURQ VD\V RIIHUHG )UDQFH XVH RI %ULWLVK DLUEDVH LQ &\SUXV another acronym for IS. “It’s my firm conviction that Britain should do so too,” he added.

The British leader also said he had offered France the use of a British airbase in Cyprus for air strikes, and assistance with refuelling French jets.

“Today I’ve offered President Hollande the use of RAF Akrotiri for French aircraft engaged in counter-ISIL operations and additional assistance with air-to-air refuelling,” Cameron said in a statement to reporters alongside Hollande, using another term for IS. Cameron has said he will make his case to the British parliament in the coming days about joining air strikes on Syria.

Hollande said after the early-morning discussions: “We have joint obligations.”

Earlier, the two leaders had laid a wreath at the Bataclan concert venue in Paris where terrorist attackers killed 90 people on November 13. A British man was among the dead at the venue.

Belgian police offered a virtual bowl of pet food to Internet cats on Monday to thank social media users for agreeing to pause their posts during a major anti-terrorism operation in Brussels.

“For the cats that helped us last night... help yourselves!” Belgian police said on their Twitter account, with a photo of a metal bowl with the police logo in French and Flemish, filled with cat food pellets. It was retweeted more than 4,400 times in French and 1,400 times in Flemish.

The Twitter hashtag #BrusselsLockdown went viral on Sunday night when social media users posted pictures of their feline friends -- a light-hearted response to an official request from police not to put information about their operation on the Internet.

There were pictures of cats with guns, cats looking scared, cats with helmets on and even a surreal picture of two Star Wars stormtroopers riding hover scooters shaped like cats.

The cat photos were a whimsical break from a tense situation, with Brussels under security lockdown since Saturday morning after the government said there was a “serious and imminent threat” of attacks like those in Paris on November 13.

Key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam, who is believed to be in Belgium, remains at large despite police arresting 21 people overnight.

$QWL 0XVOLP FULPH VRDUV LQ %ULWDLQ DIWHU 3DULV DWWDFNV Anti-Muslim hate crimes rose 300 percent in Britain in the week following the coordinated attacks in Paris, according to figures published on Monday.

A “vast and overwhelming majority” of the 115 attacks were against Muslim women and girls aged between 14 and 45 who were wearing traditional Islamic dress, according to the findings reported in The Independent newspaper.

The perpetrators were mainly white males aged between 15 and 35, according to the report, which noted that the true numbers of attacks were likely much larger than those reported.

The figures come from a report to a government working group on anti-Muslim hate compiled by Tell Mama, a helpline that records incidents of physical and verbal attacks on mosques and Muslims.

A large number of the attacks occurred in public places such as buses and trains.

“Many of the victims have suggested that

no one came to their assistance or even to the report. consoled them, meaning that they felt Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents victimised, embarrassed, alone and angry had already risen sharply before the attacks in Paris, by 70.7 percent and 93.4 percent respectively in the year to July 2015 compared to the previous 12month period, according to police figures.

In all, 816 Islamophobic incidents were recorded in Greater London between July 2014 and July 2015, compared to 478 in the previous period.

The same period saw 499 anti-Semitic incidents, a rise from 258 the previous year. about what had taken place against them. The police did not give a breakdown on “Sixteen of the victims even mentioned that whether the recorded attacks were physical they would be fearful of going out in the or verbal assaults, but said there were a future and that the experiences had affected number of factors leading to the rise including a greater willingness of victims their confidence.”

The rise in attacks is in line with a similar to report such incidents and better police increase that happened after the murder in recording. Britain has 2.7 million Muslim south London of British soldier Lee Rigby residents and a Jewish population of

by Muslim extremists in 2013, according 263,000, according to the 2011 census.

Issue 642 (22)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

5 Tanzanian miners freed after Indonesia sorry over HIV 41 days trapped underground sneezing link posters DAR ES SALAAM Five Tanzanian gold miners have been rescued after spending 41 days trapped deep underground eating cockroaches and frogs to survive, the mining ministry and survivors said Tuesday. The miners were among a group of around

20 that were in a pit when a shaft they were working on collapsed on October 5. While 14 escaped as the shaft collapsed, six were trapped.

One of the miners died during the more than month-long incarceration underground. The remaining five were rescued on Sunday and are reportedly in a serious condition in hospital.

“The miners were very

weak,” Minister of Energy and Mines spokeswoman Badra Masoud said, adding they had been trapped some 100 metres (300 feet) underground. Survivors have described the horror of surviving in the darkness for over a month so deep underground, sheltering in a chamber

where they had stored their tools, eating insects and sipping foul and muddy water to survive. “We were around 20 in the pit that collapsed, some of our colleagues made it out, but six remained trapped underground,” survivor Chacha Wambura told state-owned television late Monday. “We survived by eating cockroaches, frogs and other insects as well as drinking dirty water that

seeped in from above.”

The local miners were digging for gold in the northwestern Shinyanga region, some 900 kilometres (500 miles) west of the economic capital Dar es Salaam, when the shaft collapsed behind them. Initially they had the light from their helmet lamps as well as from mobile phones, but they soon ran out. “Batteries of the torches and flashlights ran out and we ended up in a cave that we earlier used as a store for our tools,” Wambura said.

Tanzanian newspaper The Citizen said the mining ministry described the rescue as “a miracle” while local officials were initially in disbelief the miners could have been freed safely after so long underground. Local police commander Justus Kamugisha told AFP that the miners were all believed to have died in the collapse, but that other miners crawling down a separate shaft were startled to hear voices coming from the darkness. “They heard voices of people calling out for help,” Kamugisha told AFP.

JAKARTA Indonesia’s health ministry has apologised after a printing error led to posters being put up claiming that HIV can be transmitted through mosquito bites, swimming and sneezing, an official said Wednesday. Social media was flooded with angry comments after the ministry’s attempt to launch a campaign to debunk myths about HIV backfired badly in a country where people with the virus are much stigmatised. The controversy came as the virus was hitting the headlines globally after US actor Charlie Sheen revealed he was HIV-positive and had paid millions of dollars in hush money to people who knew about his infection to keep them quiet.

The Indonesian plan involved putting up posters on commuter trains in the capital Jakarta stating that HIV cannot be transmitted through mosquito bites, swimming and sneezing, as well as human saliva and sweat. But the printing company managed to miss out the word “not” from the posters and then failed to get final approval

from officials, meaning the banners reinforced the very beliefs they were meant to challenge. Hundreds of posters were plastered on trains at the weekend, but have now been removed following an outcry. “The ministry has to carry out a

placed with the correct ones,” he told AFP. “They omitted the word ‘not’, it was an honest mistake.”

Subuh said the printing company failed to show the ministry the final version of the posters before issuing them as they were

massive and systematic awareness campaign to undo this blunder,” said Aditya Wardhana, an activist from Indonesia AIDS Coalition. Prominent HIV activist Fajar Jasmin tweeted that the botched campaign was a “stupid, fatal mistake”. Senior health ministry official Muhammad Subuh admitted the mistake was due to a “printing error”. “We have made a public apology and now the banners are being removed and will be re-

supposed to. The company has also apologised for the error. However Subuh insisted the controversy was a “blessing in disguise” as many people recognised immediately it was a mistake, showing progress had made in spreading awareness about the true causes of transmission. Activists dismissed his claim, with Wardhana saying that HIV campaigners would now have to be sent to train stations to inform people of the error.

Issue 642 (23)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Hackers may hit home for holidays WASHINGTON It could be a merry holiday season for hackers, with millions of new and potentially vulnerable Internet-connected gadgets hitting the market.

Security experts say the vulnerabilities of “Internet of Things” devices such as fitness bands, smartwatches, drones and connected appliances could be exploited as consumers adopt these products for the holiday season. Any connected device “can be a pivot point into your network,” said Bruce Snell, cybersecurity and privacy director for Intel Security.

Although breaking into a wearable device or drone does not necessarily provide immediate value for a hacker, it can lead to a connection to a smartphone and data which is stored in the Internet cloud, security experts note. “These could potentially install malware that sniffs out all the passwords on your network and sends them to a remote location,” Snell told AFP. For easier use, many consumer gadgets use relatively insecure

connections and often require minimal use of passwords or other authentication. Gary Davis, who heads consumer online safety for Intel, said the holidays could be a vulnerable time for consumers and a time for hackers to celebrate.

“With the excitement of getting new devices, consumers often are so eager to begin using them that they do not take time to properly secure them,” he wrote. In some cases, security can be improved by simply changing the password on the device, which may be something as simple as 1234 or 0000, but many people fail to do this.

“When you get that shiny new toy for Christmas, you want to just get it working,” said Alastair Paterson, chief executive at the security firm Digital Shadows.

Paterson noted that with a blurring of lines between work and leisure time, many people take home sensitive corporate

material that can be then stored in a hackable home network. In some cases, Paterson said, “just by connecting it to the home Wi-Fi network, they are exposing documents to the entire Internet.” The

PR disasters caused by hackers.” Smart home devices such as thermostats can be a gateway for hackers, according to a report this year by researchers at TrapX Labs.

research firm Gartner earlier this month forecast that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 2020.

Juniper Research predicts “smart toy” sales will hit $2.8 billion this year, while noting that “vendors will likely require third-party software expertise to avoid

The researchers took apart and then used a Nest thermostat as a point of attack for a home network and were able to track the users’ Internet surfing activity and get access to their private credentials.

The report said that even though Nest “is relatively secure,” there is a concern “that the manufacturers of IoT devices at all points in

the supply chain do not seem to have the economic incentives to provide initial cybersecurity the manufacturers involved with IoT are obsessed with cost-cutting and minimal design footprints.”

Northeastern University researchers found some smartphone fitness apps can leak passwords and location information over public Wi-Fi networks. “Our devices really store everything about us on them: who our contacts are, our locations and enough information to identify us because each device has a unique identifier number built into it,” said computer science professor David Choffnes, who led the study, which also developed a system to detect and fix data leaks.

Researchers at British security firm Pen Test partners said a similar vulnerability exists in WiFi connected kettles and coffee-makers.

The devices allow users to turn the kettle on without getting

up but it also means “a hacker can drive past your house and steal your WiFi key,” Pen Test’s Ken Munro said in a blog post last month. “If you haven’t configured the kettle, it’s trivially easy for hackers to find your house and take over your kettle.”

California-based security firm Veracode found vulnerabilities in many smart home hubs that control systems such as garage doors or lighting. Its study noted that cybercriminals could turn microphones on and listen to conversations or get notifications when a garage door is opened or closed, offering an opportunity to break into a given house.

A US Federal Trade Commission report highlighted the numerous risks for connected devices, while recommending that companies “build security into their devices at the outset.”

The FTC also said companies “should limit the data they collect and retain, and dispose of it once they no longer need it” to minimize privacy risks.

Facebook activates safety Woman gives birth in checks for first time in Nigeria APEC traffic chaos LAGOS Facebook has activated its “Safety Check” feature for the first time in Nigeria, after a bombing likely carried out

by Boko Haram killed more than 30 late on Tuesday.

“We’ve activated Safety Check again after the bombing in Nigeria this evening,” co-founder and chief executive Mark

Zuckerberg said in a post on the site.

The social network had come under criticism from those caught up in last

Thursday’s blasts in Beirut that they were not offered the service but those in Friday’s Paris attacks were.

The tool allows users to check whether friends are safe after attacks or natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Zuckerberg said at the weekend the feature would be used more widely in the future.

Murakami wins Danish literature prize COPENHAGEN Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami on Tuesday won

Denmark’s top literary award, the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, following in the footsteps of such

writers as J.K. Rowling and Salman Rushdie. The award, named after

Denmark’s famous fairytale creator H.C. Andersen, comes with a cheque for 500,000 kroner

(67,000 euros, $71,400).

The jury honoured Murakami’s “bold mix of classic narrative, pop culture, Japanese tradition, dreamlike realism and philosophical debate.” The 66-year-old, whose books have sold in the millions, has a cult following for his intricately-crafted tales of the absurdity and loneliness of modern life, and peppers his work with references to pop culture. With works including “Kafka on the Shore” and “Norwegian Wood”, he has repeatedly been tipped as a future Nobel laureate and has already received a number of other awards, including the Franz Kafka prize in 2006.

MANILA A Filipina gave birth on a Manila sidewalk after getting caught in traffic chaos caused by a regional gathering of world leaders, police said Wednesday. The sprawling Philippine capital is renowned for its daily tailbacks, but the ongoing Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit has taken the city’s congestion to infuriating new heights. Police have shut down key thoroughfares in the metropolis to ensure quick and safe travel for world leaders during the summit, causing gridlock and forcing many commuters to make long walks home. In one incident earlier this week a pregnant woman trapped in traffic went into labour and gave birth with the help of two police officers, Senior Superintendent Wilben Mayor, the national police spokesman said Wednesday. “It was a special situation but the important thing is the baby is alive and they (the officers)

were able to perform their duties,” he told a news conference. Fellow commuter Angel Ramos-Canoy uploaded a picture and an account of the emergency delivery on her Facebook wall that quickly went viral.

which can no longer be seen on her wall, RamosCanoy wrote how she and other stranded commuters used umbrellas to give the woman some privacy as she gave birth. “All we can do is to give shade through

It showed a policewoman and a second woman in civilian clothes holding a newborn partly wrapped in white cloth, an umbilical cord still attached. Mayor said he did not have details on when or where the incident took place. Local media said the unidentified woman gave birth to a baby boy on Monday morning.

