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Punjabi Identity Is Badal’s Trump Card Against AAP No matter how hard they deny it, the Delhi chief minister is the top-of-the-mind concern for the Badals.

AMRITSAR With less than four months to go for polls, the embattled Badal family in Punjab is trying every trick possible to beat back the challenge from Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party. From propping up Congress leader Amrinder Singh as their main opponent - although the Gandhis haven’t yet declared him their choice for chief minister - to invoking Punjabiyat at a glittering golden jubilee celebration of Punjab Day, there’s a desperate effort to brand Kejriwal an “outsider’’ with subtle reminders of his Haryanvi roots.

It was BJP state president Vijay Sampla who let the cat out of the bag by unwittingly revealing the deep anxiety rocking the ruling alliance. In his speech at the Punjab Day function in Amritsar on November 1, he pleaded for a crushing defeat to “outsiders’’ who are trying to pull down Punjab and tarnish its image.

The function itself was a telling sign that the Badals are worried. A party insider mused that Punjab Day was celebrated for the first time ever although it is a red letter day in the history of the Akali Dal

which had led a tumultuous movement for the creation of a separate Sikh majority state. In 1966, Punjab, already wounded

by Partition, was further divided with the

Illegal Indian immigrants must return before flexibility on visa: British PM

New Delhi Britain can show more flexibility in offering visas to Indians if it becomes possible to send back those who have outstayed their welcome, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday, underlining continuing discontent over access to UK visas. On a visit to boost trade and investment with India after Brexit, May held open to wealthy Indians the door to her country but not wide enough for more students to access British universities or

professionals to find jobs there.

“The UK will consider further improvements to our visa offer if at the same time we can step up the speed and volume of returns of Indians with no right to remain,” May told reporters in New Delhi, referring to the launch of a separate strategic dialogue on home affairs. Earlier, May unveiled what her office called a “bespoke” fast-track visa service for rich Indians and their families and promised smoother border checks for all business travellers from India.

She made the pledge after talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who pushed for “greater mobility and participation of young people in education and research”. The two also agreed to set up a working group to explore deeper trade and investment.

But her reluctance to offer a more liberal visa system for students and professionals seeking work in Britain could wreck a trade deal with the European Union which has stalled because Continued on Page 4

creation of Hindu majority Haryana.

The popular storm kicked up by Kejriwal in Punjab is therefore truly ironic. The Badals are desperately trying to exploit

this irony and sharpen the battle into Punjab versus Haryana, or local versus outsider. The gala celebration was lavishly Continued on Page 4 embellished

SIDHU STILL HAS EVERYONE GUESSING IN PUNJAB Rajesh Singh Navjot Singh Sidhu has to make up his mind if he needs to remain relevant in politics. His new outfit, Awaaz-e-Punjab, has decided not to contest the 2017 Assembly election. He and his organisation, thus, have to align with a political party to be in circulation. Will it be the Congress, as is being strongly rumoured? Or will the former BJP Member of Parliament back the Aam Aadmi Party, with whom he has had a falling out?

One of Sidhu’s associates recently claimed that the AAP had offered him the Deputy Chief Minister’s post in case of victory. But it was stumped when the Awaaz-e-Punjab chief wanted to know the chief ministerial candidate under whom he would have to work.

The AAP does not have a face yet.

Speculations abound, with one theory even suggesting that Arvind Kejriwal could be the contender. It’s unlikely that Sidhu would have agreed had the AAP named someone like, say, Bhagwant Mann.

Sidhu will not face this problem were he to join hands with the Congress. Captain Amarinder Singh is the clear choice of

the party. Interestingly, stories have it that he has been offered a deputy chief ministership here too. The Congress has, of course, denied the speculation, claiming that Sidhu is welcome to the party without ‘preconditions’.

‘Without precondition’ is the best way to begin negotiations, but a successful end to such talks only happens when conditions of either side are met. Sidhu has from the start been saying that he does not hanker for power; his goal is Punjab’s development. But talks with the AAP broke down on precisely the modalities of sharing power, if power came after the election. If he is actively considering the prospect of backing the Congress, Continued on Page 4

Issue - 692 (2)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

CWC meet: Congress sets stage for Rahul Gandhi to take over from mother Sonia IN WHAT was clearly a choreographed move, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Monday set the stage for the elevation of Rahul Gandhi as party president, possibly within this month, by “unanimously” asking him to take up the mantle. It also decided to convey this “strong sentiment” to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi who stayed away from the meeting.

It was for the first time that the CWC has made such an appeal. “His elevation is now a foregone conclusion. It should happen anytime, even before November 30. There is complete unanimity on this in the party,” a senior Congress leader, who was present in the CWC meeting, told The Indian Express.

Some Congress leaders did not rule out the possibility of Rahul’s elevation by November 19, when the AICC kickstarts Indira Gandhi‘s birth centenary celebrations.

Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the CWC is “authorised” to appoint the party president according to its constitution and adhering to precedence in its 130-year history. “The CWC can meet again and decide even tomorrow,” said Surjewala, who heads the party’s communication department.

Asked about Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s

possible entry into active politics, Surjewala said, “We will cross the bridge when we reach there.” Monday’s CWC meeting appeared to be mostly following a script, said sources. Speaking after Rahul and former prime minister Manmohan Singh had delivered their opening remarks, senior leader A K Antony pointed to the speculation surrounding a change of guard and argued that it was high time the vicepresident was elevated, said sources.

Antony said the process had already been delayed and should not be any further, particularly to lead the fight against the BJP and the RSS, said sources. Antony’s line

was endorsed by former PM Singh and other leaders, including P Chidambaram, Ambika Soni and Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Sources said some members, including AICC general secretary Gurudas Kamat, wanted the CWC to immediately pass a resolution anointing Rahul as party chief.

But another senior CWC member Karan Singh intervened and said the transition should be done in a “graceful and methodical” manner, said sources.

“It is other matter though that the removal of Sitaram Kesri and appointment of Sonia Gandhi as Congress president 18 hours ago was neither graceful nor methodical,”

Australian public vote on samesex marriage defeated in Senate

The Australian government’s bid to give the nation a vote on same-sex marriage was defeated in the Senate on Tuesday. The Opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) and cross-bench parties the Greens, Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) and independent Senator Derryn Hinch combined to defeat the bill by 33 votes to 29, Xinhua news agency reported.

George Brandis, Australia’s Attorney-General and leader of the Liberal National Party (LNP) in the Senate, warned the ALP

and the cross-benchers opposing the plebiscite would delay same-sex marriage in Australia for years to come.

The ALP argued that the plebiscite, which is to going to be held in February 2017, will create a harmful debate against Australia’s gay and lesbian community. It campaigned for a free vote in Parliament instead.

The vote ends three years of public debate over the plebiscite which was first proposed by former LNP Prime Minister Tony Abbott and continued by his successor, current premier Malcolm Turnbull, who took the proposal as a key policy to July’s Federal Election.

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“Stop playing politics with gay people’s lives, because that is all you are doing,” Brandis told parliament before the vote was held.

“A vote against this bill is a vote against marriage equality.”

“And those who claim to believe in marriage equality, but nevertheless, for their own cynical, gameplaying reasons, are determined to vote against it, should hang their heads in shame.”

Penny Wong, leader of the ALP in the Senate, told Parliament that Labor opposed the plebiscite because “we did not want our families and our children denigrated.”

She said that those opposed to same-sex marriage “will stoop to any argument to prevent change”.

“We do not trust this prime minister to stand up for us, our children and for our community,” Wong said.

“We know their weakness in the face of prejudice.”

LNP Members of Parliament (MPs) said that the government would not re-visit same-sex marriage for the foreseeable future.

said a senior member who attended the meeting.

Sonia was absent from the meeting for unspecified reasons but party leaders said it could, perhaps, have been an intentional move. “The members could not have spoken their mind had she been there. It would also have given the impression that she wants her son to be elevated,” said a CWC member.

According to Surjewala, Rahul said that “whatever the Congress party and CWC would finally decide, he was ready to take on any such challenge”.

Antony said that since it was the “first time” that the CWC has made such an appeal, he was sure that the Congress president would give “due care and attention” to the proposal and take “follow up action”. “(The) members unanimously expressed their strong sentiment that respecting the wishes of crores of Congress workers and of well-wishers, Rahul Gandhi must take over presidentship of the Congress party.

It is high time that the Congress mobilise all forces to fight against the anti-people and dictatorial policy of the Modi government…. and also the RSS, Sangh parivar and BJP’s policy of communal polarisation and destructing peace and social harmony in the country,” Antony told reporters later.

US: Ohio man arrested for trying to fly to Libya and join Islamic State

An Ohio man accused of trying to join the Islamic State group has been arrested while attempting to fly to Libya, federal authorities said. Aaron Daniels, 20, was taken into custody on Monday at John Glenn Columbus International Airport after a monthslong investigation, said US Attorney Benjamin Glassman. A criminal complaint alleges Daniels told an undercover informant about his interest in traveling overseas to commit jihad. The complaint says Daniels wired $250 in January to a

Beirut intermediary for nowdeceased Islamic State recruiter and attacks planner Abu Isa Al-Amriki.

The complaint said at various times Daniels, who went by the aliases Harun Muhammad and Abu Yusuf, expressed interest in traveling to Afghanistan and Syria to wage war before settling on Libya. In June, Daniels told the undercover informant he wanted to go to Islamic State territory in Libya “so I could support the jihad there,” according to the complaint.

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Issue - 692 (3)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Parrikar clears defence deals worth ‘80k cr New Delhi DEFENCE Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday cleared deals worth over ‘80,000 crore for the armed forces as he gave a major push to Make in India defence projects, including the LCA fighter plane programme. As first reported by MAIL TODAY, the minister-led Defence Acquisition Council cleared the acquisition of 83 Light Combat Aircraft for the Air Force. The order is for Mark1A version of the plane, which would be quite advanced from the LCA Mark1, 40 of which are being delivered by the HAL to IAF. Another major deal to have been cleared was for acquiring 464 T-90MS tanks from Russia which would be built in Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi near Chennai, defence ministry sources said.

The 10 regiments of the tank would be deployed along the Pakistan border and would be equipped with advanced night sights and other night fighting equipment. The army was also given the

goahead to acquire six more regiments of Pinaka miltibarell. Rocket launchers would add solid muscle to army’s tactical firepower. The indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Helicopter was also approved by the all important meeting of the DAC with 15 of them to be procured initially by the IAF and army. The army would get 95 more of these choppers, once the initial ones prove themselves. The army would also get 498 mini drones for ‘1,100 crore, which would be a Make in India project involving foreign collaborators. The drones would improve situational awareness of troops in counter terrorist operations. The meeting also cleared the long-awaited blacklisting policyfor dealing with firms indulging in wrongdoings and corruption in acquisition process. The policy has been in the making for over two years and may projects were held up awaiting its finalisation.

Man kills 13 football fans after being Kannada movie stunt turns fatal denied free entry to bar in South Sudan Juba At least 13 people were killed when an angry football fan fired on others watching a match in a bar in South Sudan’s capital Juba at the weekend, police said Monday.

Deputy police spokesman Kwacijwok Dominic Amondoc said the death toll had risen to 13 after some who were injured

in the shooting during an English Premier League match on Saturday night died of their wounds.

Amondoc said 10 others were still being treated in hospital.

Among the injured was Wani Patrick, recovering from a bullet wound to his hand.

“When I was shot I fell down and some youths fell on me. I was unable to stand up until he finished shooting all his bullets,” he said. “Many people were shot, many people died.”

The gunman, who appeared drunk, grew angry after being refused free entry to the bar where patrons had paid roughly $0.50

each to watch the Chelsea vs. Everton match on television.

The man stormed off, “but when he came back he was carrying a gun and just started shooting randomly,” said Amondoc.

The incident happened at around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Gure, a poor suburb in Juba’s southwest.

The whereabouts of the shooter are unclear with “investigations underway”, according to deputy government spokesman Paul Akol Kordit.

“It’s very unfortunate and we as a government condemn this in the very strongest terms possible,” said Kordit.

He pledged that the government would “pledge that we will do what we can to protect our people and bringing to book such people who are killing innocent lives with no... reason at all”.

Insecurity in Juba has worsened since the start of a civil war nearly three years ago, with the widespread fighting leading to an increase in criminality and armed violence of all kinds.

In July the capital became a battleground as forces loyal to President Salva Kiir clashed with those of his former deputy turned rebel leader Riek Machar, forcing Machar to flee.

Successive rounds of internationallybacked peace talks and agreements have so far failed to bring peace to the world’s newest nation, which won independence from Sudan in 2011.

Bengaluru A PAIR of actors is feared drowned after jumping down into a lake from a helicopter during the filming of a Kannada movie near Bengaluru on Monday, police said. Television footage has shown three crew diving into Thippagondanahalli lake from a low-flying helicopter for the climax stunt of the film, Masthigudi. Response from what appeared to be a rescue boat on a standby appeared too late to pull out two of the actors — Raghav Uday and Anil — who struggled in the waters below.

Duniya Vijay, the lead star of Masthigudi, came out safe after the plunge.The Sandalwood actor is popular down south for his actionpacked movies.

The three were filming the manufactured peril when it went wrong at around 2.48pm. Vijay was the last of the three to leap down from the helicopter. In 2014, Uday was awarded the ‘Best Villain’ title for his role in Jayammana Maga. “I will go for this shot with all faith in God,” he told reporters before

Monday’s stunt scene. Apparently, he was aware of his limited swimming skills.

“It was a climax scene in which the hero (Vijay) chases the villains (Uday and Anil). They board a chopper and the hero manages to climb into it. A fight takes place between the villains and the hero inside the chopper, which is flying over the lake. The duo then jumps into the lake to evade the hero. The hero follows them into the water. Unfortunately, the sequence went horribly wrong. We are shocked,” said one of the film crew members. Anil, who is also feared drowned, recently acted in Santhu Straight Forward. Police have registered a case against the film-makers and a probe is on. A team of divers has been deployed to trace the bodies. The accumulation of silt in the reservoir, which supplies drinking water to Bengaluru, is making the operation difficult. It is not known whether the Bengaluru Water Supply & Sewerage Board (BWSSB), which managed the reservoir, had granted permission to shoot with the chopper.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Punjabi Identity Is Badal’s Trump Card Against AAP continued from page 1 with Punjabi subnationalism through the retelling of the state’s grand history, its supreme sacrifices against invaders, invocation of forgotten Punjabi suba icons like Master Tara Chand who the Badals have rarely acknowledged in the past and an honour roll of prominent Punjabis who were presented with a plaque of recognition.

But there was a surprising omission. The most successful and famous Punjabi of all, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, was not invited to be honoured although his name apparently figured at the top of the draft list. There was no credible explanation from any Akali leader about this glaring gap. Politics clearly got in the way even as every effort was made to whip up Punjabi chauvinism. The function was also used to showcase chief minister Prakash Singh Badal and his achievements. The personality cult being built around this veteran sits uneasily on his frail shoulders. “Tell me, which

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government doesn’t revolve around its leader?’’ asked controversial revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia who is also junior Badal’s brother-in-law. “In Delhi, from dustbin to hoarding, isn’t it Kejriwal?’’ No matter how hard they deny it, the Delhi chief minister and AAP leader is the top-of-the-mind concern for the Badals. There, Kejriwal again. No matter how hard they deny it, the Delhi chief minister and AAP leader is the top-of-themind concern for the Badals.

Outside the Amritsar Town Hall, where the Punjab Day celebration was held, is a new vista created by deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. A grand façade has been built of pink Dholpur stone to mask the old shops and restaurants along the road leading from

Town Hall to Golden Temple. The architecture is a mix of Rajasthani, Mughal and Lahore styles, according to the architect who designed it. The area outside the Golden Temple is now closed to vehicular traffic and spruced up with marble flooring. In sharp contrast to the crowded, dirty and noisy area it used to be, there’s a grand walkway, dubbed Heritage Walk, for visitors to mill around and enjoy the sights of the most holy of Sikh sites.

This is Sukhbir’s showpiece achievement, built in just 333 days at a cost of Rs 250 crores. He says he intends to replicate this in other parts of Punjab to preserve its rich heritage. He sees this as a game changer in the upcoming election. “We have shown

what we can do for Punjab,’’ he says proudly. Interestingly, there is little mention of Amrinder Singh in all the chatter. He seems to be a mere blip on the electoral landscape although there is a perception that the Congress is gaining ground at the expense of controversy-hit AAP. Still, it’s early days, say most folk. The mood will become visible once the model code of conduct is in place, sometime next month. If the anxiety in the Akali camp is any indicator of voter sentiment, AAP is still a force to reckon with. It is widely believed that Kejriwal has beaten a strategic retreat hoping that the dust from the scandals swirling around his party in Punjab will settle down. The game is yet to begin.

SIDHU STILL HAS EVERYONE GUESSING IN PUNJAB continued from page 1 either from the outside or by formally joining it, he is unlikely to do as an ‘ordinary worker’. He wants a share in the pie. The façade of ‘not wanting anything for self but everything for Punjab’ has collapsed. His protestations notwithstanding, the reason why he revolted against the BJP was because he was not getting the prime spot in the run-up to the Punjab election. He wanted to be projected as a key leader in the State, but the foul equation he had with the ruling Badal family, with whom the BJP has had a long-standing alliance, prevented that from happening.

There was little effort from his end (and perhaps from the Badals as well) to settle the misunderstanding. Sidhu’s decision to walk out of a party that had moulded his political career and made him an MP, including a nominated one from the Rajya Sabha just months before he quit, was cold and calculated.

But that’s now the past. What is his political future in Punjab? For now, he has to settle to being a subordinate,

assuming he aligns with the Congress.

The same hold true if Sidhu backs the AAP. That being the case, he will really be no better off than he was in the Bharatiya Janata Party. Both the AAP and the Congress will view him as an outsider and an opportunist. This latent feeling will not dissipate even if he and his outfit eventually merge with either of them. In other words, Sidhu will need to constantly reaffirm his loyalty. There will come occasions when the strain becomes difficult to bear any further. What then?

Will he seek a return to his parent fold?