In her Facebook post,

our umbrellas,” she wrote.

Mayor said the policewoman who helped deliver the baby was also a midwife, while the male officer was a trained nurse. They summoned an ambulance to take the woman to hospital, but delivered the baby themselves because the emergency vehicle could not get through the traffic jam, he added.

Issue 642 (24)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

The week begins with a focus on Scorpio and perhaps a desire to resolve an issue by doing some detective work.

Neptune pushes ahead midweek, which could help illuminate your path ahead, particularly where a dream of yours is concerned. The focus then shifts as both Mercury and the Sun dance into Sagittarius.

You have the option to clear the decks and resolve an issue concerning a relationship or romantic association. However, if you're going to sort things out, you might need to get rid of excess baggage that has been holding back for some time in the course of a key partnership. The focus shifts to shared finances, encouraging you to take stock of your present situation.

As Saturn moves to aspect Neptune next week, it's important to keep your boundaries firm, particularly when handling business or professional matters. If you don't, someone may steal your thunder and undermine your efforts. However, the focus on relationships intensifies this week as Mercury and the Sun hike into Sagittarius, adding a lighter note to the coming weeks.

Should you or another dare to share your feelings, a romance could blossom early this week. Even so, you might wonder whether you should have waited a little longer. Saturn has been in your health sector for some time now, and this week it's joined by Mercury and the Sun. It could push you to examine wellness and lifestyle issues in greater depth.

Mars and Venus in Libra are perfect for charming the socks off of a business associate or love interest. Indeed, you might be willing to bend over backward in order to prove your suitability for a job, project, or romantic relationship.

However, if such acrobatics begin to hurt, it might be because you aren't being completely true to yourself.

If you're planning to increase your income, cutting back on small but inessential luxuries could be the key to increasing your stash of cash. However, with Venus and Mars sauntering through your personal financial sector, the desire to shop could be stronger than ever. Set yourself a limit. It might help you feel more in control.

You could be busy arranging deals, contracts, or even a first date, as well as resolving situations in which you've been taken for granted. Mars in your sign encourages you to take action regarding circumstances that aren't fair. It's time to let others know that you're a force to be reckoned with.

On Friday the focus shifts to your zone, so you could be busy with writing projects.

A decision made early in the week could set your mind at rest, as could a conversation you've been putting off for some time.

Tuesday's alignment suggests that you'll benefit from taking rather than avoiding action. Neptune's forward motion midweek could see a new romance becoming more defined, particularly if it's been somewhat sporadic until now.

As Saturn in your sign gets closer to squaring off with Neptune, any feelings of insecurity may come down to changes occurring within you. Shifts in your spiritual awareness can be reflected in changes in or around your home and family situation. You may find that meditation or other spiritual activities steady inner turmoil and help you feel more confident about the future.

Priorities could shift and change early in the week, particularly if a dream or goal no longer holds your interest. However, switching to something that you're truly passionate about could act as a catalyst, encouraging you to start now. Once Mercury and the Sun dance into your spiritual sector, you'll enter that time of year when rest and relaxation are mandatory.

As the Sun and Mercury move through the last degrees of Scorpio, your feelings about one aspect of your job or career may leap to your attention. If something needs to be done, this is the time to take action.

Neptune pushes forward in your personal financial sector midweek, so if you've suffered delays in this area, things should slowly get better.

Saturn, now in your career sector, puts your attention on the here and now, encouraging you to meet deadlines, define goals, and take action regarding your career plan. As Neptune pushes ahead in your sign from midweek you may find that you begin to get clarity on what you hope to accomplish, helping you to bring your dreams to life.

Issue 642 (25)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Technology indian-oRigin engineeRs poweR India top in censoring Facebook content devices with wi-Fi signals An Indian-origin team of engineers from the University of Washington has developed a novel technology that uses a WiFi router to power devices at home and beyond.

Developed by assistant professor Shyam Gollakota and Vamsi Talla, an electrical engineering doctoral student, the Power Over Wi-Fi (PoWiFi) system is one of the most innovative and game-changing technologies of the year, said Popular Science that included it in the prestigious magazine’s annual “Best of What’s New” awards announced on November 18.

“For the first time we have shown that you can use Wi-Fi devices to power the sensors in cameras and other devices,” lead author Talla said.

“We also made a system that can co-exist as a WiFi router and a power source it doesn’t degrade the quality of your Wi-Fi signals while it’s powering devices,” she added.

The technology attracted attention earlier this year

when the team published an online paper showing how they harvested energy from Wi-Fi signals to power a simple temperature sensor, a low-resolution grayscale camera and a charger for a Jawbone activity tracking bracelet.

PoWiFi could help enable development of the Internet

of Things, where small computing sensors are embedded in everyday objects like cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, air conditioners and mobile devices allowing those devices to “talk” to each other.

“In the future, PoWiFi could leverage technology power scaling to further improve the efficiency of the system to enable operation at larger distances and power numerous more sensors and applications,”

Now, enjoy Google Maps without Internet in India Popular search engine giant Google recently upgraded its free map service to guide users of Android-powered smartphones to destinations without relying on Internet connections.

The newly introduced offline functions in Google Maps is now available for users in India.

According to Indian Express.com report, users can now enjoy turnby-turn driving directions, search for specific destinations, find useful information about places and contact information and ratings in the upgraded version of Google Maps that too without internet connection.

One can download the offline maps by simply searching for an area before the trip and then hit download on the app.

Google Maps will download areas to your device only when you are on WiFi connection and not on 3G connectivity. The latest Google Maps version has been rolled out on Android first.

explained Gollakota, assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

But one major challenge is how to energise those low-

power sensors and actuators without needing to plug them into a power source as they become smaller and more numerous.

The team fixed that problem by optimising a router to send out superfluous “power packets” on Wi-Fi channels not currently in use essentially beefing up the Wi-Fi signal for power delivery without affecting the quality and speed of data transmission.

The team also developed

sensors that can be integrated in devices to harvest the power.

In their proof-of-concept experiments, the team demonstrated that the PoWiFi system could wirelessly power a grayscale, low-power Omnivision VGA camera from 17 feet away, allowing it to store enough energy to capture an image every 35 minutes.

It also re-charged the battery of a Jawbone Up24 wearable fitness tracker from zero to 41 percent in 2.5 hours.

The researchers also tested the PoWiFi system in six homes.

“Users did not notice deterioration in web page loading or video streaming experiences, showing the technology could successfully deliver power via Wi-Fi in real-world conditions without degrading network performance,” the authors noted. The duo will present the final paper next month at the Association for Computing Machinery’s CoNEXT 2015 conference in Heidelberg, Germany.

India once again tops the list of countries where governments make the maximum number of demands to remove content from Facebook, according to a report released by the company.

Notably, there has been a three-fold increase in such demands in the first six months of this year as compared to last year.

According to the data released by Facebook in its biannual government requests report, India made 15,155 demands, outnumbering 92 other countries in the list, Mashable reported.

In comparison, India had made 5,832 requests for content removal between June and December 2014.

The company said the posts were censored to

prevent religious unrest in the country and had mostly been reported by government agencies.

“We restricted access in India to content reported primarily by law enforcement agencies and the India Computer Emergency Response Team within the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology because it was antireligious and hate speech that could cause unrest and disharmony within India,” the report read.

Turkey came second at 4,496 requests followed by France with 295 requests.

India has topped the social network’s content removal list for the third year in running, since it began releasing the data in 2013.

Most smartphone users will reveal nude pictures than banking data What would you try to steal from your spouse if she decides to spy on your smartphone - your financial transactions or that library of nude pictures? Banking data, reveals a 11-nation survey.

According to the findings, the majority of smartphone owners would rather have nude pictures publicly exposed than their banking information, arstechnica.com reported.

Conducted by one of the leading global software security providers Avast Software, the survey found that the US led the way with nearly 77 percent of respondents opting to safeguard financial data rather than explicit material on the smartphone.

More than 23,500 smartphone owners responded to Avast’s telephone poll done decently.

While Britain came in second with 72 percent, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico checked in at about 50 percent.

According to the findings, people feel they will suffer

said it would be less painful to have someone access nude photos,” the survey findings noted.

Despite concerns about financial privacy, less than a majority even locked

greater consequences if their financial information is leaked.

“When asked if people prefer to have someone access their nude photos or bank account information, it was interesting to see that in all countries, the vast majority

their devices, it found.

The poll discovered that people locked their photo apps more over banking apps, despite them being more concerned about their financial privacy.

The most protected app was phone messaging service WhatsApp.

Issue 642 (26)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Norwegian airline green, British Airways less clean PARIS A Norwegian low-cost airline has been dubbed a champion of fuel efficiency in a new study released Tuesday, in marked contrast to British Airways and Lufthansa which have been labelled as among the worst.

The study by the Interna-

tional Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) found that three of the least fuel efficient carriers were BA, Lufthansa and Scandinavian airline SAS, who between them account for some 20 percent of the transatlantic air travel market. Top of the heap in the study of 20 major non-stop transatlantic carriers was

Norwegian Air Shuttle which burned 51 percent less fuel per passenger kilometre than BA. Air Berlin and Ireland’s Aer Lingus came in second and third in the study, which the ICCT said was intended to provide greater insight into the fuel efficiency, and therefore car-

bon intensity, of international flights. The study, which comes ahead of a Paris conference on climate change due to start November 30, showed Norwegian Air Shuttle, the world’s seventh-largest low-cost airline, averaged 40 passenger kilometres per litre of fuel. By comparison, Germany’s sec-

ond-largest airline Air Berlin had a fuel efficiency of 35 passenger kilometres per litre. It was the USbased ICCT which helped to uncover the pollution cheating scandal at German auto giant Volkswagen in September after it tested actual emissions figures for diesel cars and found some Volkswagen models to be above permitted limits.

Noting the fuel efficiency disparities between the carriers, ICCT said seat configuration was a key factor in the results and that the average fuel burn of the aircraft used was also significant. It also noted that first class and business class seats accounted for around a third of carbon emissions but only 14 percent of overall seats.

“The very high fuel efficiency of Norwegian Air Shuttle demonstrates the central role of technology in reducing CO2 emissions from the aviation sector,” the ICCT concluded. “Airlines that invest in new, advanced aircraft are more fuel-efficient than airlines that use older, less efficient aircraft.”

Australian court fines Japanese firm over whale kills SYDNEY A Sydney court fined a Japanese firm Aus$1 million (US$709,300) Wednesday for repeatedly killing Antarctic minke whales in an Australian Southern Ocean sanctuary.

The Federal Court found that Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha harpooned the animals in contravention of parts of Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act over four seasons between 2008 and 2013. Justice Jayne Jagot ordered Kyodo to pay fines of Aus$250,000 for each of the seasons, after finding it guilty of wilful contempt of a 2008 injunction against hunting the animals in the area. “Under Australian law, whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in Australian Antarctic waters are fully protected,” said Michael Kennedy, national director of Humane Society International (HSI), which initiated the case.

Kennedy said that Jagot had found Kyodo’s conduct in breaching the 2008 injunction to be “deliberate, systematic and sustained”

and that she was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that tens, if not hundreds, of whales had been killed during the whaling campaigns. Despite international disapproval, Japan has hunted whales in the

regulators for more evidence that the expeditions have a scientific purpose.

It makes no secret of the fact that meat from the mammals killed ostensibly for research is processed into food, and says the

Southern Ocean for years under an exemption in the global whaling moratorium that allows for lethal research. It cancelled its 2014-2015 Antarctic hunt after the United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, ruled in 2014 that Japan was abusing a scientific exemption set out in the 1986 moratorium on whaling. Japan said in June that it intends to resume hunts in the Antarctic this year, despite a call by global

whale population in any case is big enough to allow sustainable whaling.

HSI urged the Australian government to use the ruling to redouble diplomatic efforts to ensure Japan is aware the international community would condemn any resumption of whaling in the Southern Ocean. “We would also expect the Australian government to assess what further legal options are open to it under international law,” Kennedy said.

Issue - 642 (27)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Sukhbir Badal accuses ‘anti-national’ Congress of having links with ISI Accusing the Congress Party of being an ‘anti-national’ organisation, Punjab Deputy

Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday said that the grand old party is creating an alliance with the terrorist organizations, having links with Pakistan’s ISI, just for the sake of political gains.

“Everyone knows what Punjab went through in the 80s. Those fifteen years of militancy, disturbance, where thousands of Punjabis were killed, there was communal as well as full disturbance of peace in the state of Punjab,” Badal told the press conference here.

“Everyone knows how it started and in order to fight Akali Dal, the Congress encouraged certain elements which then went out of control and that led to full 15 years of disturbance in Punjab which even threatened

the nation’s integrity. Today, Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi is trying to

create the same environment in the state of Punjab,” Badal said.

He also accused the Congress Party for creating an alliance

Amarinder Singh: Congress do not need lessons on patriotism from Sukhbir Badal Refuting charges that the Congress was supporting radical and anti-national forces, party leader Captain Amarinder Singh claimed that Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal was trying to shift the blame for his own failures on Congress. “We in Congress do not need any lessons on patriotism and nationalism from someone like Sukhbir Badal, whose father and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal still takes pride in having burnt the copies of

HS Phoolka releases video of Rajiv Gandhi’s speech justifying 1984 riots

Sikh leaders of BJP and AAP on Thursday released the old video of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in which he is seen justifying the anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by saying “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes”.

The video was released by AAP leader and senior advocate HS Phoolka and BJP leader RP Singh during a press conference in the national capital.

Phoolka, who has been fighting for the rights of 1984 Sikh riots victims, demanded that Rajiv Gandhi’s Bharat Ratna Award be withdrawn, and accused him of justifying the 1984 ‘genocide’.

“A Prime Minister who justifies the killing of innocent citizens,

with the terrorist organizations, having links with Pakistan’s ISI, just for the sake of political gains.

“The Congress is showing its true colour and it is an antinational party,” he said.

A delegation of Punjab Congress leaders led by party vice-president had earlier met President Pranab Mukherjee and submitted a memorandum urging him to initiate a judicial probe into the killing of two persons in recent protests over alleged desecration of Guru Granth Sahib.

Rejecting the CBI probe ordered by the Punjab government, the Congress leaders demanded an inquiry to be conducted by a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court.

definitely does not deserve Bharat Ratna. We therefore call upon the government to withdraw the Bharat Ratna conferred upon Rajiv Gandhi,” Phoolka said.

“A Prime Minister who takes three years even to count the dead bodies of innocent citizens killed in open broad daylight in the capital, a Prime Minister whose party was responsible for a massacre, cannot be a Bharat Ratna. We demand Rajiv Gandhi’s Bharat Ratna’s be taken back,” he said.

BJP leader Singh and Phoolka said that it was difficult to get the video of the speech as the same was deleted from the records and archives of Doordarshan and it was retrieved with much difficulty.

the Constitution of India during Khalistan movement,” he alleged.

Referring to the Sarbat Khalsa, the religious congregation of the Sikhs held at Amritsar recently, Amarinder said, the presence of huge number of people there was an expression of “anger” against the Badal government and not to support Khalistan as being projected by Sukhbir Badal and Khalistan protagonist Simranjit Singh Mann together.

AAP, BJP leaders: Rajiv Gandhi should be stripped of his Bharat Ratna

Sikh leaders from AAP and BJP on Thursday came together to demand that the Bharat Ratna given to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi should be taken back “as he had justified the 1984 anti-Sikh riots”.

They also released a video purportedly showing Rajiv Gandhi speaking about the riots that broke out following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The video purportedly shows Rajiv Gandhi addressing a gathering of Congress workers on November 19, 1984 where he is heard saying “logon ko laga ki Bharat hil raha hai, lekin jab koi bada ped girta hai to dharti thodi hilti hai (When a big tree falls, the earth shakes).” The video, the Sikh leaders claimed, has been deleted from DD archives.

AAP leader H S Phoolka, who shared the stage with R P Singh of the BJP, said that Rajiv Gandhi not only justified the killings of the Sikhs, he also rewarded party

workers who masterminded the riots.“The name of Jagdish Tytler appeared in reports of human rights group, H K L Bhagat was promoted to cabinet minister.

Cases were not registered with the police. It took the government three years to come out with the actual number of people killed in the riots. Had it not been for (BJP leader) Madan Lal Khurana, the government would have stuck to the official figure of 650, whereas 2,736 Sikhs were killed in Delhi,” said Phoolka.

“He flouted every law of this country. He was no ratan (jewel) and thus Bharat Ratna should be withdrawn,” said Phoolka, who announced that people who believe in fighting for justice to the riot-hit Sikh families will soon form a new outfit. He said the new group will have leaders from across parties and he would approach CPM leader Brinda Karat, JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan to become part of the new group.

Not backing separatist movement: Sikh channel The UK-based Sikh web channel that the Punjab government wants banned for “encouraging unrest” on Saturday said it is neither supporting the separatist movement nor aiding Pakistani militants. Addressing a press conference here, Jaswinder Singh, India head of sikhchannel.tv, said the channel has never shown any separatist content nor highlighted anything secessionist in nature.

Jaswinder added that while they were not aware that the Punjab government had sought ban on their channel in India, they had come to know that the Government of India had written to the United Kingdom government stating that the channel was promoting separatist movement in India and had sent an aid of £2,500 (`2.5 lakh) to Pakistan militants.

The channel’s spokesperson said the channel is yet to take up the matter with the UK government. “We are holding a briefing as the media here has reported the allegations against us which are baseless and wild,” he said.

Jaswinder asserted that channel

does not support any separatist or illegal movements and it has never- recently or since its launch in 2009 given any money to any unauthorised or illegal groups in

the United Kingdom or anywhere around the world. “We believe in the sovereignty of India and are as much part of India as anyone else,” said Jaswinder “We are being targeted because we showed the Sarbat Khalsa live,” said Jaswinder. Punjab Police has written to the Centre’s department of electronics and information technology (DIETY) seeking a ban on the channel for allegedly promoting secessionist agenda. “I demand proof from the Punjab government that the channel has shown any such content,” said Jaswinder.

Parkash Singh Badal should sack Sukhbir says Bajwa Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa on Sunday urged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to sack Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal for allegedly failing to handle the current situation in the state over the last about three months.

"Sukhbir's sack would soothe the hurt feelings of the people in the state who are angry at the way the situation has been

handled over the last three months", Bajwa said.

Issue - 642 (28)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Badal adopts carrot and stick policy for retrieving lost ground CHANDIGARH Even as Punjab seems to be recovering from the shock waves caused by a series of religiopolitical episodes, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has now adopted carrot and stick tactics to quell the anger against the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government.

Finally, political activity in this border state has begun gaining new momentum and direction.

Though the current phase of ‘peace’ looks deceptive, public tempers are on the ebb following the more than month-long tremors triggered by a host of Sikh issues, including what looked like a systematic sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib across every region of the state to fuel public anger.

Shaken by the unrest and dazed by the fact that Sikh radicals and hardliners received massive response from the public during the statewide protests and rallies, the chief minister and his son, deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, have begun blunting the ‘anti-Badal sentiment’ by bringing focus back on governance, keeping in view the 2017 assembly elections.

The unceremonious exit of Sumedh Singh Saini as Punjab police chief was among the government’s first decisive damagecontrol steps after registering an FIR against the police over the killing of two Sikh protesters in police firing at Behbal Kalan village in Faridkot district. The CM and his deputy made DGP Saini the proverbial ‘sacrificial lamb’ when the public unrest reached its zenith and the father-son duo began losing their

grip over the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

CRACKDOWN ON RADICAL OUTFITS On the back foot, the government finally came down hard on radical outfits in the runup to and after the November 10 ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ in Amritsar, where the massive presence of

people was testimony to the prevailing antigovernment mood of the public. A section of Sikh hardliners were put behind bars and the government decided to stop succumbing to pressure tactics of hardliners, who were raising one contentious demand after another. A distinct pattern emerges from Badal’s ‘carrot and stick’ policy. While the CM himself has been trying to placate the public by stopping just short of apologising for the mistakes his regime has committed, Sukhbir has been openly wielding the stick and repeatedly warning the troublemakers. In a series of tough steps, the latest is Monday’s cabinet decision to amend Section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class) of the Indian Penal Code, making sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib punishable with life term.

Earlier, this offence attracted three years’ imprisonment.

British Museum treasures go online in Google partnership LONDON Thousands of artefacts from the British Museum’s priceless collections went online Thursday in a partnership with Google that will allow web-users to take a virtual stroll through its galleries. The deal with the Google Cultural Institute, which has 800 partners from over 60 countries, also allows objects to be scrutinised by researchers around the world thanks to high-definition Gigapixel technology. Among artefacts viewable online is the famous Rosetta Stone, which helped unlock the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens. “The world today has changed, the way we access information has been revolutionised by digital technology,” British Museum director Neil MacGregor said in a statement.

“It is now possible to make

our collection accessible, explorable and enjoyable not just for those who physically visit, but to everybody with a computer or a mobile device,” he said.

There will also be a “Museum of the World” accessible through the site - a way of viewing the artefacts mapped to a timeline to allow users to make connections between cultures around the world.

Google and British Museum said in a statement that the collections would be “the largest space to be captured on indoor Street View”.

Highlights from the museum’s temporary exhibitions will also be available online, including two currently running on the Celts and ancient Egyptian religions.

Google announced a similar initiative last month that will allow users to view 500,000 works in French museum collections.

The move to give 1.13 lakh jobs in 40-odd government departments within a year despite severe resource crunch is clearly part of Badal’s policy to ride out the storm of protests and win over the youth.

SOPS FOR VOTE BANKS Yet another decision to sprinkle direct and indirect financial benefits in the form of doubling social security pension from `250 to `500 or raising the annual health insurance cover for the poor and farmers is part of a calibrated approach the Badal dispensation has put in place with an eye on multiple vote banks and to retrieve lost political ground. As per party insiders, the CM is finding ways to recover from the series of blows received in the past nine weeks and is making attempts to pinpoint the factors that caused the unrest. The bad phase began in September with the Akal Takht granting pardon to Sirsa dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a 2007 blasphemy case (the pardon was later revoked).Monday’s sadbhawna rally in Bathinda will be the litmus test of the ‘trust’ people have in the SAD as party leaders are pulling out all the stops to mobilise crowds to show that its mass base is still intact. But Sukhbir, who is also the SAD president, has the complex task of rebuilding his party’s morale and its base that has eroded at the grassroots level.

Supreme Court paves way for trial of three in Beant Singh murder New Delhi The Supreme Court on Friday paved the way for trial of three accomplices of Babbar Khalsa militant Jagtar Singh Hawara, the mastermind in the killing of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995, by asking its Registry to send judicial records to the trial court. A bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and V Gopala Gowda, which has been hearing the appeal of CBI seeking death penalty for Hawara, serving life term in the case, directed the apex court registry to send case records back to the Chandigarh Sessions court concerned for initiation of trial against co-accused Jagtar Singh Tara, Paramjeet Singh Bheora and Devi Singh.

Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for CBI, told the court that the trial in the Beant Singh’s murder has not concluded against Tara, who was arrested earlier this year after he had escaped from Burail jail at Chandigarh in 2004.

He said the additional sessions judge has sought records of the case in order to proceed with the trial as they are presently with the apex court registry.

Kumar requested the bench to direct the registry to send the records to the trial court.Taking note of the submission, the court deferred the hearing on the

plea of CBI, which had sought death penalty for Hawara saying the offence fell under the category of ‘rarest of rare’ cases. It is also hearing the appeal of Hawara, lodged in Tihar jail here, against the trial court decision awarding jail term

2009, Modi is the most followed Indian politician and the second most followed politician in the world, right after US President

development and progress.

“Recently, PM Modi’s umbrella initiative #MakeInIndia, one of the largest economic development

Barack Obama (@barackobama) with 66.1 million followers.

“The PM of India and the Baadshah of Bollywood seem to vying for the position of the Second Most Followed Indian.

Who will win by end of year?”

Twitter said.Modi has used Twitter for campaigns like #MakeInIndia, #SwachBharat, #MannKiBaat and #SefieWithDaughter to reach and connect with the citizens for

initiatives planned by the government, became the first non-US brand to launch its own Twitter emoji to a worldwide audience,” the statement said.

The #MakeInIndia emoji symbolises the success of the brand campaign on Twitter with nearly 500 million impressions this year to promote India as a great place for foreign direct investment to transform the country into a global manufacturing hub, it added.

for remainder of life.

In 2004, Hawara had escaped from maximum security jail at Burail in Punjab along with Tara, Bheora and Devi Singh by digging a 90-feet tunnel with bare hands. Jagtar Singh Hawara and Bheora were rearrested within the next two years. Tara, a proclaimed offender (PO) in this case, was arrested from Thailand in January this year, while Devi Singh is absconding and has also been declared a PO. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had on October 12, 2010 commuted the death penalty of Hawara and sentenced him to life imprisonment “till death” in the chief minister’s murder case. 17 persons, including the then CM, were killed and 15 others were injured in the incident.

PM Modi now has over 16 million Twitter followers

New Delhi Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now over 16 million people following him on Twitter and has added a record number of followers in the last one year, the social media company has said.