Meanwhile, the Congress is banking on Sidhu’s decision in its favour, though it does not want to make its desperation evident. The former BJP parliamentarian may not be a political heavyweight but he has some utility. He can draw crowds with his crackling one-liners; he is a cricket-and-television celebrity (a difficultto-beat combination); he can take sharp jibes at both the BJP and the AAP and regale the audience with his dislike for the two.But the Congress is a divided house in the State. Captain Amarinder

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be questioned over rape allegation STOCKHOLM Julian Assange will be questioned in person next week over longstanding rape accusations, Sweden‘s public prosecutor’s office announced on Monday, saying an Ecuadorian prosecutor would visit the WikiLeaks founder in the embassy where he has been holed up since 2012.

“Ecuador has granted the Swedish request for legal assistance in criminal matters and the hearing will be conducted by an Ecuadorian prosecutor,” the public prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The Swedish deputy public prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and a Swedish police inspector will also be present at the questioning on November 14, it added.

“A DNA sample will also be taken, provided that Julian Assange agrees to

it,” the statement said. The 45-year-old Australian sought refuge in Ecuador’s

embassy in London in June 2012, fleeing allegations of rape and sexual assault in Sweden dating back to 2010.

He had refused to travel to Sweden for questioning due to concerns that he would then be extradited to the United States over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Singh has enough problems from within and has to tackle the faction opposed to him. He will need to be certain that Sidhu, if and when he arrives, will be on his side.

Nobody knows whether that will happen, given that the anti-Amarinder Singh camp will surely woo the former cricketer as assiduously.

Finally, on the presumption that Sidhu casts his lot with the Congress, it will be interestingly to see how he fits into the Congress’s dynasty culture. If he had problems in a far more democratic and worker-centric system the BJP has, can he keep his cool in a party which is a mere extension of the Nehru-Gandhi family’s interests? (The writer is a senior commentator and public affairs analyst)

Illegal Indian immigrants must return before flexibility on visa: British PM continued from page 1 of failure to agree on freer movement of Indians abroad and other issues. Indian officials said the tightening of visa rules was responsible for a sharp decline in the number of Indian students enrolling in British universities. “We will continue to raise our concerns regarding mobility with the UK,” said Vikas Swarup, spokesman of ministry of external affairs.

“Mobility of people is closely linked to free flow of finance, goods and services.”

Free-trade deal Earlier on Monday, Modi and May inaugurated a technology summit to boost trade in advanced scientific and technology businesses. The talks between the two leaders focused on bringing down trade barriers and preparing the ground for a free-trade deal after Britain leaves the EU. “Britain is open for business,” May told delegates at the IndiaUK Tech Summit, billed as South Asia’s biggest technology conference. Modi told the technology summit that greater mobility for young Indians was important for India.

“Education is vital for our students and will define our engagement in a shared future,” Modi said. “We must therefore encourage greater mobility and participation of young people in education and research opportunities.” With concerns over economic stagnation and uncertainty as Britain exits the EU, May said her government wanted to “ensure that the UK remains one of the most attractive countries in the world to do business and invest.”

Issue - 692 (5)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

March of the Desi Brigade

By Yashwant Raj Donald Trump doesn’t have the vote or support of most Indian Americans, but they do concede that his presence at a New Jersey rally in October marked a watershed moment for them.

It was the first time that a US presidential nominee had made a direct pitch to them, bowl in hand, acknowledging the growing clout of America’s wealthiest and best educated ethnic group.

Hillary Clinton, his rival, hadn’t made a matching bid, but she remembered to extend Diwali greetings to the

community, and so did Evan McMullin, the independent hoping to draw away conservatives from Trump.

And the Republican nominee’s daughterin-law, Lara Trump, attended a Diwali function in Virginia, a swing state, to which Indian Americans held the key because of changing demographics.

It’s turning out to be quite an election for the community. There have never been so many Indian-Americans in the race for the Congress, past the primaries: six, including, Kamala Harris for senate, and the five – Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jaypal, Raja

A Saund Start Dalip Singh Saund A farmer-mathematician from California, Saund was the first Indian-American elected to the US Congress, in 1956. Saund was from Punjab, and reached the US in 1920, after finishing college. He married an american and became an American citizen in 1949.

In 1950, he ran and won the election for county judge but was turned down because he hadn’t been a citizen long enough. In 1953, he ran for the same post and won. By 1955, Saund started considering running for the Congress as a Democrat and won the party nomination, and the election.

Bobby Jindal A Republican who became the second Indian-American in US congress, Jindal was the first from the community to be elected governor of Louisiana state.

Named Piyush Jindal by his parents, he preferred to be called Bobby and changed his religion to Christianity. He also claimed that he was tired of being Indian-American.

Jindal went on to run for the White House, becoming the first IndianAmerican to do so. But in 2015, he didn’t make it past the primaries, swept aside by Donald Trump.

Nikki Haley A Republican and the second Indian-American to be elected governor. She is now serving a second term as governor of South Carolina. Originally from Punjab, Haley served in the state legislature of South Carolina from 2005-2011, before running for governor.

She is a rising star in the Republican party and was considered as a running mate for the party’s presidential nominee, till Trump grabbed the ticket.

The Strategists Neera Tanden, 45 A long-time Clinton aide who served as policy adviser to President Barack Obama and worked on his signature healthcare reform legislation, Tanden is co-chair of the Clinton transition team, which will select the roughly 3,000 political positions across the administration that come and go with presidents. Tanden is expected to land a senior position in a Clinton administration herself, possibly in the cabinet.

Maya Harris, 49 Kamala Harris’s younger sister was one of three top policy advisers helping Clinton formulate the agenda. A lawyer and public policy advocate, Maya became one of the youngest law school deans in the country at 29, and she did so while raising her daughter on her own. She has served as the former vice president of democracy, rights, and justice at the Ford Foundation and was a fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Mini Timmaraju She heads the Clinton campaign’s women outreach effort as National Women’s Vote Director. Before that, Mini was national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, where she managed legislative, advocacy and communications strategy for a coalition of 34 national Asian Pacific American organizations.

She was also chief of staff to congressman Ami Bera, the only Indian American in the US Congress.

Raj Shah, 30 Shah is the Research Director and Deputy Communications Director at the Republican National Committee. As co-founder of the right-leaning opposition research firm America Rising, he developed the organisation’s Hillary Clinton opposition research book — essentially an exhaustive list of dirt on the Democratic nominee. A graduate of Cornell, he has also served in the Bush administration.

Krishnamoorthi and Peter Jacob – for the House of Representatives.

Moreover, the rest of the community has not exactly been on the sidelines, cheering quietly. They are out there raising money, organising events and displaying a mobilisation that has never been seen before.”This is really a historic year for Indian Americans,” Shekar Narasimhan, a Democratic strategist and a top fundraiser for Clinton, said, adding, “and a coming of age for the community.”

Shalli Kumar, the Chicago businessman who founded the Republican Hindu Coalition that staged the Trump event in New Jersey, has also emerged as one of the most generous donors from the Indian-American community. He is said to have spent millions in direct

contributions to the presidential and congressional campaigns, plus expenses on events.

And some Indian-Americans also hold top positions in the presidential campaigns– at least in Clinton’s campaign. Neera Tanden, a long-time Clinton aide and policy adviser to President Barack Obama, is one of the four co-chairs of Clinton’s transition team; and Mini Thimmaraju heads Clinton’s outreach to women.

They’ve come a long way from Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian American to have even made it to the top echelons of politics in the US: he was the first member from the community to have been elected to the House of Representatives in 1956.

The Gladiators, 2016 Ami Bera, 51 A doctor, Bera is running for a third term from California. His parents came here in 1958 from Gujarat.

He became member of the House of Representatives in 2013, as the third Indian-American to be elected to Congress.

Pramila Jayapal, 51 A Washington state Senator, Jaypal is running US House of Representatives as a progressive.

She came to the us as a 16year-old to study. She went on to become a leading advocate.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has supported her and shared his email list of donors with her.

Rohit “Ro” Khanna, 39 A lawyer who served in the Obama administration as a senior official, is running for the second time to unseat a seventerm incumbent democratic member of the House of Representatives. Khanna failed narrowly in 2014. This time, he is faring better, and has been constantly out-raising his rival, who is twice his age.

Kamala Harris, 51 California’s attorney general, running for senate has been called a front-runner by US media. Her mother is Indian and father, Jamaican. If elected, she will be the first Indian-American senator. President Barack Obama once called her “brilliant”, “tough” , “the country’s best looking attorney general”, which he later apoligised for.

Raja Krishnamoorthi, 51 “I like to joke that I want to increase the number [of Indian-Americans in Congress] by 100 per cent,” says Krishnamoorthi, who is running from Illinois. A Harvard and Princeton alumnus, Krishnamoorthi met Obama in 1998, and worked as a “low-level policy researcher” on his 2000 campaign.

Kesha Ram, 51 A member of the state legislature in Vermont, Ram is running for the post of Lt. Governor.

Watching Obama speak at her university, Ram thought, ‘If there was a place for someone like him in politics, maybe there is a place for some like me”. She ran for the state legislature at the age of 21, and won.

Peter Jacob,30 He has never held any elected office, but is confident of unseating the incumbent, a republican who has held the seat since 2009. He became a social worker after college. Jacob has said, “I am not running to climb a political ladder. I will ensure that my fellow citizens...are able to thrive in the same American dream that my family was able to.”

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Slaughtered in the playground

Six children killed as ‘President Assad’s troops’ bomb a Syrian nursery school

SIX children have been killed and dozens more injured after a nursery school in Syria was barbarically bombed, reportedly by forces loyal to the regime.

The children were peacefully playing during their first break of the day when government forces launched mortar rounds at their nursery. Heart-wrenching photos from the scene show young children covered in blood in the rebelheld city of Harasta, a rural suburb of the country’s capital, Damascus. One boy winces in agony as a doctor checks his heart. Another injured girl looks vacantly into the camera after suffering an assault too horrific for words. The toys the children were playing with are left strewn across the tiled floor which is splattered with blood. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said 17 people, most of them children, were injured in the shelling. Local reports claim forces loyal to the government fired

artillery that hit the kindergarten at around 10am local time. Volunteer rescue group, the Syrian Civil Defence force also known as The White Helmets, attended the scene. One of the children killed has been named by the group as Jihad Qadado, son of martyred Syrian Civil Defence force member Abdulfatah Qadado. An AFP photographer saw the body of one child, a girl, lying on a bed at a makeshift hospital, her face bloodied and her clothes torn. In the northern city of Aleppo, residents spoken to by Reuters seemed resigned to a resumption in bombing, which killed hundreds of people in late September and early October as the government and its Russian allies abandoned a ceasefire to launch their assault on the biggest urban area in opposition hands. “Nothing can be done. Nobody can stop the planes,”said Bebars Mishal, an official with the ‘white helmets’ in eastern Aleppo, which digs victims out of the rubble and runs an ambulance service. He said there was no way for rescue workers or medical staff to prepare in advance of the expected

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resumption of attacks: “All we can do is take precautions and be ready 24 hours a day.” The government and its Russian allies say they target only militants, and that fighters are to blame for civilian casualties by operating in civilian areas.

Western countries say the bombing has deliberately targeted hospitals, aid workers and bakeries and Washington has accused Moscow of ‘war crimes’.

Rebels say the aim is to drive out civilians, some 275,000 of whom remain in the besieged zone. “They call it a ceasefire.

The regime hasn’t let us hear the end of

it,” said Modar Shekho, a nurse in rebelheld eastern Aleppo. “As usual, when it ends they will let the bombardment loose.

We’ve gotten used to this.”

Irish Jihadi blown by own bomb AN IRISH jihadi who was killed in a botched suicide attack in Iraq on Friday failed to kill any of his targets. Iraqi officials confirmed that Khalid Kelly, known as Terry Taliban was driving a large bomb built inside a specially-armoured truck when it was struck by an anti-tank missile. The 49-year-old terrorist, who converted to Islam while in prison in Saudi Arabia for smuggling alcohol. ISIS announced that Kelly, who they called Abu Osama Al-Irlandi, died during the attack outside Mosul. Kelly, who was from The Liberties area of Dublin’s inner city, was driving his truck bomb towards Popular Mobilization Forces when one of their fighters launched the anti-tank round. ISIS were filming the attack to use Kelly’s death

as a propaganda tool. A source for the PMU told the Irish Times: “We had eight injured troops from shrapnel and blast wave. No deaths thank God. “He was stopped with the second RPG7 that got the vehicle but was close enough that shrapnel reached some troops not sheltered in vehicles.”

The 49-year-old father-of-one, travelled to Saudi Arabia to work tax free but was caught with a crate load of Johnnie Walker scotch and was jailed. While in prison he converted to Islam.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Residents bring colourful new life to old Tangiers TANGIERS Wall paintings, colourful facades and flowery alleyways are brightening up the centuries-old Tangiers medina as residents bring new life to

the neglected streets of the Moroccan port’s old city.

Standing on a hill overlooking the port and the Strait of Gibraltar one of the world’s most strategically vital waterways the old city of Tangiers has few green spaces. But residents of 13 neighbourhoods have launched a campaign to spruce it up. “The initiative came from the residents, without any intervention from political parties or associations,” said Rafih al-Kanfaoui, 33, of the old city’s Ibn Battouta neighbourhood. “The neighbourhood has taken on a beauty that nobody imagined.” Along the old city’s winding alleys, house fronts are decked out in different colours and pots of flowers sit outside doors and in windows. The walls of Ibn Battouta named after the 14th century explorer who was

the city’s most famous son have been daubed green and purple, and a wheelchair ramp has been fitted.“We all worked together, men and women, children, young people, old

people, to make the neighbourhood beautiful,” said Soufyane AbdelMottalib, 30.The operation was funded by the residents themselves and now four neighbourhoods in Tangiers have won awards from Morocco’s Observatory for Environmental and Historical Monuments.

- Proud of long history It is one of several citizens’ initiatives launched as Morocco hosts the COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh from November 7 to 18.

Mohammed Salmoun, a local civil society activist, said the project had changed the face of several marginalised parts of the city.

“This kind of initiative has shown its potential to make districts stand out both locally and nationally,” he said.

Inspired by pictures of the project on Facebook,

inhabitants of other Moroccan cities including Casablanca have launched similar projects.

Tangiers residents are proud of their city’s long history, particularly the story of Ibn Battouta, who left Tangiers in 1325 at the age of 21.

He crossed North Africa and travelled as far east as China. Defying distance, hardship and the Black Death, he later returned to his home city and wrote a book about his travels.

Because it overlooks one of the world’s top maritime routes, Tangiers was the theatre of bitter rivalry between European powers in the 19th century.

Between 1923 and 1956, the region was a neutral international zone that attracted all types from spies and adventurers to authors like Tennessee Williams.Tangiers, like much of Morocco’s north, was neglected under the late king Hassan II. The city dwindled slowly and turned to smuggling and hashish as many young, unemployed locals chose to migrate to Europe.

But the city has experienced a revival since King Mohammed VI launched an ambitious four-year $1 billion (700 million euro) redevelopment plan in September 2013.

The waterfront now shines with new buildings and the city centre has been transformed, with wide avenues and white painted sidewalks.

China criticises calls for boycott of Chinese goods in India Beijing China today sharply criticised calls for boycott of Chinese goods in India, saying it can only satisfy “personal vendettas” of some politicians at the cost of close bilateral ties and called on India to take measures to minimise any “repercussions”. The products that China exports to India fulfill the needs of the local market, Shen Danyang, the spokeperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce was quoted as saying by staterun People’s Daily online.

“Thus, a boycott of Chinese products would only satisfy some politicians’ personal vendettas at the cost of close ties between the two countries,” he said. As two rapidly growing economies, China and India must cooperate on

economy and trade, he said. “China hopes India will take the necessary actions to minimise any repercussions of this

was increasing despite downward pressure from global trade. Bilateral trade added up to USD 52.31 billion between January

incident for the mutual benefit of both nations,” he said. Shen pointed out that China and India are each other?s major trade partners.

By 2015, the total trade volume between the two countries had reached USD 71.62 billion, indicating that trade between China and India

and September 2016, which indicates that the momentum is being maintained, he said. Calls for boycotting Chinese goods in India were made following China’s opposition to a UN ban on JeM chief Masood Azhar and India?s entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

India is my home, says Bangladeshi writer Tasleema Nasreen

Canacona (Goa) Noted Bangladeshi writer Tasleema Nasreen today said India is her home and she has no alternative but to live in exile for rest of her life. “I have been living in exile since 1994. I know I have no other alternative but to live in exile for rest of my life. I feel I have nowhere to go or country to return to. I say now India is my country, India is my home,” the 54-year-old writer told the gathering at the “India Ideas Conclave 2016”, currently underway in Goa. The Conclave is organised by India Foundation. “How much more we have to suffer at the hands of fundamentalists and their political

allies for daring to articulate the truth. Even after all that has happened, I still believe, that sincere honest truly secular part of the continent, India is the safe refuge, only refuge,” said the writer.“They must understand that Islam must go through enlightenment process similar to that other religion that has gone through by questioning the inhuman, unequal, unscientific and irrational aspects of the religion,” she said referring to the fundamentalists.

“The narrow minded and the political (people) will forever throw society into the darkness, quiet a handful others will always strive for betterment of

society and good sense prevail.“It is only few special people who seek to dream about change, that is how it has always been,” Nasreen, the writer of much acclaimed book “Lajja” said.Talking about Bangladesh, she said, “I truly hope that the secular movement in my country will begin and turn into positive political movement for true democracy and secular state. The state which will govern on equality and educational system that is secular, scientific.” “People must know that Islam must not be exempted from the critical scrutiny that applies all other religions as well,” said the writer.

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French particle accelerator to embark on ‘exotic’ quest PARIS Long thought to be the smallest building blocks of all matter, we now know atoms are themselves composed of electrons spinning

science institute.

To create such particles, scientists will shoot dense beams of ions - atoms stripped of some of their electrons - over

around a nucleus made of protons and neutrons.

But where do nuclei come from?

How are they forged? Which forces govern their behaviour?