“In a span of two months, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account gets an addition of another million followers, taking the total follower count to 16.1 million,” Twitter said in a statement.Since the time Modi was sworn into office on May 26, 2014, he has added 11.9 million followers on his account @narendramodi. The number of the PM’s followers crossed 15 million on September 22, 2015.

“PM Modi has also set new records as the largest increase in the number of followers in a 12-month period for an Indian account (8.8 million followers from Sep 17, 2014 to Sep 17, 2015),” Twitter added.

Currently, the Twitter race in India is led by popular Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan, whose Twitter account with name @SrBachchan runs with 17.8 million followers, and Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) at 16.2 million followers.Active on Twitter since

Issue - 642 (29)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

SGPC on collision course with ‘Panj Pyaras’ over Takht heads AMRITSAR The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) is bracing itself for a confrontation with the ‘Panj Pyaras’ (Five beloved ones of the guru), with religious body chief Avtar Singh Makkar ruling out the removal or change of the jathedars of the Akal Takht, Takht Damdama Sahib

and Takht Keshgarh Sahib.

“A change of the jathedars of the (three) Takhts is neither under consideration nor is it on the agenda of the SGPC executive meeting to be held in Chandigarh on November 26,” Makkar said while addressing mediapersons here on Thursday. The ‘Panj Pyaras’ on Monday had expressed concern at the SGPC executive not showing any respect for its October 23 ‘gurmatta’ (decision taken before the Guru Granth Sahib) asking it to seek the resignation of Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh, Takht Damdama Sahib acting jathedar Giani Gurmukh Singh and Takht Keshgarh Sahib jathedar Giani Mal Singh for their role in exonerating Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case on 2007. In their order, the ‘Panj Pyaras’ had said that in case the jathedars did not tender their resignation, they should be

removed by the executive.

The ‘Panj Pyaras’ appointed by the SGPC were in charge of the Amrit Sanchar (baptism) ceremony performed every Sunday and Wednesday at the Akal Takht. Annoyed by the ‘gurmatta’, the SGPC had transferred the Panj Pyaras (Satnam Singh Khanda, Satnam

Singh, Mangal Singh, Tirlok Singh and Major Singh) to its shrines outside Punjab. However, despite their transfer, the five continue to assert themselves and have expressed their annoyance at the executive for failing to carry out its ‘gurmatta’. When asked whether the SGPC was contemplating further action against the ‘Panj Pyaras’ for refusing to budge from their stand despite the religious body taking a lenient view of them, Makkar said, “You will see what happens in the coming days.” There was no hesitation on his part when he ruled out a change of the Takht jathedars in the near future.

Asked whether any action would be taken against the ‘Panj Pyaras’ for their defiant stand on the removal of the jathedars, Makkar said, “I will not use the word ‘action’. Instead I will say that there will be ‘sudhar’ (overhauling) in the SGPC.” When pointed out that Sant

Chhattisgarh CM’s selfie with Kareena draws flak from Congress Raipur Chief minister Raman Singh on Saturday drew severe flak from the Congress over taking selfie with Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor Khan during a

programme here. The main opposition Congress accused the chief minister of being insensitive towards the incidents of farmers’ suicide in the state and engaged in taking pictures with a Bollywood star.Kareena, who is the UNICEF India celebrity advocate, was a special guest in a programme based on child rights at the state capital Raipur jointly organised by Unicef and state’s School Education and Women and Child Development

Departments.CM Singh who was the chief guest in the programme was caught on camera taking selfie with Kareena while sitting on the stage.“More than a dozen farmers, distressed with drought situation (in the current Kharif crop season), have so far committed suicide in the state. Instead of expressing concern for them, CM was busy in taking selfie with a film star,” state Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel said.He further questioned CM, what he wanted to prove by taking selfie with Kareena Kapoor.Meanwhile, a senior administrative official pointed out that the CM usually clicks pictures with children and guests during his programmes and today also he did the same.

As many as 31 meritorious girl students and 5 teachers from 36 schools were felicitated with “Chhattisgarh Ratna” in the programme.

Samaj head Baba Harnam Singh Dhuma, who was an ardent supporter of the Shiromani Akali Dal, too, had advised the SGPC to change the three jathedars, Makkar said he respected Dhuma’s advice.

‘HARMANDAR SAHIB NO PLACE FOR POLITICS’ Reacting to the ruckus created by radical elements on Diwali (Bandhi Chhor Divas) at the Golden Temple, he observed that the shrine should not be made a “platform for politics” or for venting out anger. It is the abode of the ‘Waheguru’ and one must ensure that peace and calm prevailed there, he added.

He pointed out that a threemember committee headed by executive committee member Rajinder Singh Mehta had been formed to look into the unsavoury happenings at the shrine on Diwali. The committee is yet to hold its first meeting as Mehta was occupied, he added.

Asked about the presence of some SGPC employees at the radical Sarbat Khalsa, Makkar said the committee would also look into that aspect. Asked whether the SGPC planned to change its recruitment procedure to ensure that ‘anti-social’ elements and radicals did not get recruited into the gurdwara body, he claimed that all employees are recruited on merit. He found no fault with the recruitment process.

India invites Hollande for R-Day parade, no confirmation yet

New Delhi India has invited French President Francois Hollande to be the chief guest at next year’s Republic Day parade, a government source told Hindustan Times on Saturday.

Indian officials, however, refrained from making a formal announcement over the invite.

Another source said the invite to Hollande was planned “much before” the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130, but the terror strikes gave it the “right context”.

If he accepts the invite, Hollande would make his second official visit to India in a single term. His predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy was the chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade in 2008.

Officials in the delegation accompanying Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his visit to Malaysia and Singapore said they had noted reports on the invite, mostly based on a tweet by the South Asia

correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde.

“We cannot say anything officially till the formal announcement about the cheif guest is made. The media can report (on this issue) but we aren’t authorised to speak till it’s notified,” an official said.

The honour of being chief guest at the parade held every January 26 to showcase the country’s military might and development is usually reserved for the head of state or government of a country considered a close friend or key ally of India. US President Barack Obama was the chief guest at this year’s parade.

Hollande’s visit would likely give a push to ‘Make in India’ in the defence sector, the source said.

The two nations are also likely to firm up ways to boost security ties and energy cooperation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Paris to attend the United Nations Climate conference on November 30.

‘48 percent Indian women drop out mid-career’ New Delhi The percentage of women in India dropping out of white collar jobs in mid-career is as high as 48 percent, as compared to the Asian average of 21 percent, it was revealed on Friday.

A panel discussion on leadership by women at the “Women in the World Summit” here was initiated by the moderator with the premise that India’s current gross domestic product (GDP) could rise by upto 2 percent, if these women, who left the workforce mostly on account of the need to give more time to the family, are retained at the workplace.

“The Indian woman has a ton of stakeholders in her life, led by the parents and later, after marriage, the in-laws,” said Ipsita Dasgupta, chief commercial officer, GE South Asia.

Naina Lal Kidwai, chairperson and India director HSBC Asia Pacific, said that women in leading positions help to “sensitise” the organisation.

“We were the first bank in India to bring back the five-day week and flexi hours. Women can take even a year away from the

organisation without creating policy issues,” she said.

Pointing to the particular advantages of the Indian situation, Kidwai said: “Having

America is as high as 51 percent.“If you go with the mindset that you will have both children, as well as a career, then you can blend both,”

mothers-in-law at home gave us women the flexibility to work.”

Putting for her perspective on the Indian context, Padmasree Warrior, former chief technology officer Cisco, said that apart the family, the community is a major reality in India.

“It is not just a question of mothers-in-law and husbands.

We also live in a community,” Warrior said.

She said the number for women who leave jobs in mid-career in

Warrior said. Touching on deeper aspects of the issue, Kidwai, a former president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said women felt more guilt when faced with the career-versusfamily conundrum.

“Women feel more guilt as compared to men. At the core of it all is guilt. Women need more support systems at work,” she said, in order to deal with life situations.

Issue - 642 (30)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Visit of US gay rights envoy to India runs into problems New Delhi The visit of two senior US officials to India has run into problems, despite the fresh start in US-

India ties under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recalling a diplomatic spat that soured relationship two years ago.

Washington has been seeking to send Susan Coppedge, its newly appointed anti-people trafficking ambassador, and Randy Berry, its special envoy for LGBT rights, to New Delhi this month. Berry is Washington’s first gay-rights ambassador and a US official said no trafficking czar had visited India for the past eight years.Human trafficking has caused friction between the United States and India. The countries also disagree on gay rights, which the Obama administration promotes, while homosexuality in India is illegal.

A diplomatic source, who did not

want to identified, told Reuters the visits had run into problems.

“These visits were planned, they were meant to be here around

this time. But there were some issues,” the source said.

The US state department declined formal comment but a department official said the two sides were “working to coordinate the best timing.”

The ministry of external affairs did not respond to a request for comment and Indian ambassador to the US, Arun K Singh, did not offer clarification when asked on Thursday about Coppedge’s plan to visit, which was revealed at a November 4 congressional hearing by Kari Johnstone, principal deputy director of the state department’s trafficking office.

“We’ll see,” Singh told reporters.

“When you ask a U.S. official when somebody will be given a

Indian woman killed in Mali attack ran an NGO in Chennai

Washington Anita Ashok Datar, the IndianAmerican killed in the Mali terrorist attacks on Friday, was a development worker who had also co-founded a non-profit that works with women in Chennai.

A resident of Takoma Park, Maryland, a DC suburb, Datar, 41 was a senior manager at Palladium, an international development firm with offices in Washington.In a statement issued through the US state department her family said, “We are devastated that Anita is gone it’s unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism.

Anita was one of the kindest and most generous people we know.”

“While we are angry and saddened that she has been killed, we know that she would want to promote education and healthcare to prevent violence

and poverty at home and abroad, not intolerance.” Anita Datar was born in Massachusetts. She grew up in New Jersey, United States of America, went to the Columbia University’s Joseph Mailman School of Public Health and School of International and Public Affairs.

She worked in Senegal for two years with the Peace Corps (1997-1999), and has spent much of her career working to advance global health and international development, with a focus on population and reproductive health, family planning, and HIV, the family said.

She was also a founding member of Tulalens, a not-for-profit organization connecting underserved communities with quality health services. The family said she is survived by her son, parents and brother.

visa, they always say ‘we will assess when visa is applied for.’ ... I can do no better than to reiterate the US position.”

The human trafficking issue blew up in 2013 over the arrest of an Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, for visa fraud and underpaying a domestic worker who was later given a US “T visa” issued to trafficking victims.

Khobragade’s arrest and strip search provoked an outcry in India and the issue has festered, although US-India relations have strengthened since Modi came to power in May 2014, with both sides stressing shared strategic interests.US officials say Indian citizens who have been issued US T visas have been subject to restrictions, including long delays in renewing passports at Indian consulates in the United States.

Between July 2014 and March 2015, the crackdown was harsher, with authorities at Indian airports confiscating at least 20 passports stamped with US T visas confiscated. This prevented trafficking victims who went home to collect their families from returning to the United States. Singh played down the impact of the trafficking issue on US-India relations, saying these were “at a very good stage now” with two visits by Modi to the United States, and Obama becoming the first US president to visit India twice while in office.

Every third child born in India is premature, say doctors

New Delhi Neonatology Forum (NNF) Mumbai’s president Dr Kishore Sanghvi said, “It is estimated that 3.6 million premature births took place in India in 2010. India is the biggest contributor to the world’s prematurity burden.’’ He was speaking at a function held on Saturday to observe World Prematurity Day and highlight the need for better care for premature babies. He said it is important for pregnant women to have regular health check-up to avoid preterm delivery. “Women should take adequate rest, avoid bumpy rides, prevent for local infections and keep healthy during pregnancy,” he added.

Doctors also stressed on the need for neonatology training among pediatricians. Statistics provided by NNF and the Indian Foundation of Premature Babies show that 25% of all neonatal deaths in the world occur in India.

Neonatologist Dr Nandkishore Kabra said, “If we can control three factors, including infection among neonates, the death rate will come down drastically by 90%.”

Doctors said a social overhaul is needed to change the statistics.

“One way to break this cycle would be to start focusing on the girl child,” said head of the neonatalogy department of BMC-run Sion Hospital, Dr Jayashree Mondkar. If women are taught well and focus on their nutrition, the mortality associated with premature births would decrease. Today’s women lead a stressed life and many work until late. Their nutrition is often neglected. These factors play an important role when it comes to preterm babies.

Moreover, today women have their first kid after 30, which also is one of the reasons for preterm babies,” said Dr Mondkar.

India man-eating tiger shot dead New Delhi Forest workers say a tiger who killed and ate a farmer a few days ago has been shot dead after attacking a forest guard in southern India. The tiger was killed when it caught hold of the guard who was tying a buffalo calf as a bait to a tree in the Bandipur forest range, officials said. The animal, described as a “man-eater” by authorities, had attacked another man about a month ago, they said. There are about 1,700 tigers left in the wild in India. It is estimated India had 100,000 tigers a century ago, but their numbers have declined sharply since then, due to poaching and rapidly shrinking habitats. With increasing human encroachment into their reserves, tigers often compete for resources with nearby villagers, leading to conflict. The latest incident took place on Wednesday when more than 60 forest department personnel along with their colleagues from the Special Tiger Protection Force were sent to capture the tiger. As tigers tend to return to the same spot, the team tied a goat as a bait at the place where the animal had killed and partially eaten a 55-year-old farmer, forest officials said.

The tiger evaded the bait but left behind enough pug marks for the forest department officials,

Forest range near the town of Ooty in Tamil Nadu, forest workers shot dead a tiger

armed with tranquilisers and bullets, to remain on the track.

The tiger was killed in a rather dramatic manner when it pounced and caught forest guard Shiv Kumar.

“It was when Shiv Kumar was trying to tie the bait that we suddenly heard the tiger’s growl and the guard’s shriek. That’s when our sharpshooter Sushil Kumar shot the animal,” Ravi Ralph, chief wildlife warden of Karnataka, told BBC Hindi. Mr Kumar was taken to a hospital where his condition is described as “out of danger”.

Last year, in the Doddabetta

blamed for killing three women over two weeks. Wildlife experts say most attacks on people are chance encounters gone wrong, and victims of such attacks are rarely dragged away as prey.

But a series of attacks on people in quick succession is a tell-tale sign of a man-eater at work.

Fewer than 85 humans are killed or injured by tigers every year in India and the country’s strong animal welfare lobby has been campaigning that “man-eaters” should be captured rather than shot. Forest officials, however, say sometimes prompt action is crucial in saving lives.

Issue - 642 (31)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Pakistan’s ISI using Dawood’s men to spark riots, say intelligence agencies Pakistan’s spy agency InterServices Intelligence (ISI) is reactivating fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s network to set up a new terror module in India, suspect Indian intelligence agencies. Banned terror outfit SIMI, according to security officials, has also been tapped to execute the plan.

“As Indian Mujahideen (IM) and SIMI have been disintegrated to some extent, the ISI is once again seeking the help of underworld to stoke violence in the country. Funds are being transferred from abroad and local men are picked up by the underworld to target prominent people and places, which eventually can trigger communal violence across the nation,” a senior official of a central agency told Mail Today.

The security officials have stumbled upon some facts, which helped them establish

links between the murders of two BJP leaders in Gujarat’s Bharuch district and the arrest of Syed Rehman, a key aide of Chhota Shakeel. They said Rehman was hired to kill a Sri Rama Sene

to assassinate leaders of BJP and rightwing organisations, which could have eventually sparked communal violence. This, they said, indicates that ISI with help of D-company is trying to set up

leader in Bengaluru. His boss Shakeel is a key member of the D-gang. In both the cases, senior security officials said, Pakistanbased D-Company supplied funds

new terror network in India.

Leaders on radar According to the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) in Gujarat, Javed Chikna - a close aide of Dawood

‘Girlfriend culture’ against Islam, says Pak supreme court New Delhi Pakistan’s supreme court has ruled that there is no place for “girlfriend culture” in an Islamic

society while rejecting the bail plea of a man held for creating the Facebook account of a woman he claimed was his sweetheart. The man, Muhammad Munir, was arrested two months ago by the Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) for allegedly creating an account for his classmate Shagufta and uploading her pictures without her consent.A two-judge bench headed by justice Amir Hani Muslim made the remark when the defence lawyer contended that

Shagufta was Munir’s girlfriend and that the account was created with her consent, the Express Tribune reported Thursday.“Upon this, the bench remarked that there is no culture of girlfriend in an Islamic society as it is a Western concept,” the report said.Later, the court refused to grant bail to the accused and asked the FIA to submit the chargesheet within 14 days and asked the trial court to decide the matter within six months.Munir, a computer operator in a government office, was arrested under cyber crime laws after the girl petitioned the FIA alleging that he created a fake account under her name.Lawyer Masroor Shah who appeared on behalf of the accused expressed apprehension that such kind of cyber laws might be misused.

- had funded Rs 50 lakh to execute the operation that killed BJP leaders in Bharuch. The security agency believes that the gang wanted to stoke communal tension in the state by killing these leaders. Former party president of Bharuch district and senior RSS member Shirish Bangali and general secretary of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha in the district Pragnesh Mistry were shot dead by gunmen in Bharuch on November 2.“Our investigation has revealed that Chikna is an associate of Dawood and he had funded Rs 50 lakh to assassinate BJP leaders. They wanted to ignite communal tension. There is no other reason. It’s an act of terror by all means,” Superintendent of Police (Gujarat ATS) Himanshu Shukla told Mail Today. Drawing similarities between Bharuch and Bengaluru cases, he said, “The modus operandi that has been adopted

Not easy to get Dawood Ibrahim back; he is under enemy’s protection: Ex-Delhi Police chief Neeraj Kumar Mumbai Former Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar on Saturday said that it was not easy to bring back fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, because he was receiving patronage of the “enemy country”.

He also said that the recent arrest of Dawood’s arch-rival Chhota Rajan may not help much in this regard.

“We can’t say it’s because of (help by Pakistan’s spy agency) ISI or because of the lack of political will of the country (India).

If he is still out of our clutches, it’s because he is under the patronage of enemy country. And it’s not a cakewalk to bring such a fugitive don back in such cases,” said Kumar, without naming Pakistan where Dawood is suspected to be hiding.

Kumar’s book ‘Dial D for Don’ was on Saturday released in Mumbai in the presence of former Mumbai police commissioners Julio Ribeiro and Satish Sahni, and senior

journalist Hussain Zaidi.

Kumar added that the Indian government had made all possible efforts to bring Dawood back, and one day it would

succeed.

The book is in the news with Kumar’s disclosure that at one point in the 1990s Dawood wanted to surrender. “I had three telephonic conversations with Dawood in 1994 when I was probing the 1993 serial blasts in CBI, and one conversation in 2013 during my last days in Delhi. “I am not sure if the person at the other end was Dawood Ibrahim but I have a strong feeling that it was him,” said the 1976-

Indian-American couple admit faking healthcare reports NEW YORK An Indian-American couple, who owned a mobile diagnostic company, admitted falsifying thousands of reports as part of a USD 4.3 million healthcare fraud scheme. Nita Patel and Kirtish Patel, both 53, of New Jersey pleaded guilty before US District Judge William Walls to separate informations charging them each with one count of healthcare fraud. The two admitted receiving more than USD 4.3 million from insurance companies for diagnostics and reports that were never interpreted by a licensed physician, US Attorney Paul Fishman said. Kirtish admitted to, from October 2008 through June 2014, fraudulently interpreting and writing diagnostic reports produced by

in both the cases is similar. The trail of attacks on leaders took us to Dawood. Central security agencies would be able to investigate it in a better way.

Other such modules may be working in different parts of country. There is a strong possibility. Bharuch is not a place which should be on terrorists’ radar. If they are doing it here, they must be planning it at other places in the country also.”The Gujarat government has sought the Centre’s nod to transfer the BJP leader’s murder cases to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Nine persons were arrested from different parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand by the police after the murders. The Gujarat ATS claimed that the murder contract was allegedly given by wanted gangster Javed Dawood Patel, also known as Javed Chikna.

his company despite having no medical license and knowing

admitted assisting her husband in forging physician signatures

that the reports would be used by the referring physicians to make important patient treatment decisions. Nita

on the fraudulently produced reports to make them appear legitimate. They also admitted falsely representing to federal

insurance programme Medicare that the neurological testing performed by their company was being supervised by a licensed neurologist.

More than half of the diagnostic reports generated by the Patels between October 2008 and June 2014 were never actually reviewed or interpreted by a physician. The couple was paid more than USD 4.3 million by Medicare and private insurance companies for the fraudulent reports, which they used for personal expenses, including multiple residences and luxury vehicles. The healthcare fraud charge to which the Patels pleaded guilty carries a maximum potential penalty of 10 years in prison and a USD 250,000 fine.

batch IPS officer.

Kumar further said he took the initiative to speak to the fugitive gangster because (Dawood’s aide) Manish Lala had informed him that Dawood wanted to make his stand on the blasts case clear.“I don’t claim that I would have got Dawood, or had my lead been utilised better then we would have got him. I got an opening into the case and I worked upon it like any investigating police officer does,” said Kumar.To a question whether the recent arrest of Chhota Rajan would lead to a breakthrough in getting Dawood, Kumar said we should not have too much hope.“Of course Chhota Rajan is a storehouse of underworld information, but it (the information) all is historical, (from) before 1993. They have been on the run and hiding from each other. So I don’t think Rajan could be having some pinpointing information to nail Dawood,” he said.Kumar also acknowledged that his colleagues in Mumbai police and Hussain Zaidi (who is the co-publisher of the book) gave him valuable inputs.“I have written scripts for Hindi movies and serials. I am not new to the writing world. I know how to sequence the events and make them interesting,” said Kumar.The chapter in his book on the Memon family (many members of which were involved in the 1993 blasts) was his favourite as it had a lot of human element, he said.The retired IPS officer, who is presently working as an adviser to the BCCI’s anticorruption unit, said legalising the cricket betting won’t help much in ridding the game of corruption.“Punters do not put white money. It is all black money. If betting is legalised, only a small fraction of the money will come out as white money, while rest of the betting would continue in black money,” he said.

Issue - 642 (32)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Swati Dandekar nominated ADB’s executive director by Obama Washington Indian-American politician Swati Dandekar has been nominated as executive director to Asian Development Bank with ambassadorial rank

by US President Barack Obama.

The first-ever Indian-American to be elected to Iowa House of Representatives in 2003, Dandekar, 64, would replace Robert M Orr, who has held the position since 2010.Dandekar was the first Indian-born American citizen to win a state legislature seat in the United States.Obama announced his intent to nominate Dandekar to this top US position in Asian Development Bank (ADB) along with other key administration appointments and nominations.

“I am confident that these

experienced and hardworking individuals will help us tackle the important challenges facing America, and I am grateful for their service. I look forward to working with them,” Obama said.A member of the Iowa House of Representatives from 2003 to 2009, Dandekar was also member of the Iowa Senate from 2009 to 2011.

Thereafter, she served on the Iowa Utilities Board from 2011 to 2013. From 2000 to 2003, she was a member of the Vision Iowa Board of Directors.

Dandekar, who with her husband Arvind migrated to the US in 1973, also served on the Linn-Mar Community School District Board of Education from 1996 to 2002 and was a member of the Iowa Association of School Boards from 2000 to 2002.

She received a Bachelor of Science from Nagpur University and a Post-Graduate Diploma from Bombay University.

Dandekar ran for the US House of Representatives from Iowa’s first Congressional District, but lost in the primaries.

Legal for FB to block Sikh group’s page in India: US court WASHINGTON In a major victory for Facebook, a US court has ruled that it can

religious discrimination are precluded under the Communications Decency Act, which protects providers of

block content without any explanation after a Sikh group filed a lawsuit challenging the blocking of its social media page.

The ruling by the US court in San Francisco came in response to the lawsuit filed against the Silicon Valleyheadquartered company by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which alleged that its Facebook page, which advocated Sikh separatism, was blocked by the social media giant. US district judge Lucy Koh in her November 13 ruling stated that the Sikh group’s claims of

“interactive computer services” by barring courts from treating service providers like Facebook as the publishers or speakers of speech created by others.

“We will appeal and challenge the decision of Judge Koh, which is just an extension of Facebook action of blocking SFJ’s page at the behest of the Indian government,” alleged attorney Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, legal adviser to SFJ. In its lawsuit, SFJ claimed that Facebook blocked its page because of its outspoken campaign against government’s

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to take two month-paternity leave

San Francisco Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday he will take two months of paternity leave after his daughter’s birth, a strong statement from one of

employers it surveyed offered paid maternity leave, and 17% provided paid paternity leave.

“This is a very personal decision,” Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page, along with a

picture of a stroller, a yellow baby carrier and his dog, Beast.

“Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families.”

Zuckerberg, 31, did not say who would be running the company while he is out. Facebook did not immediately respond to an inquiry. It is likely that chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who oversees all of Facebook’s advertising, will assume leadership. Zuckerberg largely oversees products, but will likely rely on chief product officer Chris Cox while he is out.

Zuckerberg’s decision is unusual among high-level tech executives, especially men.

Yahoo Inc CEO Marissa Mayer took two weeks off after her first child’s birth in 2012, and when she announced she was pregnant with identical twin girls

Indian-origin student awarded presidential scholarship in US

in September, she said she would be taking limited maternity leave and “working throughout”.

Zuckerberg’s post generated more than 50,000 ‘likes’ in one hour and nearly 3,000 comments. Many of the comments lauded his decision and said it sent a positive message about US parental leave policies.

Bobby Jindal mocked

by Indian-American comedian on TV show

the busiest and most powerful US executives on the importance of family time.Silicon Valley technology firms have rushed to extend parental leave allowances and other benefits in an attempt to recruit and retain talent, but many workers do not take advantage for fear of falling behind at work or missing out on promotions.