These are questions for a new particle accelerator dubbed SPIRAL2 to be inaugurated in Caen, northwest France, on Thursday.The atom nucleus was discovered in 1911, and its constituent parts about two decades later.Yet scientists still know very little about nuclei, which are about 10,000 times smaller than the atoms they sit in.To study them, the 138 millioneuro ($153-million) project will synthesise and examine socalled “exotic” nuclei, usually forged in the cores of stars and not found on Earth.

“We want to understand how these matter-building elements are produced under the extreme heat conditions found in stars,” said Jean-Charles Thomas, a researcher at France’s CNRS

a 40-metre (131-foot) tunnel some 10 metres underground.

“We will recreate what happens inside stars in the laboratory,” Thomas told AFP. The beams will explode against a target surface, disintegrating into subatomic particles including nuclei, many of whom would never have been seen on Earth.Scientists hope the experiment will help explain why different nuclei have different proton to neutron ratios. The ratio is what determines the charge of an atom and the chemical element to which it belongs.

Atomic nuclei on Earth vary from the lightest, hydrogen, with a single proton, to the heaviest, uranium, which has 92.

Nuclei are about 10,000 times smaller than their atoms, but contain 99.9 percent of the mass.“SPIRAL2 will give access to a whole range of experiments on exotic nuclei, which have been impossible up to now,” said

a statement on the project website.

“In particular, it will provide intense beams of neutron-rich exotic nuclei whose properties are little explored at present.”

The beams, 10 to 100 times more atom-dense than those used at any other particle accelerators today, will create vast quantities of exotic nuclei for further experimentation, the team expects.Scientists believe there are nearly 8,000 types of exotic nuclei, of which we have observed some 2,900 so far.

- Medicine and energy Project leaders hope that SPIRAL2 will yield benefits for cancer treatment and nuclear energy.

“We hope to produce radioactive nuclei which... will give off very strong but localised radiation” for tumour treatment, said Herve Savajols, the project’s scientific coordinator.

These super-tiny particles could be injected into cancer patients to give off their radiation only when they reach the targeted tumours, thus without damaging any non-cancerous tissue, as existing treatments do.The research may also help design a safer, greener and more efficient method of generating energy from nuclear fission, a process which involves splitting atoms with neutron beams.SPIRAL2, will form part of the GANIL heavy ion accelerator in Caen - a project of France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the CNRS, with backing from the European Union.

Naming WiFi network after Islamic State backfires on French teen

Lyon A French court has handed a three-month suspended jail sentence to a teenager who named his domestic WiFi network after the Islamic State group, his lawyer said on Saturday. “There was no sympathy for terrorism! There was only the word ‘Daesh21’,” explained lawyer Karima Manhouli, saying he would appeal his client’s criminal conviction.

Daesh is a widely-used Arabic acronym for the IS.“It was a stupid act by a young man of 18 who can’t explain why he did it,” he said.The case came to court in the eastern town of Dijon after a neighbour saw the name pop up on a list of available WiFi

networks in July and called the police.

“There was an investigation and searches but nothing was found.

There is nothing to suggest (my client) shares this ideology. On the contrary, he strenuously denies it,” Manhouli said.

The court handed the youth a suspended jail sentence after he turned down an offer of 100 hours of community service.

The lawyer said there had been a spate of similar criminal charges since January 2015 when authorities were instructed to quickly prosecute suspected cases of sympathy for terrorism.

On November 13, France will mark the first anniversary of coordinated jihadi attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.

US mindful of al Qaeda threat about election day: White House

New Zealand schoolkids claim world’s biggest haka WELLINGTON Around 7,000 New Zealand schoolchildren stomped and bellowed their way through what is believed to be the largestever haka on Wednesday, claiming a new world record for the Maori war dance. The children performed the haka challenge at a park in Masterton, just outside Wellington, watched closely by local stewards monitoring the event for the Guinness World Records. The current record was set in 2014, when 4,028 people performed the haka at the grounds of French rugby club CA Brive Correze Limousin. While Wednesday’s

figure of around 7,000 is yet to be officially confirmed, local justice of the peace Peter Debney was in no doubt the students had achieved their goal. “Certainly from my observation, that’s been achieved today,” he told AFP. Masterton Intermediate School principal Russell Thompson, who spent almost a year organising the event, said it was a point of national pride to return the record to the homeland of the haka.

He said the children did not perform the “Ka Mate” haka, which the world champion All Blacks rugby team use as a pre-match challenge.

Fayetteville The US is mindful of a potential al Qaeda threat about the November 8 general elections, the White House has said amid reports that the terrorist outfit was planning an attack in America. “We’re particularly mindful of the kinds of risks facing the United States around significant events. Sometimes it’s holidays, like the holidays at the end of the year, or the Fourth of July,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters while flying with the US President Barack Obama to this

city in North Carolina yesterday.

“Sometimes that’s around specific events of national significance. So we’re certainly mindful of the potential of increased risks around a national event like Election Day. “Even as we’re mindful of those risks, the President’s national security team and certainly our Homeland Security Department is taking the necessary steps to protect the American people and mitigate any changes to the threat picture,” Earnest said.

He said he had seen reports about of al Qaeda threats.

“I can’t comment specifically on them. I don’t have a new intelligence assessment to offer from here,” he said.

“What I can tell you is that the President and his national security team are vigilant about all threats that are facing the US,” he said.

Earnest said Obama was being updated every day on the risks that are facing the the US. “The President’s national security team adopts a posture of ensuring that we’re adapting to the latest threat picture,” he said.

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Ukraine officials declare jaw-dropping riches KIEV A luxury watch collection, millions of dollars in cash and a Picasso painting are just several items listed on Ukraine officials’ income and asset declarations, shocking a country vowing to curb corruption. Officials are required under a new law to declare their assets and income online, a requirement for the disbursement of a $1-billion (920-million-euro) loan that Ukraine received in September from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after a delay of more than a year. The move comes as the ex-Soviet republic, where the minimum monthly salary stands at $56, attempts to shed its reputation as one of Europe’s most corrupt countries. More than 100,000 Ukrainian bureaucrats have complied, including President Petro Poroshenko who appears to be one of the nation’s richest officials. Prior to being elected in May 2014 in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Poroshenko headed the Roshen sweets empire. In his declaration, Poroshenko said he owned more than 100 firms in

different countries, including Russia, and had more than $26 million in various bank accounts.

According to Novoye Vremya magazine, Poroshenko’s wealth amounts to some $949 million (860 million euros), which would make him Ukraine’s fourth richest man after oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Pinchuk and Igor Kolomoisky.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman meanwhile declared more than $1 million in cash as well as a watch collection that includes two Rolexes.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov declared three apartments, one measuring 657 square metres (7,100 square foot), as well as a cellar stocked with 750 bottles of wine. He also listed antiques and art pieces including a Picasso painting.

Even lesser-known officials have declared jaw-dropping riches and possessions.

Independent lawmaker Vyacheslav Konstantinovsky declared $15 million in cash, despite having officially made $2,825 as a parliamentarian last year.

Like many other officials, Konstantinovsky says he made his money before being elected to public office.

relic.

Some declarations brought back memories of the shocking lavishness of the Mezhyhirya

Anders Aslund of the US-based Atlantic Council, who studies the Ukrainian economy, said the large sums of money held in cash demonstrates their lack of trust in the system.

“They do not trust banks, euro or hryvnia, nor rubles,” Aslund wrote on Twitter.

Among other oddities in the declarations were ownership of a church and of a 13th-century

mansion of former president Viktor Yanukovych, which was opened to the public following his February 2014 ouster.

“Every time I see these declarations, I remember how shocked we were by Mezhyhirya,” Olga Reshetylova, a volunteer helping the Ukrainian army fight a pro-Russian insurgency in the country’s east, wrote on her Facebook page.

“All this anger, then what? They keep collecting watches and icons that are worth millions.”

Ukraine has suffered deep economic decline after two years of war, with its GDP contracting 9.9 percent last year.

The country is trying to claw its way back from crises that include a 30-month-long pro-Russian separatist insurgency in its industrial east and a devastating two-year recession that only ended at the start of the year.

But Western allies who supported Kiev’s February 2014 revolution want Ukraine to take on more responsibility for tackling corruption raging through all levels of government.

And extravagant declarations might just land the country in more trouble.

“Negotiations with foreign lenders will now be more difficult. They now know that we have money,” Ukrainian economist Valeriy Pekar wrote on his blog.

Transparency International puts Ukraine in 130th place out of 168 countries and territories in a list that ranks countries from the least to most corrupt.

German YouTube alive Global Times doesn’t publish commentaries with sound of music on India, other countries: Editor after copyright deal

FRANKFURT One of the world’s most restrictive countries on access to music videos opened up on Tuesday as YouTube announced a deal with musicians’ body GEMA to pay when people stream music in Germany. YouTube users in the country had for years been confronted with a red sad-face emoticon and messages announcing “this video is not available in Germany” when trying to view videos ranging from the latest pop clips to films with GEMA-controlled background music. Now the blockages should largely be a thing of the past. “Hell has frozen over!” wrote one Twitter user in response to the news. “Listen to all the music!” said another. Tuesday’s deal will see YouTube pay an undisclosed amount for music belonging to the roughly 70,000 German artists represented by GEMA - as well as many foreign artists - each time their songs are played. “Authors, composers and music publishers will be paid fairly,” YouTube executive

Christophe Muller said in a statement.

GEMA and the Google subsidiary had been wrangling since 2009 - at times in court over how musicians should be paid for their work being streamed after a previous licensing agreement expired.

A court ruled in 2012 that YouTube should install filters preventing users uploading copyrighted music without permission - on pain of a 250,000-euro ($275,000) fine per infraction.

But the latest court case launched by the music licensing organisation, in which it claimed 0.375 euro cents from the video site for each time a song was played, failed in January this year.

Ten months later, the two sides have reached an agreement, although neither released details of the amount artists would receive per play.

“There was an appropriate, good offer,” GEMA spokeswoman Ursula Goebel told.

Beijing Does Global Times follow any policy in sanctioning or publishing opinion pieces on India?The Global Times does not sanction or publish commentaries on India or any other country. Our staff pick the brains of experts and observers about India and then develop their own perspectives on a certain matter.It is the perception among those who follow Global Times that most India-related articles it publishes are anti-India.

Is that a correct perception?No, it is not a correct perception. It is an illusion. The Global Times has

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published many commentaries in support of closer cooperation between China and India, as in the case of the Goa (BRICS) Summit.

What you perceive to be anti-India is perhaps, sometimes, simply a reaction to anti-China mobilisations. For example, the recent boycott against Chinese products. It’s also unfair to conclude that any critical commentary is anti-India. It is also the perception that since Global Times is affiliated to the People’s Daily, the opinion pieces it carries are an indication of what the government is thinking. Is that correct?No. The Global Times is a market-oriented media outlet despite its status as a stateowned newspaper. Opinions published in the Global Times run the gamut of all political inclinations. While government thinking is interpreted by the Global Times through our reports and commentaries, opinions and perspectives from the private sector, the grassroots and expat communities can also be found in the paper. We publish the

commentaries of foreign diplomats as well.Do newspapers, especially through editorials and opinion pieces, have a role in improving and preserving bilateral ties between countries?The media has a role in reflecting what people on all sides of the social and political spectrum think, be they domestic affairs and Sino-Indian relations.

With a certain level of candor and transparency, the media can help improve and preserve bilateral ties. Journalists, however, are not diplomats, and they cannot speak the same language.How do you see the state of media ties between China and India? Is it a reflection of diplomatic ties?There are frequent exchanges between Chinese and Indian media. We pay close attention to each other’s country every day. It reflects our diplomatic ties. As the two countries become increasingly interdependent, there is more coverage of India on Chinese media than before, and we have noticed the same on Indian media

Issue - 692 (10)

Punjabi Sikh parents seek a match for their Canadian born & raised, clean shaven son, 33 yrs. old, 6’-1" tall, handsome, Doctor M.D., completed internal Medicine residency & fellowship (Specialization), now working as a specialist in G.T.A. The girl should be resident Doctor/M.D. or Physician, Born & raised in Canada from Ontario, beautiful atleast 5’-6" tall with family values. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: sm9058@hotmail.com ***682*** 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 *** 680*** Well settled Press Reporter in Canada, age 50+, 6’ tall, B.Sc., M.A.B.Ed, Post graduate diploma in journalisim, retired as Prinicpal from India, earning good pension, wife expired in 2010.

Looking for a life partner between 45-55, family oriented, must hae Master’s degree, Ph.d or having experience in journalism, prefered Pakistani West Punjabi.

Two daughter’s married and well settled in Canada. Owns property in India. Divorced may also be considred.Please Call : 647-821-7170 ***680*** Hindu Pujabi Khatri parents looking for a suitable match for their daughter, 39 yrs., 5’-5” tall, working as Administrative Manager in a reputed concern in India, widow (Two sons 15 and 12 yrs.) The boy should be Canadian Immigrant/Citizen and family oriented. Parents and two real brothers are very well settled in Milton (Canada) for the last 16 yrs. Caste no bar. PleaseCall : 647-892-6498 Or : 289-878-9285 ***680*** Jat Sikh parents invite a matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 33 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Canadian Citizen, Post graduate, employed in one of the reputed banks of Canada, divorced after a brief marriage (no kids). The boy should be Canadian Citizen, Jat Sikh, well educated and professionally employed. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: gill.roop@hotmail.com Or Call : 1-604-615-4316 Or : 1-778-9547274 ***680** Jat Sikh parents invite a matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 29 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Diploma in Hair dressing from Australia, beautiful, family oriented from a good family background, living in India and managing Canadian family

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

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Respond with family details to:dsahsi@gmail.com Or Call : 1-604-618-5834 ***680*** Well settled Jat Sikh parents seeking professionally qualified Jat Sikh match from U.S.A. or willing to relocate in U.S.A. for their daughter, 36 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, American Citizen, Graduated, Currently Working as Human Resource Information Systerm “HIRS” Analyst with well known Health Care Organisation in Bay Areas, California. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: wss4279@gmail.com Or Call : 1-408-657-7644 ***680*** Sikh Khatri parents seek a suitable match for their teetotaler, US Citizen son, 28 yrs. old, 5’4’’ tall, master’s degree in engineering from a top US university, working at a private company in New York area. The girl should be family oriented, educated, beautiful, preferably residing in US. Please send your biodata & recent pictures to: chhabra.harjitsingh59@gmail.com or call: 1- 347- 921-1453 *** 680*** Punjabi Brahman Doctor parents seek a suitable match beautiful girl for their son, 28 yrs. old, 6’ tall, doctor in punjab. The girl should be beautiful, preferably from medical line. The boy wants to settle his own business in Ontario. Any upper caste also welcome. Younger brother software engineer is in Ottawa and relatives are well settled in Ontario & Quebec. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to:ishan247@yahoo.co.in or call: or call: 011-91- 91987-2614118 *** 680*** Jat Sikh educated family seek a suitable match for their American citizen daughter, 31 yrs. old (born in 1985), 5'-3" tall, well settled in job. Boy preferred to be in USA or have a work permit.Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: bobby21_52@yahoo.com or call: 1- 209-629-3506 *** 680*** Suitable match for Jassal boy, 26 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, clean shaven, B.Pharma, Own Business in India. The girl should be Canadian Immigrant or Citizen. Parents Currently in Canada on visitor visa. The boy’s two sisters are well settled in Canada. Caste No Bar. Please Call : 416-540-0080 ***680*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their Mangleek son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, Canadian Immigrant, Bachelor in IT, well settled. The girl should be Canadian/American, Immigrant/ Citizen, educated with family values atleast 5’-5” tall. First preference goes to Chandigarh,

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Issue - 692 (11)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Lebanon’s national museum reveals long-hidden treasures BEIRUT Beirut’s National Museum has opened its basement of ancient treasures for the first time in four decades to show the public its stunning array of funerary art, including the world’s largest collection of anthropoid sarcophogi.

The new exhibition’s 520 pieces range from the Paleolithic period to the Ottoman Empire. They include Phoenician stelae and rare medieval Christian mummies along with the anthropoid coffins, which display a human face on the sarcophogus and were long a standard for the elite.

Some of the items have never before been on public display.

Other pieces have not been shown since the 1970s, when the museum was forced to shut down because it sat on the frontline that ran through the city during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

“This is a lesson in courage and hope because 41 years after the museum was closed in 1975, we today are able to receive visitors

on three floors,” says museum director Anne-Marie Maila Afeiche.

The archaeological museum was renovated after the years of fighting and shelling damaged its building and exhibits, and reopened in the 1990s.

But the current exhibit is the first time its basement has been open since the civil war. Among the treasures of oftenbreathtaking beauty is a fragment of a Roman sarcophagus found in Beirut that depicts the myth of Icarus, who is shown alongside his father Daedalus, making his ill-fated wings.Another gem is an extraordinary hypogeum - an underground tomb - accidentally discovered by a farmer in the Tyre region in 1937.It is covered with restored frescoes inspired by Greek mythology, including a scene of Priam on bended knee begging Achilles to return the body of Hector.“It was essential to show the public this heritage, which belongs to Lebanon and humanity, that was lying in our

Turkish court jails nine staff of opposition daily in post-coup media crackdown

Istanbul An Istanbul court on Saturday remanded in custody nine staff from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, in an intensifying crackdown a day after the leaders of the country’s main pro-Kurdish party were also jailed.The arrests added to growing international alarm over the use of a state of emergency implemented in the wake of the failed July 15 coup against critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Cumhuriyet executives and writers, including prominent names in Turkish journalism, will now be held in custody ahead of a trial, the date for which has not been set.

Nine MPs from the opposition pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), including its co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, were also detained pending a trial on terror charges expected to begin Friday.

Istanbul police used tear gas, water cannon and plastic bullets to break up a protest by hundreds of people against the arrest of the

deputies, AFP correspondents said.

There were also protests outside Turkey, with large pro-Kurd rallies in France and Germany on Saturday.

A total of 13 staff from the Cumhuriyet (Republic) newspaper were detained in raids on Monday in a swoop that amplified concerns about press freedoms in Turkey.

Among the nine to be held ahead of trial were Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, celebrated cartoonist Musa Kart and influential anti-Erdogan columnist Kadri Gursel.

However, columnists Hikmet Cetinkaya and Aydin Engin were released on bail on health grounds and because of their age. Two other suspects from the newspaper’s accounting department were released without charge.

The suspects are charged with links to the Kurdish militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the movement of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed for the failed coup bid.

Gulen denies the accusations.

storage,” said Afeiche.

All of the exhibits on display in the museum were excavated across Lebanon, which is rich with historical sites and artifacts.

They include a premolar from 70,000 BC belonging to the first known example of a homo sapiens in Lebanon, and stretch through to an 1830 Ottoman stele adorned with a turban.

Among the collection’s flagship displays is a series of Phoenician sarcophagi dating from between the sixth and fourth century BC that were found in the southern region of Sidon.

“We’re exhibiting 31 of these sarcophagi at the moment,” which mix Greek and Egyptian styles, said Afeiche, noting that some of the sarcophagi found in Sidon are currently displayed in the Louvre.This is “the largest collection of anthropoid sarcophagi in the world,” she added.But perhaps the most striking part of the exhibit is the unprecedented display of three mummies found in 1989 by cavers in the Qadisha Valley.

The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and its cave-pocked sheer rock faces provided refuge for Maronite Christians persecuted during the Mamluk and Byzantine eras.

“They were discovered in a cave along with eight naturally mummified bodies” wearing the clothes of of women and children, in some cases the 13th-century silk embroidery still intact.

Around them were nuts, onion skins, ceramics, bronze tools and documents written in Arabic and Syriac.“They were psalms and liturgical chants that showed that these were Christians who had taken refuge in this cave,” said Afeiche.The three mummified bodies are particularly rare as Lebanon does not have a tradition of mummification, according to Marco Samadelli, director of the EURAC centre in Italy, who offered his expertise to help conserve the unique mummies.

Italy contributed 1.02 million euros ($1.1 million) to the project of restoring the museum’s

basement and collection, along with the expertise of leading archeologists including Antonio Giannarusti.

Even with the basement now open, the museum’s storage areas contain plenty of undisplayed pieces and the culture ministry has plans for a new history museum in Beirut as well as museums in both Sidon and Tyre.

The new exhibition provides a timeline of burial techniques, from a 6000 BC Neolithic cradle tomb to a 4BC Chalcolithic burial jar found in Byblos.

Phoenician urns holding cremated remains are exhibited alongside a Byzantine-era tomb decorated with the face of the Virgin Mary from 440 AD. “We believe this is the oldest representation of the Virgin discovered to date in Lebanon,” said Afeiche.

The largest is the hypogeum from Tyre, with frescos reminiscent of Pompeii. One of its sides features an inscription: “Be brave, no one is immortal.”

Indian given prison term, 9 cane lashes for trying to kill wife Singapore A 45-year-old Indian man was sentenced to eight years in prison and nine strokes of cane for slashing the throat of his estranged Singaporean wife, a media report said on Saturday.

Krishnan Karunakaran slashed the throat of his 38-year-old wife Boomichelvi Ramasamy in October 2013 after she rebuffed his demands to help him stay in Singapore by getting his visa extended and not let him see their one-year-old daughter.

In his mitigation, Krishnan claimed that they separated after his wife had an affair, The Straits Times reported.

Deputy public prosecutor Mohamed Faizal took issue with the “false narrative” and rejected the assertion that the separation was the victim’s fault.

He argued that the attempt to pin the blame on the victim highlighted that Krishnan “absolutely shows no remorse”.

In sentencing Krishnan, Justice Chan Seng Onn said -- “There’s no reason for you to resort to such violence, even if you desperately wanted to see your daughter. You should have resorted to the legal process and not take matters into your own hands.”“You are lucky that she survived, or you would be facing a far more serious charge,” Justice Chan told Krishnan.

On the morning of Oct 27, 2013, Krishnan waited for his wife at the lift lobby of her apartment block in the Hougang housing estate.

Krishnan, who had a knife tucked under his singlet, barged inside the lift when he saw her.

He then made her walk towards her flat before slashing her throat in front of her nine-year-old daughter from a previous

marriage and the housekeeper.

The domestic helper opened the gate to help her bleeding employer while her daughter called the police.

Krishnan had pleaded guilty on Tuesday (on November 1) to the charges of attempted culpable homicide and criminal intimidation. Two other charges - for trying to stab Boomichelvi and for threatening her domestic worker - were taken into consideration.

Krishnan’s lawyer, Eugene Thuraisingam, said his client was frustrated and desperate because his wife refused to help him extend his visa and blocked

him from seeing his daughter.

He said that Krishnan had bought the knife to threaten, not kill, his wife and that only one cut was inflicted.

On Friday, the prosecutor told the court that Krishnan’s actions were premeditated and that he had no qualms about carrying out the assault in front of the victim’s young child.

The couple had married in a temple ceremony in India in 2011 and Krishnan, who ran a herbal medicine business, came to Singapore in July 2012.

They separated less than a year later, according to The Straits Times report.

South African president Zuma says he’s not afraid of jail JOHANNESBURG South African President Jacob Zuma says he is not afraid of going to jail, in a defiant response to critics who say he should resign because of scandals involving alleged corruption.

Zuma said Saturday in his political stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal province that he has already spent time in prison, referring to the decade he spent behind bars as an anti-apartheid activist during South Africa’s white minority rule, which ended in 1994.South African media organization EWN is reporting Zuma’s remarks.Last week, the state watchdog agency released a report indicating possible government corruption linked to Zuma and some associates, and recommended that a judicial commission investigate.

Zuma has criticized the report, saying he wasn’t given a chance to provide “meaningful input” in the investigation.

Issue - 692 (12)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

India-Pak tensions come in way of best friend’s wedding NEW DELHI An impassioned plea by an Indian bride-to-be urging authorities to issue a visa to her Pakistani bridesmaid has gone viral on social media amid worsening ties between the neighbouring countries.

Journalist Purvi Thacker, who is set to get married in Mumbai in December, poured her heart out Tuesday on Facebook after her best friend Sarah Munir’s visa application was rejected by the Indian consulate.

“Never did wars, religion, shared history, nationality or even cricket matches come between us,” Thacker, a New York-based freelance journalist, wrote in a blog.

It was not until Munir’s visa application was denied “that we were reminded that politics of hate and fear will create differences even where there are none among ordinary people like us. “Being friends and being there for each other should not be this hard just because we were born on different sides of the borders,” Thacker said.

Military and diplomatic tensions between Indian and Pakistan have soared recently.

Thacker’s #GetSarahtoIndia

campaign has garnered thousands of shares, likes and reactions, making it to news publications on either side of the border.

Thacker even tagged India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj on Twitter, seeking her urgent help in the matter.

The friends, who first met in New York in 2011 while attending a graduate programme, have travelled to each other’s countries before.

Indian opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor tweeted his support to the friends, saying he was counting on Swaraj to

IS chief Baghdadi has escaped besieged Mosul, says Britain

London/Baghdad The top boss of the Islamic State who on Thursday denied the terror group was on the brink of losing control in the besieged northern Iraqi city of Mosul has himself fled, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson said on Friday.

The Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call for militants not to retreat when faced with Iraqi forces was “cruelly ironic” because intelligence suggested he had fled the city, the Daily Mail reported. In an audio recording released on Thursday, alBaghdadi said he was confident of victory in the de-facto capital Mosul and urged followers to continue fighting. But Johnson, while responding to queries in the House of Commons, said: “It is a cruel irony that some of the intelligence we have, you may know, suggests that the gentleman in question has actually vacated the scene himself and is nonetheless using internet media to encourage

people to take part in violence.”

He pledged that the IS would be repelled from the war-torn Iraqi city which has been controlled by it since June 2014, and told MPs: “The house can be sure that Daesh (IS) will be driven from Mosul, but this is the toughest task that Iraq’s security forces have yet encountered.”

In his first statement since the major offensive began, alBaghdadi implored jihadis to attack the “enemies of God” in what is seen as an all-or-nothing battle for them.

The US-led coalition estimates there are 3,000 to 5,000 IS fighters inside the city but the final outcome of the battle appears to be in little doubt.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi forces, backed by the US-led coalition and its warplanes, launched a massive offensive on Mosul on October 17.

More than 40,000 Iraqi and Kurd troops are leading the offensive, backed by air and ground support from a 60-nation US-led coalition, in what is expected to be a long and difficult assault.

untangle the red tape. “Some1 who has visited India twice already can’t be a risk. All the best for your wedding!” he said in a tweet to Thacker.

Thacker was hopeful that love would eventually triumph over hate. “For us, it is very simple, we are best friends and we hope our governments can see that too.”

Malaysia rescuers find Aussie hiker after two-week ordeal

KUALA LUMPUR An Australian hiker who went missing for nearly two weeks after losing his bearings in remote Malaysian jungle was found by rescuers on Tuesday and taken to hospital, police said.

Andrew Gaskell, 26, had set off alone on October 20 into Mulu National Park, which is at the heart of vast and rugged rain forests on Borneo island.

Gaskell got lost after eschewing local park regulations requiring that visitors take a guide, district police officer-in-charge Gabriel Marudi told AFP by phone. But

he was found on Tuesday afternoon after a nearly weeklong jungle search by around 40 rescue personnel. Gaskell was thin and weak and had an injured foot but was flown by helicopter to the town of Miri and was expected to recover, Marudi said.

“It was very lucky for him to be found still alive after such a long time,” said Marudi, adding he had no further details on how Gaskell survived. Mulu National Park is a UNESCO world heritage site famed for some of the world’s largest caves, striking limestone karst pinnacles above ground and dense jungle.

China may soften stand on India’s push for Jaish chief Azhar’s terrorist tag New Delhi China could drop its opposition to India’s efforts to get Jaish-eMohammad chief Masood Azhar designated a global terrorist after a meeting between their top security officials recorded “forward movement” on the matter.

The outcome was from a “positive”, five-hour-long meeting national security adviser Ajit Doval had with powerful Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi a day earlier, government sources said on Saturday.

In April, China blocked New Delhi’s appeal to the United Nations to label Pakistan-based Azhar a terrorist, putting a “technical hold” on the proposal.

Beijing extended that decision last month , once again highlighting its closeness with “all-weather ally” Pakistan.

China is the only one in a 15member UN panel to block India’s appeal on the chief of Jaish , which was blamed for a militant attack on an Indian army camp in Uri, which left 19 soldiers dead in September.

The government sources said China might allow its “technical hold” on the proposal to proscribe Azhar to lapse when the panel dealing with the matter meets in January. They said Beijing too had spoken to Islamabad on Azhar’s status.

China’s possible change of heart is being attributed to the fact that there is growing realisation that Beijing stood to get isolated on the key UN panel as every other nation supported India’s proposal.

There was, however, no movement in the Doval-Yang meeting on Chinese objections to India’s entry into the Nuclear

Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

China has held back on supporting India’s NSG bid,

India, which has a nuclear weapons programme, before exporting nuclear reactors.

saying it would wait for a larger consensus on admitting any country to the group that hasn’t signed the non-proliferation treaty.

Doval and Yang also discussed other outstanding bilateral issues. They did not discuss their vexed border issue, which is being dealt with in a dialogue of Special Representatives.

Doval and Yang report directly to the head of their respective government – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping.

JAPAN NUCLEAR DEAL NEXT WEEK On Saturday, Doval met his Japanese counterpart Shotaro Yachi, focussing on closing a crucial nuclear agreement that will allow India to build nuclear plants in Kowada in Andhra Pradesh and Mithi Virdi in Gujarat with the help of Japanese technology.

The final deal will be signed when Prime Minister Modi visits Japan on November 11.

Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, has been demanding additional nonproliferation guarantees from

A final deal with Japan will benefit U.S. firms. India has already given land for nuclear plants to GE-Hitachi - which is an alliance between the U.S. and Japanese firms - and to Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric Company.

The 6600 MW Kowada plant will be built by NPCIL and ToshibaWestinghouse while the 9,000 MW Gujarat plant is being set up by GE-Hitachi.

The two countries, however, are yet to be able to close New Delhi’s plans to spend more than a $1 billion on buying ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft from Tokyo. These sea rescue aircraft costs $120 million apiece.

CAUGHT

DRUNK DRIVING? CALL VICKY SINGH AT:

416-992-5489

Issue - 692 (13)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Pakistan: 24-year-old woman Sharif vs Sharif: Mysterious banners in Pakistan urge army chief to contest election moves HC after doctors refuse to perform sex change

Islamabad General Sharif will be the first army chief since 1998 to doff uniform after completing tenure.

Mysterious banners in Pakistan with pictures of the army chief General Raheel Sharif are once again surfacing in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

But this time the message urges the army general to “participate” in the next general election due in 2018. The banners in bold English, urge the army chief who is due to retire November 29 - to participate in the next general election in 2018.

The text of the posters urges Parliament to amend a law which bars army officials from taking part in political activities for at least two years after retirement, reports the Express News.

NOT THE FIRST TIME This is not the first time banners relating to the popular Army Chief have cropped up in major cities in Pakistan. In July, banners

with pictures of Gen. Sharif were on display in major cities across Pakistan, urging him to impose martial law and take control of the country.

Interestingly, the banners sprung up overnight on all major boulevards in the cities despite the presence of several security checkpoints and patrol.

The banners were put up in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Faisalabad, among others.

In February, days after General Sharif announced he would step down, banners were put up on the streets of the capital urging him to extend his tenure.

However, unlike the most recent banner, the old banners were put out by an organisation named the “Move on Pakistan” party.

The party - which has little grassroot support - has been registered with the ECP and a businessman from Faisalabad,

Mohammad Kamran, is its chairman.

FIRST CHIEF TO RETIRE SINCE 1988 On January 25, General Raheel Sharif laid to rest speculation that he would continue to serve as the military chief beyond November 2016 when he is due to retire, insisting he preferred to relinquish the job - unlike two of his predecessors.

By declaring his intentions well in advance, General Sharif has become the first army chief since 1998 to doff his military uniform after completing his three-year tenure. He was appointed as the country’s 15th army chief on November 29, 2013.

Lahore A 24-year-old Pakistani woman has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court seeking permission to undergo sex change after doctors in the conservative country refused to perform the surgery without court order.

The girl filed the petition through advocate Naseer Husain Sindhu in the LHC yesterday.

The petitioner, a resident of Kasur district, some 40 kms from here, said she had started feeling physical changes in her body when she was 14.

She said she began consulting gynecologists at a private hospital here after feeling frequent pain and gender disorder.

“Doctors at Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore have suggested me to immediately undergo surgery for a sex-change.

However, the surgeons I approached refused to conduct

the required surgical procedure apprehending possible legal action against them as they are not clear about what the law says in this regard.

DOCTORS RECOMMENDED SEEKING PERMISSION FROM COURT “The doctors have advised me to first get permission for the surgery from a court of law,” she said.

The procedure is not available at Fatima Memorial Hospital and the petitioner has requested the court to allow her to undergo a sex-change surgery in the light of her ultrasound scan report.

Advocate Sindhu said there has been no bar in the Pakistani law to undergo sex change surgery.

“But since some social stigma is attached to this kind of thing (sex change), surgeons are usually apprehensive and shy away from performing such procedures here,” Sindhu said.

Hafiz Saeed slams Pakistan govt for ‘cool’ response over Kashmir issue

US embassy warns Americans in India of possible ISIS attacks

Washington The United States today asked its citizens in India to keep high level of vigilance citing reports indicating that terror outfit Islamic State desires to attack “targets” in India.

An advisory issued by the American Embassy here warned its citizens of an increased threat in places frequented by Westerners in the country.

“Recent Indian media reports indicate ISIL’s desire to attack

targets in India. The US Embassy warns of an increased threat to places in India frequented by Westerners, such as religious sites, markets, and festival venues.

“All US citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness as detailed in the State Department’s Worldwide Caution of September 9, 2016,” the advisory said.

Lahore Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed has criticised the Nawaz Sharif government for its “cool” response to India over alleged atrocities in Kashmir, saying people in the Valley need Pakistan’s “full practical support”. “The Pakistani government’s response to India over atrocities in Kashmir is cool and by doing so it is not pleading the case of oppressed Kashmiris,” Saeed at the JuD headquarters.He said there is no

value of one or two statements in favour of Kashmiris by the Prime Minister and other members of his government rather they need “full practical support”.Saeed, according to a Dawn report, had earlier urged ruling and opposition parties to resolve all their issues through talks and avoid becoming tools of international forces who want both to ignite a crisis in Pakistan.

“Just a few days after the Quetta attack, which has left our scores of policemen dead, the country has plunged into a political crisis,” he was quoted as saying.

Saeed alleged that India is behind this political crisis in Pakistan to prevent Islamabad from raising the Kashmir issue.

Impotence?

416-992-5489

Issue - 692 (14)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

The politician ceding democratic space It is the Diwali day. The text message landed at 9.17 am: “Happy Diwali! Mins of YAS Sh Vijay Goel will celebrate Diwali with Army Jawans today 11.30am Rajputana Rifles Regimental Centre, Delhi Cant wid NYKS students.

Pl. cover.” At 4.30 pm, there is another text: Hello Kindly check your mail box for Press Release — “Vijay Goel celebrates Diwali with Army Jawans” along with pictures of the event.

It is possible to infer confidently that other 60odd Cabinet members were celebrating Diwali similarly in the conspicuous company of this or that Army unit. Nor can any one of them be chided for this PR overkill because they have been commanded to do so.

In fact, advertisements had been appearing for days prior to Diwali, drawing attention to a PMO-directed campaign, called “Sandesh-toSoldiers”, exhorting the citizens to remember this Diwali “our courageous jawans who constantly protect our nation. Lakhs of people have already sent their messages, have you?”

A few days earlier, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Parkash Singh Badal, was reported to have decreed that all officers be appropriately respectful to the soldiers and ex-soldiers whenever they visited a government office. The Economic Times (October 27) had reported how the BJP was preparing to send out Diwali greetings to soldiers' households in Uttar Pradesh. Both Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are due to have assembly elections in a few months’ time.