Facebook, the world’s biggest online social network, allows its US employees to take up to four months of paid maternity or paternity leave, which can be used all at once or throughout the first year of their child’s life - a policy considered generous

by US standards.

Zuckerberg announced in July that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were expecting a baby girl. A 2015 study by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 21% of

alleged persecution of Sikhs and advocating for Sikh referendum in the Indian state of Punjab.

“Facebook is an American corporation and owes allegiance to US Constitution which promotes and protects free speech content and not accede to threats of foreign governments but Judge Koh’s ruling failed to cover any of the allegations of SFJ,” he said.

‘DEMOCRACY OR DICTATORSHIP?’ “If Facebook is a public company making billions of dollars in public money and they don’t want to give any explanation for why they blocked the content of a human rights group, then what is the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship?” he asked.

In a statement, Pannun said Judge Koh should have at least ordered that the social media giant give SFJ an explanation as to who ordered the take down.

“Facebook owes an explanation to its users after or before blocking and removing the content which is guaranteed under freedom of speech,” he said.

WASHINGTON Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who has suspended his White House run, was mocked on popular TV shows this week by Indian-American comedian Aziz Ansari, saying he has already picked a 2020 Presidential campaign slogan “Thaw It Out.” “This is crazy! I’ve never been invited back to a TV show before!” Indian-origin comedian Aziz Ansari said on the popular “The Tonight Show” as he mocked himself as Jindal.

Ansari-as-Jindal clarified that he has only suspended his campaign, in much the same way that Han Solo was frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back, AV Club entertainment website reported.

NEW YORK An Indian-origin student has been awarded a presidential scholarship in a US college for outstanding academic merit and an exceptional commitment to the field of culinary arts. Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago awarded Aashrit Abhinav Sundar the scholarship recently following a final interview with college president, Emily Williams Knight, a news release said. “Throughout his life, Aashrit has demonstrated a passion for the hospitality and culinary industry and a drive to build a remarkable career in the field of baking and pastry,” Knight said.

“Having completed his hospitality management degree in India, Aashrit now wants to take his love for baking and pastry and attend one of the best programmes in the US,” she added. Sundar began classes at the institution in October 2015 and is pursuing an “Associate of Applied Science in Baking and Pastry”. The scholarship will cover 50 per cent of the programme’s total cost. “Aashrit

is confident, driven, and passionate about his field of study,” Knight noted. “It is clear that he is a leader and he is an example of the type of student that will thrive and lead the industry in the future.” The US Presidential Scholars Program is a programme of the department of education that recognizes the academic achievements of distinguished US citizens graduating high school. It is described as “one of the nation’s highest honours for high school students” in the US. In Kendell College, the presidential scholarship is awarded each academic term to one international student who demonstrates superior academic achievement and passion for their area of study.

Kendall College, founded in 1934 and located in Chicago, Illinois, offers undergraduate degrees in business, culinary arts, early childhood education and hospitality management to a diverse and passionate community of more than 1,800 students.

Issue - 642 (33)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

In a first, Islamic State, Lashkar-e-Taiba trade barbs over Kashmir New Delhi The global terror outfit, Islamic State, has dubbed the Pakistani Army as “apostate” and mocked the al-Qaeda’s support to militancy in Kashmir which it said was controlled by the military establishment in the neighbouring country.

The IS’ scathing attack came just days after it staged a bloody carnage in Paris which underlined the outfit’s capability to strike deep at the heart of Europe.

“In India, they (al-Qaeda) are the allies of the nationalist Kashmir factions whose advances and withdrawals are only by the order of the apostate Pakistani army,” an article in the IS mouthpiece Dabiq said in one of the harshest criticism of the al-Qaeda’s role in Khorasan, a region that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and parts of northwestern and western India.

Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba issued a statement on Saturday denouncing the Islamic State as “a product of anti-Islamic Western countries” and said it had no role and space in Jammu

and Kashmir.

“Kashmiris don’t want aid and support from an external group.

They are capable enough to fight against the Indian aggression themselves,” LeT spokesperson

The IS’ black flag has also appeared during anti-India demonstrations in Kashmir in recent times.

Ajai Sahni, an expert on terrorism, said the IS statement

So it is also a move to garner more members and support,” Sahni said.

He added that since the IS itself is a breakaway group of the alQaeda, once led by slain terror

Dr Abdullah Ghaznavi told a Srinagar-based news agency.

Though the IS has had limited presence in India till now, security agencies estimate that around two dozen people from the country have joined the outfit in Syria and Iraq.

was significant.

“IS is trying to expose both the al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Army. It is sending a message to its potential recruits in the subcontinent that only (the) IS follows the true path of jihad, the others are mere opportunists.

mastermind Osama bin Laden, it has much information about the latter’s links in Kashmir.

A top Indian counter-terror official said on condition of anonymity that the IS comment was “an open admission of what has been suspected all

along.”

The IS mouthpiece a glossy magazine into its twelfth edition now draws its name from the name of a place in Syria which is prophesised to be the setting for one of the final battles leading to an apocalypse.

The latest issue displays pictures from the Paris carnage as well as a photograph of an IED-fitted into a can of Schweppes Gold pineapple juicethat apparently brought down a Russian Metrojet airliner over the Sinai peninsula in Egypt on October 31, killing all 224 people on board.

At one place, the IS boasts of how “eight knights brought Paris down on its knees”.

27-year-old Belgian citizen Abdelhamid Abaaoud the man alleged to be the mastermind of the November 2 attacks in Paris had appeared in a three-page interview in the seventh edition of the magazine in February.

In January, IS spokesperson Abu Mohammad al-Adnani had announced the setting up of the Khorasan province under the leadership of a former Tehreeki-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader.

When you’re named Isis for the goddess, not the terror group Indian-American judge receives public service award NEW YORK An Indian-American woman judge here has become the first recipient of a US public service award in recognition of her contributions in the field of law.

Queens Senior Assistant District Attorney and newly elected Civil Court Judge Ushir Pandit-Durant was honoured with the ‘South Asian Public Service Award’ by the Office of Immigrant Affairs under Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. The award was given to Pandit-Durant coinciding with the commemoration of Diwali by the office of the Queens District Attorney. “It is fitting that Senior Assistant District Attorney and Judge-Elect Pandit-Durant to be the first recipient of our office’s South Asian Public Service Award as she personifies the determination, strength and vitality of the Indian heritage,” Brown said in a statement.

Pandit-Durant and her family emigrated from India to the US when she was 10 and “went on to excel at school and in her legal career,” he said. Earlier this month she became the first South Asian-American elected to a judgeship in Queens

County. In presenting the award, Brown said, “Diversity is one of America’s greatest strengths. Leadership comes in all races and ethnicities...It is important in public service to have a diversity which reflects the makeup of the community that we serve. It helps to enhance credibility, confidence and trust and better serve our community.” Pandit-Durant attended New York Law School and in 1987 joined the Queens District Attorney’s Office.

Following assignments in the Criminal Court and Supreme Court bureaus, Pandit-Durant was transferred to the Special Victims Bureau, where she investigated and tried difficult cases with the most vulnerable victims, the statement said. A 15-year veteran appellate attorney, Pandit-Durant was elected to the New York City Civil Court and in January next year she will join the honored ranks of the judiciary. “With her diverse experience, strong work and moral ethics, and her indomitable spirit and compassion, Pandit-Durant will make a distinguished addition to the bench,” the statement said.

London A woman’s Facebook account was disabled. A bookstore was vandalized. And one company, moved by the attacks on Paris, just doesn’t want the association anymore.While the name Isis has become synonymous with a terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, it is also the name of a well-known Egyptian goddess.Many women are named Isis, including 396 babies born in the United States last year. For the world’s many Isises, each act of horror carried out by the Islamic State has been accompanied by the unsettling and repeated use of their name in news reports. An online petitioner has even gathered almost 57,000 supporters to call on the media to stop using the acronym. “I named my daughter Isis because it’s strong and meaningful,” wrote one commenter on the petition, Shani Allman of Florida. “To have it degraded and have her jeopardized by the media’s insensitivity is completely disturbing.” A woman in Britain wrote that her 7-year-old daughter, who was named after the goddess, went to bed crying “because people were being horrible to her about her name.” Companies called Isis have been forced to confront how attached they are to the name. Isis was once the name of a mobile payment technology and a new condo building in Florida. They both changed their names last year.

Isis Pharmaceuticals, a California biotech company founded in 1989, told CNN it is now discussing the same move.

Part of the River Thames in Britain remains known by the name, as does a feminist club at Fordham University and the Labrador in “Downton Abbey.”

The dog has been killed off from the show though not because of its name. (Fans of comics and 1970s television may recall it as the name of a superhero.)

On Tuesday, Isis Books & Gifts, a Colorado store that was vandalized this week, pleaded in a Facebook post: “Please help us educate the media and your family and friends to call the terrorists by a more correct name Daesh not Islamic State, not ISIS, not ISIL.” The term Daesh also sometimes referred to as Da’ish has been used by officials in France since last year.

It’s an acronym of the group’s Arabic name, but it’s also favored by many people because it sounds like another Arabic word, daes, which is

used as an insult. The White House most often uses ISIL to refer to the militants. It stands for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Both ISIS and ISIL are often shortened to just the Islamic State, and all of those names anger many Muslims who disapprove of the word Islam being in the name, and because it implies the group is a state. But it’s the ISIS acronym that seems to be causing the most problems for like-named people and organizations, with the Paris attacks now forcing them to face the issue anew. For Isis Pharmaceuticals, a name change was not in consideration as recently as last year. But a company spokesman told CBS News this week that the tragedy “weighed heavily on us, and we don’t want to have that association.”

Isis Anchalee, a platform engineer based in San Francisco, suggested Tuesday on Twitter that Facebook had frozen her account because of her name.

Issue - 642 (34)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Blood money reform to see Pakistanis get away with murder no more Islamabad Pakistan is set to reform its controversial Islamic blood money laws that allow murderers to escape punishment if they are forgiven by their victim’s heirs, a senior official told AFP Thursday.

Critics contend that the law, which was passed in 1990, allows the wealthy and the powerful to walk scot-free from homicide convictions either by intimidating their victim’s loved ones, making them a financial offer that they cannot refuse, or both.The Qisas (retribution) and Diyat (blood money) law was famously invoked in the case of Raymond Allen Davis, a CIA contractor who shot two men dead in the eastern city of Lahore in 2011.

The incident sparked a diplomatic furore which was only resolved when Davis was pardoned in return for a $2.4 million settlement with the men’s families.The 2012 killing of 20year-old Karachi student Shahzeb Khan by two young men who belonged to powerful political families also drew national outrage after Khan’s parents pardoned the killers, reportedly due to threats.

The laws have perhaps been most abused in the case of honour killings, where a male murders a female relative then is

pardoned by family members.

Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family “honour”.

The most high-profile case recently involved a woman who was bludgeoned to death in Lahore for marrying against her family’s wishes.

The woman’s h u s b a n d admitted a few days after

her death that he had strangled his first wife and was spared jail under the blood money laws.

Under the proposed reforms, a pardon can only be granted if a murderer has been convicted, according to Ashtar Ausaf Ali, the special assistant to the prime minister on legal affairs.

And a convicted murderer will have to face a minimum of seven years in prison, even if they are pardoned by their victim’s relatives and avoid the death penalty, Ali said.

“This law has been abused,” he told AFP. “This abuse was to the degree that influential and rich

Pak factory gutted after riots over ‘blasphemy’

Islamabad Riots broke out in the military cantonment town of Jhelum in Pakistan when a mob attacked an Ahmadi mosque and earlier a chipboard factory and burnt it to the ground on suspicion that one of the workers inside, belonging to the Ahmadiyya community, had committed blasphemy.

The Ahmadiyya community, an offshoot of Islam, remains under attack in Pakistan over its beliefs its followers continue to remain under threat.

On Saturday, an Ahmadi place of worship was attacked by a mob one day after another group

of people had burnt down a factory owned by members of the Ahmadiyya community in the same area after one of its employees was accused of committing blasphemy.

Hundreds of people surrounded a chipboard factory and set the facility ablaze after reports surfaced that one employee had allegedly desecrated the Holy Quran. Police claimed to have arrested a member of the Ahmadiyya community on Friday night. An FIR was registered against the accused under blasphemy charges after locals accused him of burning pages of the Quran.

people would get away with murder, literally.”

‘Forgiveness is with God’ Furthermore, a murder convict must have confessed to his crime before a trial has taken place in order to be eligible to seek such a pardon; or have been convicted on the basis of the eye-witness testimony of two upstanding Muslim men -- a condition that is unlikely to be fulfilled in reality.

According to Ali, a pardon would no longer be enough to avert a prison term.

“Forgiveness is with God. To safeguard the rights of a person is the obligation of the state.”

The proposed changes are likely to be tabled in parliament next month and have also received the blessing of prominent Islamic scholars, Ali added.