And, then, a few days after Diwali, we had on Wednesday a retired Army Subedar committing suicide, in support of the demand for one rank, one pension (OROP). That a retired Army man should commit suicide was sad enough; it is even sadder and uglier that professional political leaders should have sought to draw political mileage out of this

tragedy. Earlier, the nonBJP political leaders were tut-tutting the government for wanting to do a bit of khoon ki dalali, now it was the turn of the BJP to pretend that a veteran’s suicide was nothing to get excited about and that it was in bad taste that someone should want to “politicise” the death.

How are the republican voices and constituency to view this extraordinary state-sponsored glorification of the military men, values and demands?

Are we in the process of rearranging the ensemble of institutional preferences?

Examine, for instance, the Income Tax Department’s sales pitch. It takes out advertisements, showing a solitary solider standing guard over the forbidding mountainous border: “He is doing his duty…How about you?” The “he” is the Army Jawan, and “you” is the “tax deductor”, who is sternly reminded that TDS procedures must be totally complied with.

It is not too complicated to break the code of a new civil-military chemistry.

Legitimacy, political respectability and electoral advantage are being sought to be derived from the soldier and his shahadat (martyrdom). Unthinkingly, new space, new respect and new autonomy are being ceded to the Army brass and other security forces.

In the post-surgical strike days, various ministers and authorised spokespersons have made it clear: (1) it is for the Army to decide whether or not to give the lie to Pakistan's preposterous claim that there were no cross-border raids; (2) it is for the Army to decide what should be the response to provocations, if any, from Pakistan; and (3) that what the Army says or claims ought to be accepted, without any kind of reservation or dissent.

The Republic finds itself at a fork in the road, an unfamiliar stage which could, in the long run,

Harish Khare

produce only democratic unhappiness. After all, all these years, generations after generations of Indians took pride in the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru and other democrats saw to it that the Army stayed in the barracks, and that the civil authority was firmly in control of matters of war and peace.

The political crowd did not need to piggyback the soldiers. The fundamental reality was that the constitutional and political legitimacy accrued to the political elites only because they could garner for themselves a mandate to govern, and that too, in an open, fair and transparent electoral contest. There was a sacredness to this authority from the citizens and it entitled them to obedience and respect.

“We, the people of India” were to be the ultimate and only sovereign.

And, the political leader was deemed to be endowed with certain laudable skills and attitudes. He was respected as “a politician” because he undertook to understand the people's issues and grievances. A political operative who aspired to be recognised as a “leader” had to have the willingness to harmonise conflicting social values and claims to produce a kind of “public good.” Coercion was not to be his calling card; persuasion and motivation were to be his first, second and third preferences.

Only autocrats rely on force and

US says airstrike killed al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan last month Washington The US Defense Department says an airstrike in Afghanistan last month killed al Qaeda’s top leader in the eastern part of the country.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook has issued a written statement saying a precision strike conducted by the US military on October 23 in Kunar, Afghanistan, killed Faruq al-Qatani.

Cook says al-Qatani was one of al Qaeda’s “senior plotters of attacks against the United States.”

Cook says US officials are still working

to determine whether a second strike on the same date killed its target, Bilal alUtabi, another al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan.

intimidation.

All these years, there had been a complete consensus that the armed forces were a valuable institution, deriving its authority and parameters from the Constitution, and, that, as an institution, the armed forces were committed to democratic and secular values. The armed forces, to be fair, never asserted that they were outside the ambit of democratic accountability; nor did they demand a lion's share in the national resources. Unlike in our neighbourhood, the armed forces never subscribed to a grammar of entitlements.

This despite the fact that in the last three decades or so we have come to depend

heavily on the coercive arm of the Indian state to restore a semblance of order in large parts of the country.

Yet, we find ourselves witness to the process of re-arranging some of the working assumptions that have served the Indian republic well for all these years. Unlike in Pakistan, where it were the Army Generals who made the judgement that the politicians were incompetent and incapable of safeguarding the best interests of their nation; we are not just deferring too much to the Generals, we are also redefining “competence”. Suddenly, it would seem that competence of a leader is

to be judged by his willingness to allow the use of force. And, a willingness to let the “security forces” be the judge of how to use force, when to use it.

And, once we let the “security forces” write their own ticket, the others who have capacity to initiate and inflict violence also take a cue. If the Army can give a “bloody nose to the Pakis”, so can the BSF; and if, the BSF can be allowed to over-react, why can’t the cops in Bhopal go on a shooting spree and gun down a few SIMI boys? All this adds up to a new but troublesome acceptance of violence.

Nehru's India is forging a new identity under the shadow of joyful acceptance of conflict.

Elements of a garrison state are being grafted on to the republic's escutcheon.

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Issue 692 (15)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

PLASTIC PASSIONS

FREAKY FUN

Asmug, moneyminded genius of science ends up in grave peril after being injured.

That’s when he realises the need to transform and work for the greater good.

Voila! He becomes a flying superhero, radiating a glowing energy from his chest.

You’ve known Doctor Strange of course, if you leafed through the comicbooks. For everyone else, any resemblance those above-mentioned traits might bear with Robert Downey Jr.’s super-lucrative Iron Man would seem absolutely intentional.

For Doctor Strange like Iron Man is an offspring of the Marvel stable, after all.

Despite trait uniformity that Marvel superheroes tend to have, Doctor Strange is no Iron Man. Benedict Cumberbatch has too distinct a screen persona to let any character he plays have any sort of sameness with anyone else. There is something strikingly irresistible about the way he brings alive Doctor Strange’s quota of intrigue. He lifts the weekend REVIEWS film beyond the inevitable cliché that, in the end, it is just about a superhero saving the

Vinayak Chakravorty By

Doctor Strange Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen Direction: Scott Derrickson

world from an evil force.

Being the first of what will possibly be a longdrawn franchise, the film gives substantial runtime to establishing the saga’s backdrop. Action takes off in Kathmandu, where a sorcerer named Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) steals pages from a forbidden book in the secret compound of Kamar-Taj. The mantra in those pages can

Out on DVD Udta Punjab Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Diljit Dosanjh Direction: Abhishek Chaubey ABHISHEK Chaubey’s latest release is a gripping drama that bares the ugly drug scene in the state of Punjab right now, through four concurrent stories. The first story is about Tommy Singh (Shahid Kapoor), a cocaine-addicted rap star who decides to change after an experience in prison. Elsewhere in the state we have Bauria (Alia Bhatt), a migrant Bihari labourer

summon dark forces. Kaecilius is chased by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who is the Sorcerer Supreme, but he escapes.

Meanwhile, elsewhere Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch), an arrogant moneyminded neurosurgeon, loses his hands to an accident. He discovers he could find a way to recover the use of his hands at KamarTaj. When he meets the Ancient One, Strange realises learning her tricks could give him extraordinary powers. But that would also mean being burdened with the responsibility of defending the world. Scott Derrickson fuses the intrinsic quaintness about his material at hand with some cuttingedge spectacle, once the action takes over. The film manages to remain trademark comicbook cinema without getting mindless about it. Spinning magic into standard superhero fare, this one just opened a new portal of big screen fun.

who gets into trouble with some criminals after finding a stash of heroine and trying to sell it for some quick money. A doctor (Kareena Kapoor) dedicated to eradicate the drug menace and an honest cop (Diljit Dosanjh) given to the same ideals are the other protagonists. Udta Punjab is a tautly written drama thriller that imparts its antidrug message with slice-of-life vehemence.

The acting by the entire cast leaves an impressive impact.

Te3n Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vidya Balan Direction: Ribhu Dasgupta BASED on the Korean thriller hit Montage, Sujoy Ghosh’s stylishly titled new production sadly

failed to live up to its potential despite an interesting story and a fabulous cast. Big B plays an old man John Biswas, who is struggling to come to terms with the kidnapping of his granddaughter eight years ago. One person who seems to have a lead is Martin Das (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), an ex-cop who has since then become a priest.

Then, a similar kidnapping happens and a senior cop (Vidya Balan) realises the new case bears similarity with the kidnapping of John’s granddaughter.

— Vinayak Chakravorty

Issue 692 (16)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Performing is like skydiving, but the rush lasts longer: Farhan Akhtar For Bollywood’s multifaceted celebrity Farhan Akhtar, performing a gig in front of a live audience gives an adrenaline rush comparable to that one gets from skydiving.

In GQ’s November 2016 issue, Farhan spoke about his live music performances, in an interview to Uday Benegal, the frontman of Indian rock band Indus Creed “Performing is just such a release,” Farhan said. “(It’s) Like skydiving, but the rush lasts longer. You’ll put in those hours in the studio, making sure you get a good song. If that connects with people, that’s the prize. Because then, when you go up there and everyone sings along with you man, what a feeling that is,” added the actor, who was seen in a skydiving sequence in Hindi film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. An actor,

Presenting at MTV EMA a step forward in my global career: Deepika Padukone Deepika Padukone is all geared up to attend the prestigious MTV European Music Awards in Rotterdam, which she described as “a step forward in my global career”. Besides being at the award show, the actress also will be presenting an award on Sunday. The 30-year old actress shares that she was puzzled when she received the invite. She said, “I was pleasantly surprised when I got the invite. It is very gracious of them to invite me. I have grown up watching the MTV awards and I didn’t think that one day, I would be walking down the red carpet and presenting an award at this global music event. It’s a step forward in my global career.” “This is my first time at such an event so I don’t know what

to expect. I am going there just to have fun. I understand the platform and what it is all about; it is a music award and I love music. I listen to a lot of music of the people, who are playing there, so right now, everything seems surreal in that sense,” added the Tamasha actress. The pretty lady has been sensationally achieving all goals one by one and has been applauded by the audience for her performances.

After becoming a part of xXx : Return of Xander Cage with Vin Diesel, for which Miss Padukone garnered tremendous response from her fans and the audience for the teaser, trailer & individual posters for the film, the actress will now be attending the renowned MTV European Music Awards.

writer, filmmaker and singer, Farhan is awaiting the release of the sequel

of the 2008 hit film Rock On!!And in the eight years between the movies, it’s interesting how he has established his footing as a singer

with his own band. He has also been touring widely.

Talking about what ignited the desire to get on stage while maintaining a busy career in the film industry, he pointed out how the seeds had been sown in 1988 when Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Youssou N’D’ur, L Subramaniam and a 24-year-old Tracy Chapman performed in Delhi at Amnesty International’s ‘Human Rights Now!’ tour. He was 14 back then.

It was seven years later that Farhan got his first guitar and he became “obsessed” with it.

“I made it my mission to be able to play all the chords from (Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ from start to finish. I got a book from (Mumbai music store) Bhargava’s Musik which showed you how to play chords,” he said.

It is unfair to judge newcomer’s talent instantly, says Prabhudeva

Arbaaz Khan shoots at White House for his next film Actor Arbaaz Khan starrer Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai has been shot at White House in the US. Directed

by Keshhav Panneriy the film is apparently the first to be shot at the White House (Washington DC).

“It took us almost a year to get the permission. I applied more than 15 times before we were allowed, only because some of my line producers are Americans,” Panneriy

said in a statement. The film has been shot in West Virginia, New York City, Washington and Maryland. In India it has been filmed in Rajasthan and Mumbai. Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai is a family entertainer also starring Ashutosh Rana, Prem Chopra, Supriya Pathak, Manjari Fadnis and Himansh Kohli. It is slated to release in January 2017.

Choreographer turned actordirector Prabhudheva has acted in several regional and Hindi films besides giving some of the most popular dance numbers the film industry has ever seen. In spite of that, his humility is unmatched. While many veteran choreographers would trash newbie dancers or pinpoint flaws in their dancing, Prabhudheva believes that everyone is good in their own way. “These things keep changing. Every 10 years, new people will join the industry, and we feel that it’s not the same as earlier. It is unfair to judge a newcomer (new talent) instantly. We might realise their true potential in a few years. So it’s better to wait and watch before judging them,” says Prabhudheva, who was last seen in Sonu Sood debut production Tutak Tutak Tutiya. About the trend of choreographers such as Remo D’Souza and Farah Khan charting a new path, Prabhudheva says that it’s only natural for them to do so, since they have plenty of experience. In fact, Prabhu himself has made a mark in Bollywood as a director with hit films such as Wanted (2009), Rowdy Rathore (1012), R... Rajkumar (2013) and Singh is Bling (2015).

I have cleared misconceptions about our industry in Hollywood: Priyanka She became a global star when she made her debut in the American TV series, Quantico, last year. In an email interview, actor Priyanka Chopra, who is currently working on the second season of the show, says she is proud to represent Indian talent in the West.

“I would like to believe that I have cleared many misconceptions when it comes to Indian films and its actors. I believe in our talent and I’ve just opened the world’s eyes to what we have to offer,” says the 34-

year-old.

“I’ve made a special effort to educate everyone I meet about our film industry and the amazing writers, directors, technicians and actors we have. It’s great to be able to take us out of the box, we’ve been in for a while now. We changed, evolved, grew and it’s time the world sees that,” she adds.

Ever since Priyanka made her debut in the American television series, her career has been on an upward slope. She is now gearing up for her Hollywood debut with Baywatch, which will

see her alongside Hollywood superstars Dwayne and Johnson and Zac Efron.

Speaking about the journey in Hollywood, the former Miss World says she is thankful for being able to connect with a global audience through her work.

“For me this journey has been incredibly gratifying.

I’m also excited about the connect I’ve been able to make with new audiences and the fact that they see me as an actor first before anything else. That, in my mind, is a true measure of

success,” she says.

A proud representative of the Indian film industry, PeeCee says that she’s happy that Indian talent is finally being appreciated.

Ask her if she thinks she has set a benchmark, and she says, “I don’t see it as a benchmark. This is my chosen path. The one I was most comfortable with.

There have been many challenges and today I can look back in pride with what has been achieved.

It would be great to see more Indian talent in the west,” she says.

Issue 692 (17)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron bromance: See them enjoy Broadway musical together When it comes to Hollywood bromances, a few famous pairings may come to mind: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, George Clooney and Rande Gerber.

And as it turns out, Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron may be reaching that special friendship level as they were recently spotted at a broadway musical in Manhatten. Over the weekend, the Hollywood stars headed to Broadway where they watched the talented cast of Waitress perform live inside the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, reports People magazine. “With @zacefron after watching the enormously talented

cast of @waitressmusical,” Jackman shared on Twitter while posing with some of the cast.

“If you get a chance-grab a ticket!”

he tweeted.

In October, the duo also headed to Metlife Stadium where they posed for selfies and got access on the football field to watch the

New York Jets face off against the Seattle Seahawks. “Thanks @nyjets for an awesome day and for letting 3 man-boys hang on your field!@zacefron @gusworland” the Wolverine actor shared with his followers.

The new friendship likely stemmed from their new movie project The Greatest Showman that is currently in production.“Perfect fit. #thegreatestshowman,” the High School Musical star wrote on Instagram while posing next to Jackman on set. The Michael Gracey directed flick is slated to release on December 25, 2017.

Mel Gibson’s 34-year age gap with his girlfriend worries him Hollywood actor Mel Gibson says that the 34year age gap between himself and his girlfriend “might cause a problem”.

The 60-year-old is very happy with 26-year-old Rosealind Ross, who is pregnant with his ninth child. However, he has a “trepidation” about their relationship because of the age difference, reports mirror.co.uk. “Regarding age and relationships, it’s just a number. We dig each other. She is an adult and we dig each other. It might cause a problem and one has a trepidation about these things, but it’s working out great,” Gibson said. “She is a really

special person. I dig her.

So there you go. That’s it.

What more can one ask?” he added. Gibson has children, Hannah, 36, Christian and Edward, both 34, William, 31, Louis, 28, Milo, 26, and Thomas, 17, who he has from his marriage to Robyn Moore, as well as six-year-old Luna with Oksana.

Jennifer Lawrence pictured A producer told me I would never get kissing rumoured boyfriend work if I didn’t pose naked: Mila Kunis Darren Aronofsky Looks like reports that Jennifer Lawrence is dating Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky appear to be no rumour, with the Daily Mail running photos of the two holding hands and acting very affectionate after a dinner date in New York City. The two even shared a tender kiss. The 26-year-old Hunger Games star and the director, 47, are yet to confirm that they’re an item, but the photos (taken Wednesday night) sure make it seem like they are, with JLaw at one point wrapping her rumoured beau in a playful embrace as they walked the streets of Manhattan. Aronofsky, known for helming such critically acclaimed films as Requiem for a Dream

and The Wrestler, was previously married to actress Rachel Weisz (The Mummy), with whom he shares a 10-year-old son. According to reports, Lawrence and Aronofsky grew close over the summer while working together on a still-untitled movie, about some uninvited guests who disrupt the lives of a couple.

Launching an attack on sexism in Hollywood, actor Mila Kunis has opened up about her experience with gender bias she has faced throughout her career.

In an open letter published on A Plus, a media site cofounded by her husband Ashton Kutcher, the 33year-old has penned down the bad experiences she faced in the entertainment industry during the initial stage of her career, reported Variety.

Kunis recalls being told by a producer that she would “never work in this town again” after she refused to pose in a revealing outfit on the cover of a men’s magazine to promote a movie.

“I was livid, I felt objectified, and for the first time in my

Meryl Streep to get Golden Globes lifetime achievement award

Meryl Streep, regarded as the finest actress of her generation, will get the Golden Globes lifetime achievement award at the annual ceremony in January, organizers announced on Thursday.

Streep, a three-time Oscar winner, will be presented with the Cecil B DeMille award in recognition of her 40 years in the industry.

“She has always taken roles with strong female leads, creating art by showing vulnerability and portraying truth on the big screen. Simply put, she is a trailblazer, having paved the way for women in television, film and stage,” Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) President Lorenzo Sofia said in a statement.

“For shattering gender and age barriers, all with finesse and grace, the HFPA is humbled to bestow this honor upon her,” Sofia added. The HFPA organizes the Golden Globes awards for film and television, one of the biggest ceremonies in Hollywood’s long awards season.

The 2017 ceremony will take place in Beverly Hills on January 8.

Streep’s most recent film was the 2016 comedy Florence Foster Jenkins in which she plays a rich, elderly American with no talent for singing but big ambitions. The 67 year-old actress won Oscars for her performances in “The Iron Lady,” “Sophie’s Choice” and “Kramer vs. Kramer.”

career I said ‘no’ And guess what? The world didn’t end. The film made a lot of money and I did work in this town again, and again, and again.