According to “The application of Islamic criminal law in Pakistan” by scholar Tahir Wasti, Pakistan’s murder conviction rate dramatically declined from 29% in 1990 to just 12 percent in 2000 after the enactment of the Qisas and Diyat law.

The percentage of cases that were cancelled before they were brought to court meanwhile more than doubled in the same period as police “availed the loopholes in the new law”.

Russia gives France puppy to replace dog killed in Paris raids Moscow Russia has offered to send an Alsatian puppy to France in a gesture of solidarity after a police dog was killed during a raid on jihadists linked to the Paris attacks.

Russia’s interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said he had written to his French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve offering to send a puppy named Dobrynya to replace Diesel, a Belgian Shepherd killed in a huge raid north of Paris last Wednesday.

Kolokoltsev said that as “a sign of solidarity with the people and police of France,” he was offering the puppy, which “will be able to occupy the place in service of the police dog Diesel killed during a special operation to neutralise terrorists.”

The dog is named after a hero of Russian folk legend, Dobrynya Nikitch, famed for his strength, goodness and courage, he added.

The ministry late on Saturday posted pictures of the small fluffy puppy and a video of him playing with a ball, which can be viewed here .

The puppy was also shown on state television on Sunday.

Dobrynya is two months old and lives at a police dog centre in the Moscow region, Channel One television reported. He will have to undergo medical checks and

quarantine before going to France.

Two dog-handlers from Moscow police’s special forces also posed

with their dogs and signs with the hashtag “Je Suis Diesel” on the service’s Instagram account.

“Our four-legged friends also serve the police, protecting society from terrorist threats,” the Moscow police service said.

The hashtag #JeSuisChien (I am a dog) trended on Twitter after French police announced that seven-year-old Diesel died in the raid targeting Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Three people died during the massive operation at the apartment in Saint-Denis north of Paris - Abaaoud, his cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen, and a suicide bomber who has yet to be identified.

Pakistan director of Paris video ‘humbled’ by viral response ISLAMABAD The Pakistani director behind a video response to the Paris attacks that has received millions of views is “humbled” by the response, he told AFP. “To Paris from Pakistan” featured five young Pakistani comedians vowing solidarity with France and refusing as Muslims to apologise for the actions of “a few deranged individuals who somehow claim to be like us”.

It had been viewed more than 3.5 million times on Facebook

by Friday morning. “It is absolutely humbling to get messages from people in Europe who tell us that their views changed after watching the video since they had never been introduced to a Muslim or Pakistani before,” Syed Muzamil Hasan Zaidi, the 25year-old director of the LolzStudios Team video, told AFP late Thursday. “We really feel great about getting our message across so many people in the world.” Zaidi said the video was the work of 10 digital artist friends who studied computer science

together. They have made videos about other things they feel strongly about: including the Peshawar school massacre, Pakistan’s deadliest ever

at an army-run school in the northwestern city in December last year, in the video.

“We actually are one of the few nations who completely

extremist attack; the 2013 parliamentary elections, and a video they made in 2012 called “22 random acts of kindness” which has been viewed on YouTube more than 400,000 times.The comedians cite the Peshawar attack, in which Taliban gunmen coldly slaughtered more than 150 people, including 125 children,

understand what you guys are going through,” they say, noting statistics that show Muslims are the biggest victims of terrorism worldwide. The group also said it was “easy” to blame Muslim refugees coming to Europe: “But you have to understand that they are running away from the same people who are carrying out these attacks”.

Issue 642 (35)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

ICC eye cricket inclusion in Olympics

Cricket’s administrative body said that after a positive meeting with the officials of the International Olympic Committee it will explore ways to remove hurdles for the sport’s inclusion at the summer games. The sport’s shortest format Twenty20 cricket has already been a part of the last two editions of Asian Games in Guangzhou (China 2010) and Incheon (South Korea 2014) but efforts to be included in the Olympic programme are far from being finalised. David Richardson, the chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC), and Geoff Allardice, the general manager recently met Thomas Bach, the IOC chief, in Lausanne, Switzerland to discuss cricket’s inclusion at the Summer Olympics. “We met the IOC

president and we have really explored the possibilities, at least we are talking, and we are open to the opportunity if it’s worthwhile to include cricket in Olympics,” Richardson told BBC radio on Sunday (November 22). Richardson said it wasn’t easy to get the nod. “If the ICC is committed then we have to overcome the hurdle of the IOC accepting cricket because there are a lot of other sports that want inclusion in the 2024 Olympics,” said Richardson. “But it’s not as simple as that and there are lot of issues that you need to consider and the Olympics might not want cricket, they don’t want second rate teams and they don’t want Micky Mouse format, they want our major format, the Twenty20,” said Richardson.

Sri Lanka likely neutral venue for India-Pakistan cricket series Sri Lanka has emerged as the likely venue for the much-awaited India-Pakistan bilateral cricket series, with an official announcement likely to be made on November 27.

While the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made it clear that they will not play in the United Arab Emirates and with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) refusing to play in India, the only feasible option left was the island nation, which will act as the neutral venue.

With only a month’s window available after India finish their Test Series against South Africa on December 7, the series is likely to be confined to three ODIs and two Twenty20 Internationals instead of the original two Tests, five ODIs and two T20 Internationals, according to top BCCI sources.

The proceedings had been fast-tracked once BCCI president and current ICC chairman Shashank Manohar met PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan and senior official Najam Sethi in Dubai in presence of ECB supremo and chairman of ‘Pakistan Task

Murali Vijay hopes for a Jamtha special Murali Vijay is back where it all began. It was at Jamtha, seven years ago, that he started his journey as Test opener. It wasn’t a call-up Vijay was expecting at that time.

Gautam Gambhir was serving a onematch ban and Team India desperately needed a solid opener against the Aussies in the last game of the 2008 series. A double hundred against Maharashtra in a Ranji game prompted the selectors to pluck the 24-yearold from the domestic scene. From being a stopgap arrangement, the Tamil

Nadu opener has come a long way. With good performances over the last couple of seasons, Vijay has now cemented his place in the team.

“This ground means a lot to me because I made my debut. It is a special feel-

ing to come to this dressing room. It is always nice to come here. I am looking forward to a good game,” Vijay said ahead of the third Test.

Apart from making his debut, Vijay has enough exploits at Jamtha to feel special here. In 2009, playing for Rest of India, the right-hand batsman scored 91 against Mumbai. The same year, he scored a century in the Challenger Trophy to extend his magnificent run. He also has two Ranji half-centuries here.

Force’ Giles Clarke.

Without divulging any details, both Sethi and Khan had said yesterday that the meeting with Manohar was

again come back to Dubai and intimate his decision to Clarke. Clarke is likely to officially announce the series on November 27,”

ing monsoon has hit the island nation badly, the weather forecast for the last part of December looks good.

“fruitful” giving an indication that the deadlock on the marquee series was broken.

“Since PCB will need the permission of Nawaz Sharif before going official, Shaharyar Khan will need to go back to Islamabad and seek the Prime Minister’s permission.

Once he gets the green light from the PM, he will

the source told PTI on Monday.

It has been learnt that Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has been approached by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and they seem to be keen to host the series.

The two stadiums earmarked for the series are Khettarama (R Premadasa Stadium) and Pallekele (Kandy). While the reced-

While some T20 matches are scheduled at the Khettarama, the SLC will reschedule them at the first notice, once the official announcement is made.

This will be the first time that a Test playing nation has rejected playing a series in the UAE since it became Pakistan’s adopted home after the 2009 Lahore attacks.

I thought I was going to die says Sepp Blatter Suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter revealed Sunday that he feared he was dying during a recent health scare.

The 79-year-old, who has been banned for 90 days as the ongoing probe into widespread corruption at football’s world governing body, was hospitalised earlier this month suffering from stress.

“I was close to dying.

I was between the angels who were singing and the devil who was lighting the fire, but it was the angels who sang,” Blatter told Swiss broadcaster RTS in an interview to be aired on Wednesday. “The pressure was enormous. At some stage the body just says ‘no’, ‘enough is enough’. But if you are strong psychologically

you can resist.”

In September, Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal case against Blatter over mismanagement and a suspicious $2

is an agreement...even in the FIFA regulations that a contract can be made either in writing or orally.

It is an oral contract, a contract of work.” The

million payment made in 2011 to European football chief Michel Platini, who is also serving a 90-day ban. But in excerpts from Wednesday’s interview which were released to the media on Sunday, Blatter hailed Platini as an “honest man”. “There

payment made to Platini in 2011 was reportedly for work the Frenchman carried out a decade earlier.

Despite his suspension, Platini is still in the running to succeed Blatter as FIFA president when the election is held in February.

Issue 642 (36)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Syria war linked to climate Rare rhino dies in US, change says Prince Charles three remain worldwide LOS ANGELES A northern white rhinoceros, one of just four left on Earth, has died at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park after suffering from a bacterial infection and agerelated health issues, zoo officials said.

Nola, a 41-year-old rhino brought to the Southern California park in 1989 as part of a breeding program, took a turn for the worse over the weekend following a Nov. 13 surgical procedure to drain a large pelvic abscess identified as the infection

source, the zoo said in a statement.

The 4,000-pound (1,800kg) rhino had been placed under constant veterinary watch last week as her appetite and activity levels declined. After her condition deteriorated signifi-

cantly, caretakers decided to euthanize the animal, zoo officials said.

"Nola was an iconic animal, not only at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, but worldwide," the zoo said.

"Through the years, millions of people learned about Nola and the plight

of rhinos in the wild through visits to the Safari Park, numerous media stories and social media posts."

Her gentle disposition and affinity for having her back scratched made her a favorite of zoo staff.

Northern white rhinos were declared extinct in the wild in 2008 because of poaching for their horns, prized on the black market for their supposed medicinal properties in some cultures.

Nola was the only member of her kind left in captivity in the Western Hemisphere.

With her death, just three others remain, all at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, zoo officials said.

Nola was born in the wild in Sudan and captured at about 2 years of age, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. She arrived in California from a Czech zoo.

LONDON Britain's Prince Charles, who is to give a speech at the start of the UN climate summit in Paris next week, said in an interview out on Monday that the war in Syria could be linked to global warming.

"There's very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria, funnily enough, was a drought that lasted for about five or six years," Charles told SkyNews.

He said the drought meant that "huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land".

"Some of us were saying 20 years ago that if we didn't tackle these issues, you would see ever greater conflict over scarce resources," he said.

Charles also said there was "a real possibility of nature's bank going bust" - just as financial giants did

in the 2008 crisis - and warned a deal on cutting emissions would be "very difficult". "Do we really have to face catastrophes and chaos before we under-

stand that real action needs to be taken?" said the 67-year-old heir to the throne, a longtime staunch defender of the environment. Charles referred back to the Copenhagen summit which he attended in 2009, the last time countries sought to craft a universal climate pact and failed. "That really ended in

disaster, frankly, which is a total tragedy because we've lost all those years in between. There's a lot to catch up on," he said. He also underlined the importance of checking up on action being taken by countries after the summit.

"After the conference, it's going to be very difficult I think to get agreement on the necessary reductions and the necessary actions that need to be taken to keep global warming at two degrees, or ideally below. "So we then have to follow up, this is the key, and ratchet up the commitments after the Paris conference," he said. Still reeling from the worst terrorist attacks in French history, Paris will host nearly 140 world leaders gathering next week to spearhead a climate pact tasked with keeping Earth liveable for humanity.

Issue 642 (37)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Health Cocaine vaccine soon to help kick the habit

A team of US scientists has developed a new approach that can help addicts kick the habit with a vaccine in near future.

In lab tests on mice, the approach harnessed a

bacterial protein to trigger an immune system attack on the drug if it enters the body.

“This response could dull cocaine’s psychotropic effects and potentially help users quit,” said Kim

D. Janda, professor at The Scripps Research Institute in the US. For the study, the researchers took a safe bacterial protein called flagellin that has already been incorporated in

other vaccines and modified it to boost the immune response to cocaine.

They tested the compound in mice and found that it worked better than a vaccine candidate they had developed in their decades-long search for vaccines against drugs of abuse. A number of therapies are available to help drug abusers quit but addiction is extremely tough to beat. So some scientists are working on vaccines to neutralize the high-inducing effects of recreational drugs.

Though vaccines are normally associated with fighting bacterial or viral infections, they can also be designed to recruit the body’s immune system to recognize non-microbial substances such as drugs. The new strategy opens up a new avenue for designing vaccines against drugs of abuse, the authors concluded.

The paper appeared in the ACS journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

Couples more likely to get healthy together

Quitting smoking, losing weight andgetting active are easier if your partner makes the change as well, a new study has found.

Scientists at University College London looked at how likely people were to quit smoking, start being active, or lose weight in relation to what their partner did.

They found that people are more successful in taking up healthy habits if their partner makes positive changes too.

Among women who

smoked, 50 per cent managed to quit if their partner gave up smoking too at the same time, compared with 17 per cent of women whose partners were already nonsmokers, and eight per cent of those whose partners were regular smokers.