What this producer may never realize is that he spoke aloud the exact fear every woman feels when confronted with gender bias in the workplace,” Kunis wrote.

She goes on to say that she has endured years of being “insulted, sidelined, paid less, creatively ignored, and otherwise diminished based on my gender” while trying to “give people the benefit of the doubt” and “play by the rules.”

“I’m done compromising; even more so, I’m done with being compromised.

So from this point forward, when I am confronted with one of these comments, subtle or overt, I will address them head on; I will stop in the moment and do my best to educate. “I cannot guarantee that my objections will be taken to heart, but at least now I am part of creating an environment where there is the opportunity for growth.

And if my comments fall on deaf ears, I will choose to walk away,” she added.

Kunis is the latest Hollywood celebrity to speak out against gender inequality in the workplace, joining the likes of Kristen Bell, Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Lawrence, Ava DuVernay, Bradley Cooper, Ethan Hawke, and more.

For the tenth time, Quentin Tarantino promises to retire after 10th film Ace filmmaker Quentin Tarantino says he is planning to retire after his tenth feature film.

Tarantino, who has directed and written eight films, said he feels content with his career. He also described the trust he has with his own artistic process, stating that he finds pleasure in creating projects from scratch and watching them develop, reports variety.com.

“There is this incredible satisfaction for me to think back, to what is usually only two years ago… and to think that there was a moment in time where me and a pen were sitting at a table in front of a blank piece of paper. It’s very gratifying for me,” Tarantino said.

Towards the end of The Creativity Conference in San Diego on Thursday, Tarantino shared that he plans to retire after his tenth feature film.

Though the end of his filmmaking career is nigh, Tarantino hopes that he

will leave a lasting impression in cinema for future generations.

“At the end of the day, if you’re going to get right down to it … the way I define success is when I’m finished with the career, and I’m considered one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. That would be successful. And going further, a great artist, not just filmmaker,” the Kill Bill filmmaker said.

He has previously teased that his next film could be a 1930s gangster movie set in Australia. But he’s also working on an undefined project revolving around his fascination with the year 1970.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Afghan man arrested at Delhi Airport India to buy rescue aircraft for smuggling out heroin in body from Japan for $1.5 billion

New Delhi A 43-year-old Afghan national has been

arrested here for trying to smuggle out a quantity of heroin, valued at Rs two crore in the international market, by concealing it in capsules he swallowed, police said on Sunday. The drug trafficker, identified as Ghulam Rabani, had crossed all security checks at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) and was to leave in the Afghanistanbound Kam Air flight on November 3 when he suddenly developed health problems. He was offloaded from the flight and admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Police

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grew suspicious as Rabani had arrived in India on a medical visa in October but had not visited any hospital for treatment.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjay Bhatia said that doctors at AIIMS were consulted and advised to examine and assess whether he had swallowed any contraband.

“During treatment it was established that Rabani had swallowed a large number of capsules.

57 CAPSULES TAKEN OUT OF STOMACH He was operated by the doctors, and during surgery, 57 capsules made of polythene were take out from his stomach and rectum.

“The capsules were opened and it was found containing heroin. The weight of the contraband was 525 grams. The total value of the contraband is estimated to be about Rs 2 crore in the international market,” he said.

Rabani has been arrested and booked under sections of of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Bhatia said “efforts are being made to unearth the whole syndicate and track the other co-passenger who was to travel in the same flight with Rabani”.

Tokyo India’s Defence Ministry will agree on Monday to purchase 12 amphibious rescue aircraft from Japanese manufacturer ShinMaywa Industries worth $1.5 billion-$1.6 billion, the Nikkei news paper reported on Sunday.

Japan and India have been holding talks on the purchase for more than two years.

It would one of Japan’s first sales of military equipment since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted a 50-year ban on arms exports and it reflects growing defence ties between the two countries.

India’s Defence Ministry will approve the purchase of 12 US-2 aircraft at a Defense Acquisitions Council meeting scheduled for Monday, the Nikkei reporting, citing

senior ministry officials it did not name.

The deal will be included in a memorandum of understanding to be signed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s visit to Japan from Thursday to Saturday, the Nikkei said, citing the officials.

During the visit, Abe will also urge Modi to expand its usage of Japan’s highspeed train technology, the Nikkei reported.

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Issue 691 (19)

1 - 7 Nov., 2016

Officer suspended for asking gang rape victim which one gave her most pleasure Thiruvananthapuram A police officer, who asked a gang rape victim, which one of her rapists gave her the most pleasure, was suspended on Monday.

M V Manikantan, circle Inspector of Peramangalam police station in Thrissur district of Kerala, was suspended pending enquiry.

“Among the four, who gave you the most pleasure?”, Manikantan had allegedly asked the 32-year-old rape victim when she came to register a complaint.

The woman, who was allegedly raped by her husband’s friends, was forced to withdraw her complaint as she couldn’t put

up with the “humiliating” questions asked by him.

IGP M R Ajit Kumar said he has initiated a probe into the allegation levelled by the victim against Manikantan.

Meanwhile, CPI(M) has suspended its Wadakancherry Municipal Councillor Jayanthan and another party worker in connection with the gangrape.

Actor and social activitst Bhagyalakshmi, who was instrumental in bringing the crime to light, criticised the

police officer for posing such questions.

Meanwhile, Congress-led UDF on Monday demanded that a case be registered against CPI(M)’s

India expects early extradition of Vijay Mallya after May-Modi talks New Delhi India on Monday asked Britain to extradite nearly 60 people wanted by it, including liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Chirstian Michel, the alleged

middleman in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal, for bringing them back to face justice.

India and Britain also agreed to hold annual strategic dialogue at the level of union home secretary to jointly deal with issues like terrorism, organised crimes, visa and immigration matters.

The Indian list of around 60 wanted people was handed over to Britain during the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Theresa May. Britain also handed over to India a list of 17 people whose custody it seeks under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty or against whom Letters Rogatories had been issued, official sources said.

While industrialist Vijay Mallya has been accused of money laundering, Chirstian Michel is the alleged middleman in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal.

The two countries agreed not to allow fugitives and criminals escape law and resolved to facilitate outstanding extradition requests.

In talks between Modi and May, the issue of extradition requests figured and officials dealing with the issue from both sides were directed to meet at the earliest.

Sources said India expects forward movement in Mallya’s extradition from the UK following the talks. They said the specific issue of Mallya’s extradition

had also figured in the talks between the two sides in the run up to the meeting between Modi and May. Asked whether Mallya issue figured in the talks, joint secretary (Europe) in the External Affairs Ministry Randhir Jaiswal referred to the Indo-UK joint statement issued after the discussions which said the two Prime Ministers affirmed their strong commitment to enhancing cooperation under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.

Former IPL boss Lalit Modi is also evading law in India and Monday’s talks may help Indian authorities to push for his early extradition as well.

Michel is a British citizen and wanted

by CBI while Mallya and Modi, who have made the UK their home, are wanted by the ED in money laundering cases.

“The two leaders agreed that fugitives and criminals should not be allowed to escape the law. They expressed their strong commitment to facilitate outstanding extradition requests from both sides.

“In this context, they directed that the officials dealing with extradition matters from both sides should meet at the earliest to develop better understanding of each countries’ legal processes and requirements; share best practices, and identify the causes of delays and expedite pending requests,” the statement said.

The strategic dialogue between union home secretary and his British counterpart, permanent secretary for Home Office, will begin from next year to discuss counter-terror cooperation, ways to deal with organised crimes besides bilateral visa and immigration matters, sources said.

This is for the first time India and Britain will have such a mechanism for dealing with security issues.

India already has an arrangement with the United States to have annual Homeland Security dialogue at the level of union home minister.

Thrissur District Secretary K Radhakrishnan for allegedly disclosing to the media the name of the gangrape victim. Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ramesh Chennithala wrote to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, demanding that a case be registered against Radhakrishnan, a former minister and Speaker, as he had “deliberately” named the victim.

CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said the party had promptly acted when the

allegations were levelled. “We will make sure such things which are not correct are not allowed,” he told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram.

CPI(M) Politbureau member Brinda Karat said that naming the victim was a “mistake”. “We are not supposed to name the victim. So it was a mistake to name the victim,” she said in Delhi.

Police have recorded the statements of the woman and her husband.

The woman had appeared before media, alleging that she had been gang raped by four persons, including by the CPI(M) councillor, two years ago and was being harassed.

Issue 691 (20)

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3$.·6 6322.

ISI is using but also Pa villages fo

1(7: HOURS after the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes in POK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) to destroy terror launch pads, residents of border villages in Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab received dozens of telephone calls from Pakistan abusing the receiver or pretending to be senior army officers. One such call receiver was Babhishan Singh of Malpur village in Akhnoor sector, Jammu, who is also a village headman. The caller had introduced himself as a senior army officer from Delhi headquarters. Singh did not suspect the caller as the call was made using Indian SIM card. He initially talked about the evacuation of people after the tensions grew on the border but when he started inquiring about the movement of forces, he informed the police. The matter was handed over to the army authorities who traced the caller based in Pakistan. The authorities have not revealed the numbers.

Investigations revealed that similar calls were also made to people in Punjab. Most of the callers had asked about the movement of the Indian security forces. Not only in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir but the ISI spies had also used Indian SIM cards to call people in Laddakh. One Sanjay Puri of Pathankot who got a call from +923026687148, a Pakistanbased mobile phone number was abused by the caller when he refused to speak to him. This is the new modus operandi adopted by the ISI to confuse Indian authorities and people as the calls made using Pakistan mobile phone numbers (prefix +92) were easily identified and people were cautioned by the authorities not to answer such calls.

Mobile Phone SIM cards were made to the people living on border areas to get secret information about army installations and deployment. The authorities had recently launched a drive to sensitise the people so that strategic information was not leaked. The army authorities have prohibited people from clicking photos of army vehicles and establishments including border out posts. The BSF even refused permission to television crews to shoot on border areas which have been divided into sensitive and hypersensitive zones. “Using Indian SIM cards to communicate is the latest method adopted by the ISI, Pakistan terrorists and spies. But technology has made it possible to trace the location of the caller. All callers were traced in Pakistan,” a senior Army officer requesting anonymity told MAIL TODAY. How Pakistan spies, ISI or terrorists accessed Indian Mobile Phone SIM Cards could be a matter of investigation for Indian security agencies, it has also left them worried since the SIM cards have been used by anti-social elements to elicit secret information. Sources said the SIM cards are first registered using fake IDs in India and then used to connect with the ISI or the terror bosses. The Samjhauta Express or the Thar Express is also used to send and receive SIM cards as the authorities rarely frisk passengers for SIM cards.

GOLDMINE FOR SIM

Pakistan has been a veritable goldmine for the unverified mobile SIM cards for terror outfits and drug smugglers. According to an estimate, more than 50 million unverified SIM cards were in use in Pakistan when the Taliban had killed 150 people including 134 Indian security agencies were on school children in Peshawar on toes when calls using Indian December 16, 2014. According to

SPIES ON PROWL

an estimate only 10 percent of total mobile phone users in Pakistan are post paid customers.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), which had launched a verification drive after the Peshawar school terror strike, had blocked 25 million sim cards in April 2015.

Sources say half of the unverified SIM cards are still active and may be openly used by the terrorists and smugglers. The mobile phones which were used by the terrorists to attack Peshawar school were issued on the basis of a fake identity. Highly placed sources said hundreds of Pakistan mobile SIM cards were active along the Indo-Pak international border.BSF sources estimate the number of active Pak SIM cards near the border as around 150. It is worth mentioning here that the Indians residing near the border rarely use Indian mobile network connections as the signals are very weak. That’s why Indian smugglers, gangsters and spies have been found using Pakistan SIM cards to communicate to the Pakistan based druglords or the terror networks. Jammu police had recovered two pakistani SIM cards

besides a map showing the deployment of security forces from a Pak spy identified as Bodhraj,who is a resident of Arnia sector on October 21,2016. This spy was arrested from Sambha sector. January 4, 2016 a Pakistan SIM card was recovered from the possession of three drug smugglers Gurjant Singh, Sandip Singh and Jatinder Singh in Mohali, Punjab. Dozens of Pakistan SIM cards were recovered previously from drug smugglers and spies but the authorities have no details about their operators or actual owners.

POWERFUL SIGNALS As mobile user population in Pakistan’s major towns located close to the International Border has gone up, the mobile operators have installed powerful signals in Lahore,Islamabad, Sialkot besides Sadikabad, Gabbar Kehju, Mandi Sadi Mangal, Rehimyar Khan, Hasilpur, F a k i r e w a n a r, H a r u n a b a d , ungabunga, Mandi Sadiikganj, Khokharapar, Chacharo, Jumantar, Mubarka Fort Abbas, Mantharbanglo,Minchandabad, Bhawal Nagar, Saidanwali besides other areas located on the border

21

1 - 7 Nov., 2016

g not just Indian SIM cards to track army movements akistan’s strong mobile connectivity along bordering or infiltration and spying activities. A ground report

:25. ranging from Jammu Kashmir to Rajasthan. Besides the civil mobile network, Pakistan Army Corps of Signals has also strengthened its network along the border. Sources said Pakistan Rangers and Army also use common network operators for infiltration and spying activities. As compared to the Pakistan’s mobile network along the International Border, the signals of Indian mobile phone operators are very weak. While Indian mobile phones stop working a few kilometres near the border, Pakistan mobile phone signals are so powerful that they can be

accessed up to five kilometres.

Surprisingly, Pakistan mobile phone signals have also been traced in Indian cantonments like Pathankot,Mamdot, Khem Karan and Wagah. Two major Pakistan towns Lahore and Kasur are located at a distance of 15 kms from the IB. Signals of Pakistan mobile phone operators like Mobilink, Telenor and Ufone besides the satellite phones were also found on National Highway 1 which connects Jammu with Kashmir. Intercepting the calls made using Pakistan mobile operators becomes almost

impossible as their towers are located in Pakistan. As per, law mobile phone network of a country is not allowed beyond 500 metres of its territory but Pakistan’s mobile phone operators are openly violating the norms which has become a major security threat.

“We have found Pakistan mobile phone signals between three to five kilometres inside India (Punjab).Efforts are being used to jam the signals by installing jammers near the borders in PUnjab,” ADGP Law and Order, Punjab Police,Hardeep Singh Dhillon told Mail Today.

-DLVK FKLHI FULHV UHYHQJH THE destruction of terror launch pads in POK by Indian forces have left Pakistan-based terror outfits baffled.

Jaish chief Hafiz Mohammad has lost his cool and has threatened to launch terror strikes. Army Intelligence sources have revealed that terrorists like Hafiz Saiyad and Maulana Masood Azhar who are fearing Indian surgical strike have been given army protection. Meanwhile the terror outfits are believed to be under pressure from ISI to infiltrate and carry out terror strikes. Investigations have revealed

that the terrorists are using Indian SIM cards to contact locals on IndoPakistan border to get information about the army and paramilitary movement. Heightened security on the Indo-Pak border has not only reduced narcotic smuggling, but has also minimised the infiltration.

Intelligence sources have revealed that the terrorists may dig up tunnels on the border, swim across the border and use gliders to avoid the infra red detection system, cobra wire or even the planned laser fencing.

%XLOGLQJ ZDOO RQ ,QGR 3DN ERUGHU LV WRXJK Home Minister Rajnath Singh's ambitious plan to seal the Indo-Pak border on the lines of Israel West Bank Wall will not only be a landmark but also a challenging one . Besides the limitations imposed by the geographical conditions, removal of human settlements along the 3223 km long border are also a big challenge.

Constructing a wall in 553 km border which passes through Punjab will be a herculean task, the 90 km long riverine route in particular. Taming the Ravi and its tributaries including the Ujj Daria which flows from Pakistan and joins the river at Makdi Pattan in Gurdaspur will be a daunting task. Though the BSF has installed 44 high mast floodlights at various points to step up vigil along the course of this river there are nearly a half dozen points which are considered entry points and are required to be sealed. Located near the IndoPak border, this is Chakri village in Gurdaspur district. Like over a thousand villages which were evacuated recently in the wake of tensions along the border, Chakri also witnessed the

fear and pain of displacement. According to the state government sources nearly 30,000 acre land is under cultivation near the zero line. A sizeable chunk of farmers own most of their land close to the fence. More than 20,500 acres of land is being used to construct houses near the zero line.

Mail Today spoke to a few local residents who have welcomed the proposal to construct a wall along the international border but fear losing their agriculture land.

However, most of them suggested that the wall should be constructed on the zero line which will not only save them from the bullets but will also make it ease for them to cultivate the fields. Nearly 90 km long riverine route out of 553 km long international border which passes hrough Punjab has become vulnerable to the infiltrations. The state government has planned its own second line of defense and now plans to use patrolling boats to keep an eye on 30 entry points in six border districts including Amritsar, Taran Taran, Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Fazilka and Ferozepur.

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1 - 7 Nov., 2016

Donald forced to duck after scare

1. Female penguin in nest with her lover. 2. The husband sees them and starts a showdown. 3. The two males duke it out for her affections.

4. The bloody fight is captured by National Geographic. 5. The female sides with the homewrecker.

SECRET Service agents rushed Donald Trump offstage on Saturday evening during a rally in Reno, Nevada after they determined a protester in the audience might pose a threat to the Republican presidential candidate. “Go! Go!” agents shouted as they whisked Trump away and a combination of local police and private security wrestled Austyn Crites, 33, to the ground in the front of the crowd.

Crites identifies as a Republican who supports Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to his Facebook page. A senior Trump campaign official told DailyMail.com that the suspect, whom rallygoers already identified as an anti-Trump protester, caused a panic when he reached into his waistband.

At that point, the campaign official said, a voice called out: “He’s got a gun!” Trump’s protective detail sprang into

action, pulling him offstage as a sea of bodies scattered, screams rang out and authorities dragged Crites away as he kicked and strained. The U.S. Secret Service said in a statement that ‘a commotion’ had occurred ‘in the crowd immediately in front of the stage’ and ‘an unidentified individual shouted, “gun”.’ “Secret Service agents and Reno police officers immediately apprehended the subject. Upon a thorough search of the subject and the surrounding area, no weapon was found,” the statement added. Authorities never confirmed early reports that Crites or any civilians at the rally had a firearm. One witness told DailyMail.com that a holstered gun was spotted on the hip of a plainclothes officer, adding to the confusion. Just before the fracas, Trump could be seen shielding his eyes from the lights in order to peer into the crowd as a struggle broke out.

NOT SO HAPPY FEET! Video shows penguin attacking love rival on finding him with ‘wife’ A brutal video has surfaced of a male penguin bloodily beating a love rival – after returning home to his nest to find him getting intimate with his wife. It was supposed to be a picture of bliss: A husband happily returning home from his journey, ready to reunite with his wife and children. But the homecoming would soon turn into a bloody and violent soap opera when the husband found another male in his house. The vicious showdown that ensued between the two male penguins was captured in a National Geographic video that rivaled an episode of The Real World. It begins innocently enough. The video’s narrator calmly explains that 200,000 penguins are returning to fix up their nests and breed. One of those penguins is

A’LOVE-HATE RELATION’ THIS

THERE’S certainly been no love lost between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail as they fight for arguably the biggest job on the planet. But a hilarious YouTube video takes a look at just how the two candidates

might act in a parallel universe if they both chased their dream job but with a little bit of love for each other. Filmed in London, the video titled ‘Love & Rage in the Race to the White House’, starts off with actors in Trump and Clinton masks holding hands as they

stroll through a park, doing yoga stretches and enjoying a children’s see saw ride. Trump then pushes Clinton on a swing and even share spaghetti Lady and the Tramp style, drink wine and generally appear to enjoy each other’s company.

the husband, the protagonist in our story. He waddles home, the gentle sound of crashing waves behind him. That’s when he sees his wife and her new love. “He flips out,” the narrator dramatically exclaims. “The strategy is simple: Battle the homewrecker - until he flees”.

But the homewrecker penguin isn’t willing to go down without a catfight that could be straight out of Days of Our Lives. There is no time for excuses or explanations. The two male penguins immediately begin to duke it out, turning their beaks into swords in their fight for love.

But the even more vicious weapon is their wings. “Most birds have hollow bones in their wings, to make them lighter for flight. But penguins don’t fly, their flippers contain solid

bones,” the narrator explains.

His words resonate as the penguins continue to viciously slap each other. “They use them like baseball bats to clobber each other,” he continues. “Delivering up to eight blows per second.” The narrator almost tries to comfort the viewer, assuring us that the penguins’ blubber is helping protect their vital organs “from the pummeling.” But they are both still horrifically covered in blood. Then, suddenly, both the male penguins stop. They’ve declared a stalemate and decide to call on the female and let her decide who she wants to be with. She saunters over and confidently stands by her man. But its not her husband she chooses, its the homewrecker.

Issue 692 (23)

8 - 14 Nov., 2016

ISIS digs in at Mosul with boys as young as nine

SATELLITE pictures have revealed how Islamic State (ISIS) fanatics are digging in with Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul as it emerged desperate fanatics are recruiting boys aged just nine to fight on the front line. Aerial images show how extremists have built huge defences at the entrances to the city and blocked off roads with military reinforcements. Today has seen the most intense street battles of the three-week-old assault on the ISIScontrolled city, with explosions and machine gun fire echoing through the streets after sunset. ISIS fighters appear to have bulldozed parts of the city to create a 'clear line of sight' in the hope it will help them fight off Iraqi forces. It comes as dramatic pictures showed how retreating ISIS fanatics have sparked huge fires and created a toxic smoke cloud the size of New York City by torching oil wells. Footage shows a massive blaze close to buildings in an area to the south of the besieged terror stronghold of Mosul. Thousands of families are said to be living in a 'smokefilled hell' in Qayyarah, with no access to clean water after ISIS set 19 wells ablaze during their retreat from villages.

The UN human rights office in Geneva says it has new reports that ISIS has been carrying out mass killings in Mosul, and has executed 50 of its own militants for desertion. It comes as an estimated 3,000 Elite Iraqi forces backed by artillery and air strikes have captured six districts of Mosul from ISISand raised the nation's flag above the city for the first time in two years. The United Nations warned ISIS were prepared to use brutal tactics to defend the city amid reports boys as young as nine were being ordered to fight. Iraqi special forces today attacked Islamic State militants in Mosul from a new entry point, to the city's northeast. The Iraqi

troops' move prompted heavy fire from IS, forcing soldiers to call in airstrikes.

Two suicide bombers detonated their

came under heavy fire from mortars, automatic weapons, snipers and antitank rockets. Iraqi special forces Captain

targets, while five other vehicles laden with explosives were destroyed, including a bulldozer. At least seven Iraqi Army troops were killed, and a further four have been injured in the intense fighting, an Iraqi military officer told The Associated Press. Columns of armoured vehicles wound through open desert on Friday, pushing through dirt berms to enter the middle class neighbourhoods of Tahrir and Zahara, and passing a district once named after former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The advance

Malik Hameed said: "The operation is going well, but it's slow. These kinds of advances are always slow. If we tried to go any faster we would take even more injuries." An Iraqi television journalist traveling in a Humvee was wounded in one of the suicide car bomb attacks.

According to Oxfam, which distributed the video, the fires have produced clouds of thick black smoke and fumes across an area larger than Greater London while residents told the charity they had been burning for months. With several oil

fields still under ISIS control around Mosul, and the potential for thousands of people to flee to the Qayyarah area, there is a risk that many more will be affected, Oxfam reported. The charity said: "The smoke blocks out the sun and turns children's faces grey with oily soot. People living close to the burning oil say that the smoke burns their throat and lungs and that their babies have difficulty breathing. One doctor in Haiji Ali, close to Qayyarah, said many of her patients were suffering from bronchitis and that 'there was a shortage of medicine.' Andres Gonzalez, Oxfam's country director in Iraq, added: "Even after ISIS has left, many of the people living amid its trail of destruction have told us that life remains unbearable."

Burning oil wells continue to spew out toxic fumes that burn people's throats and turn their communities into a smokefilled hell. The Iraqi government needs to tell citizens what is being done to put out these fires and to avoid a potentially bigger crisis in Mosul." Meanwhile, Iraqi special forces took over the neighbourhoods of Malayeen, Samah, Khadra, Karkukli, Quds and Karama, a military statement said, inflicting heavy losses on the militant fighters and raising the Iraqi flag over buildings. The territory taken by the government still amounts to just a fraction of the sprawling city.

We will carry out surgical strike in Kashmir: JuD chief Hafiz Saeed Lahore Jammat-ud-Dawah chief and 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed has threatened India with a ‘surgical strike’ in Jammu and Kashmir. “(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi had done what he had to. Now it is the turn of Mujahideen to carry out a surgical strike in Kashmir,” Saeed threatened while addressing a rally on Sunday in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

“The surgical strike Mujahideen are going to carry out will be remembered for long. Such a strike will not be like that of India’s which is not even

acknowledged by the world,” Saeed said amid chants of ‘jihad...jihad’ by his supporters.

Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-eTaiba, who carries a $10mn bounty on his head, criticised the Nawaz Sharif government last week for giving a ‘cool’ response to India over alleged atrocities in Kashmir, saying people in the Valley need Pakistan’s ‘full practical support’.

Soon after India’s surgical strikes across the LoC on September 29, Saeed had warnedthe Modi government, to get ready for a surgical strike from the Pakistan army.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

You cut away dead weight and what you don’t want and go with singlepointed energy towards your professional and personal goals. You can expect to arrive at a peaceful resolution in a family conflict. List your priorities and cut through restrictions at work and limitations in personal relationships. You can be ruthless when pointing to truths at the cost of hurting others or yourself. Insight and new understanding is achieved in relationships and partnerships. You begin pulsating in harmony with the rhythm of life and flow easily into life’s waters.

Since you had great expectations you are likely to face disappointment in love or unkindness from friends this week. Your routines and business schedules may be disrupted in an unexpected manner. Don’t cling to the past because clinging will simply create misery. Midweek, situations change for the better and you receive reward and appreciation for your work and participation. Be flexible about professional plans and receptive to new ideas. Personal relationships are likely to be surprising, as there are mixed reactions and feelings therein.

Travel and business opportunities inspire you to make new beginnings and changes! You meet new people and make exciting connections. People who matter appreciate your professional skill and wisdom.

Messages and visitors from overseas, business transactions and meetings can keep you busy and preoccupied. You tend to get mentally stressed and over analyse situations this week.

It’s best not to confuse or complicate difficult situations more than they are already. Loved ones bring joy and celebration into your life. Your social life is busy and a bit tiring.

You display artful mastery while integrating resources and forces to create what you want in personal and professional aspects this week. Your gift of communication takes you to people who are unapproachable. A friend gives you good advice and support to get past a complicated business problem. Overseas travel and communications are important in the wake of new business opportunities and contracts. You are likely to be involved in multifarious activity that keeps you busy and stressed. This is a week of social activity and excitement as you are much in demand.

Any inner blocks or restrictions that you may have perceived at work or at home prove to be an illusion. Don’t miss the opportunity to experience the lightheartedness and adventure life offers this week. Move with the sweetness and gentleness of this time to savor your friendships and relationships. Listen to your heart for the right answers. You are able to express your creative ideas freely at work and your feelings honestly in relationships. You are seen, noted and heard as you begin to express original ideas and plans. You are a free spirit and move ahead with dynamic energy.

You are seen, noted and heard as you express valuable insights and share professional expertise with people who appreciate your work. A time of glory, gain and riches comes unexpectedly after all the monumental efforts you have made in the past. You cannot help being frank in personal relationships and friendships. Do not take your partner for granted but show some love and consideration. Beware of an arrogant and vain person who could embarrass you before family and friends. You are socially sought after and may find it hard to cope with the demands on your time and energy.

This week you have to be a light unto yourself and guide yourself in the path of life with inner wisdom and understanding. You are blessed with divine insight and also play the role of consultant and advisor in professional situations. You function best as an individual and tend to be a perfectionist. You prefer to be in meaningful relationships or rather be alone. When you find no support from others for your deep feelings and truths, you can either feel isolated or bitter or celebrate the fact that your vision is strong enough to survive the powerful human need for approval of friends.

You may be divided in your feelings about relationships and split in your mind about professional matters this week. Overanalysing situations can only add further confusion within you. It’s time to become integrated, centered and crystallised. To be really happy you have to be total while saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without hesitation in any situation that confronts you. You manage to resolve personal and professional conflicts through discussion and mediation. Balance in partnerships, peace in relationships and harmony in the home are your goals and achievements this week.

Stop thinking negatively and imagining the worst as none of what you fear is happening! You can get past a feeling of oppression by meditating and feeling free and light inside. A positive and creative approach towards family problems changes attitudes and heals old wounds. It’s best to maintain balance as moving into extremes can be disastrous.

When divided, wait for totality and clarity, before making decisions. Listen to your intuition and heart rather than to your analysing mind when assessing family and personal relationships. Your faith and patience in personal relationships pays.

Delay, inertia and opposition need to be countered with perseverance, patience and positive energy this week. Your security structure remains intact despite your interest and involvement in different business projects and social commitments. Visitors and news from far off lands bring good cheer. Whatever you have been absorbed with is now coming to an end. By completing it, you will be clearing the space for something new to begin. Use this opportunity to celebrate both the end of the old and the coming of the new. Your horizons are wider and viewpoints higher as you expand business and interests this winter.

As you fly free in the open sky of life and experience, existence provides you with exactly what you need. Celebrate life and all that it brings. You initiate a current of force to achieve professional and personal goals and need to go beyond limitations and blocks to complete projects and fulfill promises. There is harmony of rule and justice as you use your power and authority effectively this week. You are able to influence family decisions and change plans to suit your schedules. It’s important to take your freedom and give it as well to fulfill your own priorities and goals.

You regain peace within and make compromises outsides with people you had differences with in the past. Integrate forces, resources and ideas before making the next move in any situation. A gamble pays off and legal matters are resolved. Make important decisions now and be released from demands and tensions.

Mental conflicts can be resolved through discussion and positive attitudes. Love and care from the one special person in your life is a blessing. Your social life is restricted to close friends. This is a good time to plan ahead and have a new vision rather than settle with limitations and restrictions.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Technology Google formally rejects EU antitrust charges Brussels Google on Thursday formally rejected European Union antitrust charges of unfairly promoting its shopping service and blocking rivals in online search advertising, paving the way for EU regulators to rule next year on these issues and potentially impose hefty fines. The U.S. technology giant‘s rebuttal in the shopping case came six years after the European Commission opened an investigation prompted by complaints from rivals such as Microsoft and a host of European and U.S. rivals.

The EU regulator followed up with an anticompetitive charge against the company in April last year and added more evidence in July this year. It also issued a separate charge sheet against its online search advertising product AdSense for Search at the same time.

Google‘s general counsel Kent Walker said on a blog that the

accusations had no factual, legal or economic basis, and that the company‘s actions were driven by its users rather than any plan to squash rivals.

“We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information we displayed. On the contrary, we improved it.

That isn`t `favouring` that`s listening to our customers,” Walker said.

He said the Commission had failed to take into account competition from Amazon, merchant platforms, social media sites, mobile web and online advertising by companies such as Facebook and Pinterest.

The EU executive said it had received Google‘s response.

“In each case, we will

carefully consider Google`s response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation,” Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email.

Google may find it difficult convincing the EU regulator with its latest arguments, said Michael Carrier, professor at New Jerseybased Rutgers Law School.

“Google has a point that its search results help consumers by allowing them to directly buy the item. But the Commission worries about the effect on rivals. This likely will outweigh the consumer point,” he said.

Google also rejected a Commission proposal which would let the company charge rivals for displaying their services prominently, with the amount corresponding to its operating cost or a nominal amount based on the lowest reserve price for AdWords which is currently 0.01 euro per click.

In the advertising case, the company said it had already scrapped the exclusivity clauses and other provisions identified by the regulator as anticompetitive.

The Commission plans to hand down hefty fines to Google if found guilty of breaching EU rules, the charge sheet seen by Reuters showed. The penalty could reach $7.4 billion or 10 percent of the company‘s global turnover for each case.

Walker said Google would respond in the coming days to a third EU charge of using its Android mobile operating system to hinder competitors. The Commission has given it until Nov. 11 to do so.

Apple enhances iOS features for hearing impaired

Tech giant Apple has enhanced its iOS accessibility features for users with hearing impairments, according to a report by Appleinsider.Features like Bluetooth-based AirPod-style streaming, Live Listen, have been enhanced, focusing on conversations in loud environment for hearing impairments.Apple first introduced MFi support for Bluetooth hearing aids in iOS 7 and iPhone 4s. Its latest software expands support for direct streaming of phone calls, FaceTime conversations, movies and other audio to supported hearing aids,

without the need for a middleman device known as a “streamer”.New iOS 10 hearing aid also features integrated device battery life and independent base, treble, right and left volume controls, and supports audiologistdesigned presets for handling sound from concerts or restaurants, the report said.In addition to supporting audio originating on the phone, the new Live Listen feature also allows users to relay focused audio picked up by the iPhone’s mic, enabling clearer conversations when in a loud environment.

New technology to make 2-D and 3-D printing ultra-fast Using a space chargecontrolled KTN beam deflector researchers found that scanning at a much higher speed is possibleA major technological advance in the field of high speed beam-scanning devices can increase the speed of 2D and 3D printing by up to 1000 times, researchers have reported.Using a spacecharge-controlled KTN beam deflector — a kind of crystal made of potassium tantalate and potassium niobate — with a large electro-optic effect, the researchers found that

scanning at a much higher speed is possible.This research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, could benefit everyone, in that something being printed in 3D that once took an hour would now take seconds, and 20,000 pages printed in 2D would take one minute, said Shizhuo Yin, Professor at School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Pennsylvania State University, US. ”Basically, when the crystal materials are applied to an electric field, they generate uniform reflecting distributions,

that can deflect an incoming light beam,” Yin said.”We conducted a systematic study on indications of speed and found out the phase transition of the electric field is one of the limiting factors,” Yin noted.To overcome this issue, Yin and his team of researchers, eliminated the electric field-induced phase transition in a nanodisordered KTN crystal by making it work at a higher temperature.They not only went beyond the Curie temperature (the temperature in which certain materials lose their

magnetic properties, replaced by induced magnetism), they went beyond the critical end point in which a liquid and its vapour can coexist.This increased the scanning

speed from the microsecond range to the nanosecond regime and improved high-speed imaging, broadband optical communications, and ultra-fast laser display

and printing, said the study.A technology like this would be especially meaningful in the medical industry high speed imaging would now be in real-time, Yin said.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

SKULL-MASKED IRAQI SQUADS WREST MOSUL ELITE special forces are terrifying ISIS soldiers in Iraq by wearing skull masks as they fight to take back Mosul. The Golden Division is a US-trained group of special forces soldiers fighting on the front line as the operation to take back the ISIS controlled city continues.

According to the Sun, they took back six districts in Mosul, ISIS’s largest stronghold, on Saturday morning, breaking through the militant defence lines and fighting them in the streets. The elite fighters are part of Iraq’s 1st Commando Battalion and have the same training as a US Army Ranger. Commanders of the brigade have boasted that each of the soldiers is worth 1,000 ISIS fighters. The group is said to have two million followers on Facebook and have become

local heroes. It is not the first time the skull masks have been used by American soldiers, as one was pictured in Kuwait using one to shield himself from the sandstorms in 2003.

Iraqi special forces threw themselves back into the battle on Saturday after a first foray into Mosul was blunted by stiffer than expected resistance from jihadists defending the birthplace of their ‘caliphate.’ While the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) fought the Islamic State group in the streets of Mosul, the army and federal police attacked one of the last sizeable towns on the more distant southern front. The mass exodus feared by aid groups of some of the millionplus civilians still trapped in Mosul has yet to materialise, but the number of people displaced by the battle has grown sharply in recent days. “Our forces are now engaged in fierce fighting inside

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the neighbourhoods of east Mosul,” CTS spokesman Sabah al-Noman said, adding that the ‘fighting is house to house.’ In Bartalla, a town to the east that

Iraqi forces have used as a base, ambulances returning from the front with wounded CTS fighters rushed by on a regular basis.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

‘Dangerous individual’: Details emerge about US sex offender who chained woman SPARTANBURG The man accused of chaining a woman in a storage container for weeks had a violent past and was “preoccupied with sexual content” from a young age, according to details emerging as

investigators continued Saturday to search his rural property for bodies.Teams digging on the property found one body Friday and feared there could be more.