The study found that men were equally affected by their partners and were more likely to quit smoking, get active, or lose weight if their partner made the same behaviour change.

Enhance your memory with Prostate cancer patients can benefit from Yoga just one gram of turmeric daily Now you can enhance your memory by just adding a gram of turmeric to your breakfast daily. According to a new study,turmeric could help improve the memory of people who are in the early stages of diabetes and at risk of developing cognitive impairment.

Professor Mark Wahlqvist from the Monash Asia Institute at the Melbourne-based Monash University conducted the the study in which they tested the working memory of men and women, aged 60 or more, who had recently been diagnosed with untreated pre-diabetes in Taiwan.

Working memory is widely thought to be one of the most important mental faculties, critical for cognitive abilities such as planning, problem solving and reasoning.

In the placebo-controlled study, subjects were given one gram of turmeric with an otherwise nutritionally bland breakfast of white bread and their working memory was tested before and some hours after the meal.

“We found that this modest addition of turmeric to breakfast improved working memory over six hours in older people with pre-diabetes,” professor Wahlqvist added.

A new study has revealed that men with prostate cancer who are undergoing radiation therapy can benefit from practicing yoga.

Lead author Neha Vapiwala of the Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center found that general quality of life and measurements of side effects often experienced by prostate cancer patients like fatigue, sexual health, and urinary incontinence, were stable throughout a course of outpatient radiation therapy among the men participating in an intensive yoga program.

Vapiwala said that the possible explanation for the benefits of yoga seen in the study stems from physiologic data demonstrating its ability to help reduce cancer- as well as treatment- related fatigue and to strengthen pelvic floor muscles and increase blood flow.

She said that there might also be a psychosocial benefit that derives from participation in a group fitness activity that incorporates meditation and promotes overall healthiness.

Researchers found that a

were identified and offered study participation, of which 45 consented (66 percent) to attend twiceweekly yoga classes of 75 minutes each.

Most yoga participants reported a sense of wellbeing at the end of each

demonstrated significant variability over the time of treatment, with increases by week four as expected, but then improving over the course of treatment.

Erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, and general quality of life

structured yoga intervention in the form of twice-weekly classes was feasible for patients during a six- to nine-week course of outpatient radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

In the study, 68 eligible prostate cancer patients

class, and upon finishing the yoga program and concluding their study involvement, many patients requested and received an at-home practice routine to fit their needs.

Severity of fatigue scores

scores demonstrated steady trends.

Vapiwala said that yoga helped in enhancing quality of life, minimise or reduce side effects of cancer and cancer treatment, and promote healing and recovery.

Issue 642 (38)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

Three-five cups of coffee Know how walking can help! daily lowers early death risk Three to five cups of coffee a day may lower the risk of dying prematurely from some illnesses than those

who do not drink or drink less coffee, new research suggests.

The researchers from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that drinkers of both caffeinated and

decaffeinated coffee saw benefits, including a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease,

neurological diseases, Type 2 diabetes and suicide.

“Bioactive compounds in coffee reduce insulin resistance and systematic inflammation,” said first author and doctoral

Closing your eyes can help you remember

Can’t remember that important password? Try closing your eyes! Closing your eyes when trying to recall events increases the chances of accuracy, a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of Surrey in UK have found further evidence to suggest that eyewitnesses to crimes remember more accurate details when they close their eyes.

The team also discovered that building a rapport with witnesses helped them to remember more.

As many as 178 participants took part across two studies. In the first experiment, participants watched a film depicting an electrician entering a property, carrying out jobs and stealing items. Each participant was then randomly assigned one of four conditions, either eyes

closed or open, and having built up a rapport with the interviewer or not. They were then asked a series of questions about the film, such as ‘what was written on the front of the van?’

The team found that closing their eyes led participants to answer 23 per cent more of the questions correctly.

Building rapport also increased the number of correct answers, however, closing their eyes was effective regardless of whether rapport had been built or not.

The second experiment took the memory task one step further, by asking witnesses about things they had heard, as well as things they had seen.

This time, participants watched a clip from Crimewatch, showing a reconstruction of a burglary where an elderly man was attacked in his home.

student Ming Ding.

Researchers analysed health data gathered from participants in three large

ongoing studies.

Coffee drinking was assessed using validated food questionnaires every four years over about 30 years.

During the study period, 19,524 women and 12,432 men died from a range of causes.

In the whole study population, moderate

coffee consumption was associated with reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and suicide.

Coffee consumption was not associated with cancer deaths.

The analyses took into consideration potential confounding factors such as smoking, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and other dietary factors.

“This study provides further evidence that moderate consumption of coffee may confer health benefits in terms of reducing premature death due to several diseases,” said senior author Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology.

However, more studies are needed to investigate the biological mechanisms producing these effects, the authors noted in a paper that appeared online in the journal Circulation.

Walking is a low-impact form of exercise, which helps in order to stay fit and improves health. It helps you to lose the excess body fat, improves your fitness and helps in

stress-free for the elderly people. Here are some health benefits of walking: Reduces heart risk Walking regularly is good for health, as it reduces the risk of heart disease

avoiding diseases affecting the heart, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and some form of cancers.

One doesn’t need to vigorously work-out for a longer period to stay healthy.

Just 30 minutes of brisk walk everyday is sufficient enough to improve your fitness. Walking is easy, free and suitable for people of all ages. It’s also a great form of physical activity for those who are overweight and is equally

and stroke. Brisk walk for up to 30 minutes can help prevent and control high blood pressure that can cause strokes – reducing your risk by up to 27 per cent.

Lowers disease risk Walking habit can s l a s h y o u r risk of developing diseases like type 2 diabetes, asthma and cancers. Regular exercise such as walking could reduce risk by up to 60 per cent.

Raisin can predict your baby’s academic future Want to predict your baby’s future academic ability? Give him a raisin.

A team of researchers has developed a simple raisin test to forecast a child’s attention and learning capacity. The simple test can predict how well a toddler will perform academically at age eight, according to the University of Warwick research.

Using just the piece of dried fruit and a plastic cup they have devised a test based on how long a 20month old child can wait to pick up a raisin in front of them. The toddlers were given a raisin that was placed under an opaque cup within easy reach.

After three training runs toddlers were asked to wait until they were told (60 seconds) they could touch

and eat the raisin. During the study it was found that those who were born very prematurely were more likely to take the raisin before the allotted time.

In a follow on study, the academics found that those who couldn’t inhibit

their behavior as toddlers weren’t performing as well in school as their full-term peers seven years later.

Senior author Dieter Wolke said that an easy, fiveminute raisin game task represents a promising new tool for follow-up

assessments to predict attention regulation and learning in preterm and term born children. The results also point to potential innovative avenues to early intervention after preterm birth.

Prevents cancer: The fruit is rich in citrus limonoids which helps to fight off

varieties of cancer including that of the skin, lung, breast, stomach and colon.

Prevents stomach ulcers: Oranges help to prevent stomach ulcers as it is a very good source of fibre. It also helps keep your stomach and intestines healthy.

Lowers cholesterol: The

fruit helps in lowering the cholesterol level as it is full of soluble fiber.

Good for digestion: Orange is good for digestion as it is full of dietary fibre which stimulates digestive juices and relieves constipation.

Prevents kidney diseases: One should drink orange juice regularly as it prevents kidney diseases and reduces the risk of kidney stones.

Know why orange is good for health!

Who doesn’t love oranges?

Well, it is one fruit which everyone loves to eat even in the cold winter season.

Oranges are one of the most popular fruits around the world packed with immense health benefits.

The fruit is juicy and also boosts up your energy level.

Here are some benefits of the fruit which we should know:

Issue 642 (39)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015

YIN YANG CRAB SOUP

SHRIMP CHORIZO Ingredients: 2 tbsp. dried Mexican oregano 2 tsp. coriander seeds 2 tsp. whole black peppercorns 2 bay leaves 2 whole cloves 1 cinnamon stick 10 cloves garlic 10 guajillo chiles, stemmed and seeded 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 2 tbsp. granulated sugar 1 tbsp. kosher salt 1 egg white 20 oz. peeled and deveined shrimp (about 40), minced Instructions: Heat a medium skillet over medium-high; toast oregano, coriander, peppercorns, bay leaves, cloves, and cinnamon until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer to a spice grinder and pulse into a fine powder.

Heat skillet over medium and cook garlic

and chiles, turning as needed, until blackened in spots, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and transfer chiles to a bowl; cover with boiling water and soak for 30 minutes. Peel garlic and transfer cloves to a food processor along with spice powder, cream, sugar, salt, and egg white. Drain chiles, discarding liquid, and add to food processor; purée until smooth. Transfer mixture to a bowl with shrimp and mix until combined.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH PEPE SOUP Ingredients: 2 tbsp. red palm oil or vegetable oil, plus more for drizzling 1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped 2 vine-ripe tomatoes, cored, peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped 1 Scotch bonnet or habanero chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced 4 cups chicken stock 1 (2 1/2-lb.) butternut squash, peeled, halved, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Freshly grated nutmeg Instructions: In a large saucepan, heat the palm oil over medium-high. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 8

1 lb. jumbo lump crab meat Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper Instructions: Melt butter in a 6-qt. saucepan over medium-high. Add the celery, carrots, and onion and cook, stirring, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add flour and Old Bay and cook 2 minutes more. Add the stock and tomatoes and cook 2 minutes. Add the potato and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes. Add the corn, peas, and green beans and cook 5 minutes. Stir in the crab, salt, and pepper, and cook until heated through, 4 to 5 minutes.

MANGO AND PUMPKIN SPICE CAKE

minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and chile and cook until the tomatoes break down slightly, 5 minutes. Pour in the stock and add the squash. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until the squash is tender, about 15 minutes.

Working in batches, transfer the soup to a blender and purée until smooth.

Return the soup to the saucepan and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Ladle the soup into bowls and drizzle with more palm oil before serving.

Ingredients: Unsalted butter, for greasing 2 3/4 cups (12 3/8 oz.) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 2 tsp. ground cinnamon 2 tsp. ground ginger 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. kosher salt 2 cups (14 oz.) sugar 1 cup canned or homemade pumpkin purée 1 cup vegetable oil 1 tsp. vanilla extract 4 large eggs 2 mangoes, peeled and pitted Confectioners' sugar, for dusting Instructions: Heat the oven to 325°. Grease and flour a 9-inch springform cake pan. In a large bowl, whisk the flour with the cinna-

mon, ginger, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, whisk the sugar with the pumpkin, oil, vanilla, and eggs until smooth. Cut half of one mango into 1/2-inch cubes and stir into the batter. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Cut the remaining 1 1/2 mangoes lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices and fan the slices over the top of the cake in a circle.

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 2 hours. Transfer the cake to a rack and let cool completely. Unmold the cake, transfer to a serving platter, and dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

MIXED MUSHROOM FOIL YAKI

PEPITA SAGE BRITTLE Ingredients: 4 tbsp. unsalted butter, plus more for greasing 2 1/4 cups plus 2 tbsp. (1 lb.) sugar 1/2 cup light corn syrup 2 tbsp. finely chopped sage 3/4 tsp. baking soda 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas) 1 tsp. flaky sea salt Instructions: Line a baking sheet with foil and grease. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar with the corn syrup and 1/4 cup water and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook, without stirring, until the syrup turns golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk the 4 tablespoons butter and the sage into the caramel. Immediately stir in

Ingredients: 8 tbsp. unsalted butter 2 ribs celery, diced 2 small carrots, diced 1 yellow onion, diced 2/3 cup flour 1 tbsp. Old Bay 4 cups homemade crab stock or seafood stock 1 (28-oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand 1 Idaho potato (about 12 ounces), peeled and cut into 1/4-inch pieces 1 1/2 cups half and half 1/2 cup frozen corn 1/2 cup frozen peas 1/2 cup green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

the baking soda, pour the foaming caramel onto the prepared baking sheet, and sprinkle with the pumpkin seeds and salt.

Let the brittle stand until cooled and hardened and then break into small pieces.

Ingredients: 2 tbsp. sake 2 tbsp. soy sauce 1 tbsp. white miso 4 oz. mixed mushrooms, such as shiitake, cremini, button, bunapi (2 cups) 1/2 small white onion, thinly sliced 1 1/2 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened Lemon wedges, for serving Instructions: Heat the oven to 450°. Fold a 24-by-12inch piece of foil in half to make a 12inch square. Using a small bowl, shape the foil to make a pouch. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sake, soy sauce and miso until smooth. Add the mushrooms, onion, and butter, and toss to combine. Transfer mushroom mixture to the foil pouch. Fold the edges of

the foil to close completely and twist at the top to seal. The foil should be tightly packed, resembling a Jiffy Pop. Place on a baking sheet and bake 30 minutes. Open the packet and serve immediately with lemon wedges.

Issue 642 (40)

24 Nov. - 30 Nov. 2015