Prosecutor Barry Barnette said the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her for a cleaning job on the suspect’s property. The body discovered Friday was not immediately identified, and Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said he isn’t sure when that might happen.

Police vehicles continued to crisscross the property of Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, a 45-yearold registered sex offender.

“This is a very, very dangerous individual,” the prosecutor said.

Kohlhepp, who has a previous kidnapping conviction in Arizona, appeared Friday at a bond hearing in Spartanburg on a kidnapping charge. More charges are expected.

The judge did not set bond and instead referred the matter to circuit court. The suspect didn’t appear to have an attorney.

Barnette said that in the Arizona case, Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14year-old girl, bound her and raped her in 1986. Online prison records show he served about 14 years for the felony. He was released in 2001.

Records from the Arizona case obtained by WHNS-TV in South Carolina show that a judge decided in 1987 to transfer the case to adult court partly because of Kohlhepp’s aggressive nature.

“At less than the age of 9 this juvenile was impulsive, explosive and preoccupied with sexual

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content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school,” the judge wrote.

In the South Carolina case, the couple disappeared about

August 31 when they went to do the work on the suspect’s nearly 100-acre property near Woodruff, said Daniel Herren, a friend who sat with the woman in her hospital room after she was rescued Thursday.

“They were going to do some work, help cleaning up the property. And he pulled out a gun and took them hostage,” Herren said, adding that the abduction happened quickly.

The Associated Press is not naming the woman because the suspect is a sex offender, though authorities have not said whether she was sexually assaulted. Her boyfriend was identified as 32year-old Charles Carver.

Herren said he did not ask the woman if she was sexually assaulted.

But she did describe to him the details of her captivity, telling him she was in the container nearly the entire time except for when she was taken out for occasional walks.“He never took the chain off of her, but he was taking her around, let her get, not so much exercise, but let her walk around some,” Herren said. “It didn’t sound like it was every day. It was kind of sporadic.”

She left the hospital late Thursday and is staying with family, Herren said.

The property includes grassy areas, some covered in waisthigh weeds, as well as stands of trees. Most or all of it is surrounded by a chain-link fence 6 to 7 feet tall.

In the middle was the cargo container, which measured about 30 feet by 15 feet. It was next to a two-car garage that had a living space on top, Barnette said.

Guns and a large amount of ammunition were seized from Kohlhepp, the prosecutor said.

“It’s unbelievable how much he had,” he said, adding that Kohlhepp frequently took target practice in an area near the storage container.

Records show Kohlhepp received his South Carolina realestate license in 2006 before a state law went into effect requiring background checks.

A real estate agent who worked at the firm run by Kohlhepp said she had known him for 10 years after they met at a university in the Spartanburg area and were study partners. She said she was in disbelief.

“He’s not the kind of person to do something like this,” Cherry Laurens said by phone.

“Working with him, he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we needed him.”

She said it was widely known that he was registered as a sex offender, but he told people that it was based on trumped-up charges after he “had gone joyriding with a girl” and upset her father.

Kohlhepp made frequent online posts about moving around rocks and trimming trees at the rural property, according to the Facebook page that Laurens confirmed was his.

He wrote a post about news reports on missing people: “reading the news.. this person missing, that person missing, another person missing.. oh wait.. that person just went to beach with friend, other person found with her parole violation boyfriend... in the event I become missing, please note no one would take me. I eat too much and I am crabby...”

The post was written about two weeks after the couple disappeared in August.

China’s ‘monkey king’ picks Trump as next US president

SHANGHAI A Chinese monkey described as the “king of prophets” has tipped Donald Trump for the US presidency, a tourism park said, after the creature successfully predicted the winner of football’s European Championship final earlier this year. Known as Geda - which means knots or goose bumps - the prophetic primate is the latest in a series of purportedly psychic animals that have popped up around the world since Paul the Octopus correctly predicted multiple 2010 World Cup matches. The simian seer, wearing a yellow shirt emblazoned with his title, was given a chance to pick between life-sized cut-outs of Republican Trump and his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton. After “deliberate thought” the mystic monkey chose Trump, Shiyanhu Ecological Tourism Park said Thursday in a statement on its

website. Without even waiting, he congratulated the cardboard candidate with a kiss on the lips.

The five-year-old simian correctly predicted Portugal would win the 2016 European football championship in July, two days before Cristiano Ronaldo’s side prevailed 1-0, online news portal ifeng.com reported at the time.

Then, the monkey was presented with the national flags of Portugal and France with bananas on both. It finally walked towards the national flag of Portugal and ate a banana there, the report said.

Geda’s antics seem to have been inspired by the oracular octopus Paul. In 2010, Paul the Octopus became the world’s most famous mollusc when he foretold the results of every match played by Germany at the World Cup in South Africa, as well as Spain’s victory against the Netherlands in the final.

Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump modeled in US prior to getting work visa Washington Melania Trump was paid for 10 modeling jobs in the United States worth USD 20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago. The details of Mrs Trump’s early paid modeling work in the US emerged in the final days of a bitter presidential campaign in which her husband, Donald Trump, has taken a hard line on immigration laws and those who violate them. Trump has proposed broader use of the government’s E-verify system allowing employers to check whether job applicants are authorized to work. Mrs Trump, who received a green card in March 2001 and became a US citizen in 2006, has always maintained that she arrived in the country legally and never violated the terms of her immigration status.The wife of the GOP presidential nominee has said through an attorney that she first came to the US from Slovenia on August 27, 1996, on a B1/B2 visitor visa and then obtained an H-1B work visa on October 18, 1996. The documents obtained by the AP show she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between September 10 and October 15,

during a time when her visa allowed her generally to be in the US and look for work but not perform paid

The documents obtained by the AP included ledgers, other accounting documents and a

work in the country. It is highly unlikely the discovery will affect the citizenship status of Mrs Trump. The government can seek to revoke the US citizenship of immigrants after the fact in cases when it determines a person willfully misrepresented or concealed facts relevant to his naturalization. But it effectively does this in only the most egregious cases, such as instances involving terrorism or war crimes.The disclosures about the payments come as Mrs. Trump takes on a more substantial role advocating for her husband’s candidacy. She made her first speech in months Thursday, in which she spoke of her time working as a model in Europe and her decision to come to the US.

management agreement signed

by Mrs Trump from Metropolitan International Management that covered parts of 1996 and 1997.

The AP obtained the files this week after seeking copies since August from employees of the now-defunct modeling firm, after Mrs Trump made comments earlier this summer that appeared inconsistent with US immigration rules. A New York immigration lawyer whom Mrs Trump asked to review her immigration documents, Michael J Wildes, reviewed some of the ledgers at AP’s request. Wildes said in a brief statement that “these documents, which have not been verified, do not reflect our records including corresponding passport stamps.”

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Hackers pounce on Windows crack exposed by Google SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft has warned that a Windows vulnerability exposed by rival Google was being exploited by a hacking group suspected of cyber attacks on US political institutions.

Hackers that Microsoft researchers call “Strontium” launched a low-volume spearphishing campaign aimed at a specific set of people, Windows and Devices Group executive vice president Terry Myerson said in a blog post.

Spear phishing involves tricking people with personally crafted email messages that get them to click on links or files boobytrapped with malicious code that infects machines, letting

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hackers steal information or take control.

The vulnerability exposed this week let hackers slip into computers through web browsing software, eventually installing “back doors” through

which they could enter as they please. Strontium, given an array of names by cyber security researchers, has been described as a sophisticated hacking operation with ties to Russia.

The group has also been suspected of involvement in hacks of political parties in the US presidential race. In a threat report, Microsoft described Strontium as having the markings of being backed by a nation state, but did not conclude which one. However, the US technology titan did take aim at Google, saying that a “responsible” member of the industry would have put users first and waited for a patch to be ready before making the vulnerability public.

“Google’s decision to disclose these vulnerabilities before patches are broadly available and tested is disappointing, and puts customers at increased risk,” Myerson said.

US man ordered to pay $1m for cutting fire hose

Baltimore A US man has been sentenced to pay $1 million in restitution for puncturing a fire hose at a burning drugstore during rioting last year, federal authorities said.

Gregory Butler Jr, 22, was also sentenced by a federal judge to 250 hours of community service and three years of supervised release for obstructing firefighters at a CVS Health Corp pharmacy, the US Attorney’s Office in Baltimore said in a statement.

The drugstore was set afire in April 2015 during unrest after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man who died from an injury suffered while in police custody.– Reuters His death heightened a US debate on police treatment of minorities. Butler had admitted to twice puncturing the hose with a knife. The incident was caught on video and the burning pharmacy became a symbol of unrest in the largely AfricanAmerican city.

Google countered that it gave Microsoft seven days to fix the flaw, as per its policy regarding critical flaws, before making it public on Monday.

“This vulnerability is particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited,” Neel Mehta and Billy Leonard of the Google threat analysis group said in an online post.

Google said it told Microsoft and Adobe about the vulnerabilities on October 21, and an update to Flash addressing the weakness was released five days later.

Microsoft said people using the Edge browser on fully updated Windows 10 operating systems should be protected from the attack.

“We have coordinated with Google and Adobe to investigate this malicious campaign and to create a patch for down-level versions of Windows,” Myerson said.

Adobe Patches for Windows are being tested and Microsoft planned to released them on November 8.

A Microsoft threat report described Strontium as a group that usually targets government agencies, diplomatic institutions and military organizations, as well as affiliated private sector organizations such as defense contractors and public policy research institutes.

French chef Boulud’s restaurant fined $1.3m for wire in food

NEW YORK A piece of metal wire in a plate of coq au vin could cost awardwinning French chef Daniel Boulud dearly: a jury has fined one of his restaurants $1.3 million after a diner swallowed it and needed emergency surgery.

The customer, Barry Brett, went with his wife in February 2015 to db Bistro Moderne on West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan, not far from Times Square. It is one of several Boulud restaurants in the Big Apple, opening in 2001 and known for its gourmet burgers. Shortly after he began eating, Brett felt a foreign object lodged in his throat and had to leave the restaurant, according to court documents seen by AFP. The wire eventually caused a potentially fatal infection, his lawyers argued. The surgeon said the inchlong (2.5centimeter) wire had come from a cheap grill brush.

A New York jury ruled last week that the restaurant had been negligent, awarding Brett

$300,000 and fining the restaurant an additional $1 million in punitive damages.

Another $11,000 went to Brett’s wife.

J.P. Bottari, a lawyer for the restaurant, said he planned to appeal.

“This was not intentional,” he said, adding that Brett had waited four days to go to the hospital.

Brett’s attorney Elizabeth Eilender said she was “very pleased that the jury recognized how seriously injured Mr Brett was as result of that brush and how dangerous it is for a wire brush to be used around food.”

“The restaurant never wanted to take responsibility for what happened and blamed the victim,” she said.

Boulud has made New York his hub since the 1980s, but also runs restaurants in Boston, Las Vegas, London, Miami, Montreal, Palm Beach, Singapore, Toronto and Washington.

Oil, gas production linked to 20th-century LA quakes WASHINGTON Oil and gas production may have contributed to four of the five most powerful Los Angeles Basin earthquakes of the early 20th-century oil boom, a new study showed Monday.

Scientists said the Inglewood earthquakes in 1920, Whittier quakes in 1929, Santa Monica in 1930 and Long Beach in 1933 may have all been caused by oil activities. Oil or gas work started in these areas shortly before these earthquakes struck, according to Susan Hough and Morgan Page of the US Geological Survey, who wrote the study in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. The researchers did not show direct causation. “What they showed is that the conditions are such that the earthquakes could well have been triggered by oil pumping activity,” explained David Jackson, professor emeritus of seismology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. The most powerful of the quakes - in Long Beach, near Los Angeles registered at 6.4 on the Richter scale. It killed 120 people and caused $50 million in damage in 1933.The findings that human activity was at play could lead scientists to revise estimates of

seismic risks in the Los Angeles Basin and improve understanding of the effects of oil

director of the Seismological Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, who also

and gas as trigger mechanisms for earthquake elsewhere.

“Maybe the Los Angeles Basin is geologically more stable than is currently estimated,” Hough said.Previous studies had concluded that there was no indication of other earthquakes caused by human activity in this area of California after 1935 when output slowed.For their research, scientists relied on a set of geological research, oil industry data, government agencies and newspaper articles from the time.

“This study brings in the idea that oil and gas production activities can generate large-magnitude earthquakes,” said Richard Allen,

was not involved in the study.

“We need to start recognizing that there’s a growing body of evidence that oil and gas production activities can generate large-magnitude, damaging earthquakes. And that’s something we should all take very seriously.”

The scientists urged against comparing these California earthquakes, which were potentially related to oil and gas drilling, to present-day temblors in Oklahoma and Texas apparently caused by fracking, a process involving injecting massive amounts of waste water into very deep wells.

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Riot breaks out at British prison over lockdowns ‘caused by staff shortages’ London British authorities on Sunday put an end to a prison riot involving up to 200 inmates, which broke out just days after a warders’ association warned of a “bloodbath” in the UK’s detention facilities.

Police, ambulance and fire services were called to the prison in Bedford, central England, shortly before 5:00pm (1700

absolutely clear that prisoners who behave in this way will be punished and could spend significantly longer behind bars,” the spokesperson said.

During the unrest the Prison Officers Association’s (POA) general secretary, Steve Gillan, estimated up to 200 prisoners were involved.

“Prison officers on the landings have withdrawn to a safe place,

GMT) after the disturbance broke out.More than six hours later a Prison Service spokesperson said the incident had been “successfully resolved” by prison officers and the emergency services.

“An investigation into this incident will take place. We are

so prisoners are out in large numbers,” he said before the situation had been brought under control.

Two inmates suffered nonserious injuries while officers were unhurt, a justice ministry spokesman told AFP. The incident came just days

India-born Pramila Jayapal set to become 1st South Asian US senator

Washington India-born Pramila Jayapal, who made a mark with her progressive agenda in the Washington State Senate, is set to become the first South Asian and Indian-American woman to be elected to the US Congress.

A recent poll indicated that Jayapal had a commanding lead in double digits against Brady Pineto Walkinshaw, who she defeated in the primaries by a substantial margin.Endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, the former Democratic presidential aspirant, 51-year-old Jayapal is running from the seventh Congressional District of Washington State that encompasses Seattle and its neighbourhood.Pitted against her own party colleague, Walkinshaw, a State legislature, Jayapal would replace Congressman Jim McDermott in the US House of Representatives.

Like Kamala Harris, the two-term attorney general who is running for US Senate in California, Jayapal is likely to enter the US Congress in her maiden try.“I’m running for Congress because now is the time for a bold progressive fighter,” Jayapal had said when she launched her

campaign in January this year.She has been endorsed by as many as 21 sitting Congressman including Ami Bera, the only Indian-American in the current Congress, and every major women groups like Naral, Emily’s List and Planned Parenthood, and major labour unions.“A progressive champion and first generation America,” Emily’s List described.She has already announced that the first bill she would introduce in the Congress, if elected, would be for a tuition-free community college, gun violence protection, funding basic education, mental health and transportation.In recognition of her community work among the immigrants, the White House had felicitated her with “Champion of Change” award in 2012.

Jayapal says her life transformed for the better after she spent some time in India when she returned to the country after a gap of 25 years in April 1995.

Her book “Pilgrimage to India: A Woman Revisits Her Homeland” was published in 2000.

Born in Chennai, she left India at the age of five for Indonesia, Singapore and eventually for the US.

after the head of the POA, Mike Rolfe, warned of the deteriorating situation in Britain’s prisons.

“It’s a bloodbath in prisons at this minute in time. Staff are absolutely on their knees, lost all morale, all motivation,” he told BBC Radio Four.

“Low staffing numbers, people leaving the job in droves, it’s a real bad mix, and it’s dangerous for everyone, staff and prisoners alike.”

Last month a 21-year-old inmate was stabbed to death at London’s Pentonville prison.

On October 29 a national response unit was brought in to control prisoners at East Sussex prison, south-east England, in a standoff which last six hours.

On Friday the justice ministry announced the creation of 2,500 new jobs as part of its broader prison reform.

The government also promised annual investment of more than £100 million ($125 million, 112 million euros) and greater efforts to tackle drugs in prisons.

The worsening situation at Bedford prison, which currently holds around 500 inmates, was documented in a September report by watchdog HM Inspectorate of Prisons.

The report found the number of inmates saying it was easy or very easy to get drugs had almost doubled since February 2014. It also documented shortages of clothing, cramped conditions, and weak arrangements for managing violent and bullying behaviour.

Websites of 7 Indian missions ‘hacked’, data allegedly put online

New Delhi The websites and databases of seven Indian missions in Europe and Africa were hacked and data from their servers were allegedly dumped online on Monday.

Hackers going by the name Kapustkiy and Kasimierz L on Twitter claimed to have breached the security of the official websites of the Indian missions in South Africa, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Italy, Switzerland and Romania.The leaked databases containing admin and login details, names, email IDs, phone numbers and, in some cases, passport numbers of mission staffers were published on pastebin.com. The data dump was later removed by the administrators of pastebin.

The hackers allegedly leaked details of 161 Indians living in South Africa, 35 in Switzerland, 145 in Italy, 305 in Libya, 74 in Malawi, 14 in Mali and 42 in Romania.One of the hackers, who identified himself as Kapustkiy on Twitter, told Hindustan Times: “We did it because their security was poor and as the Indian Embassy they need to have better security.”

The websites of several other Indian missions too are not secure, the hacker claimed.

“The websites have a SQL vulnurability. Even a six-year-old could breach it,” the hacker said.

Kapustkiy claimed to be in possesion of more data, such as addresses and more passport numbers, that the hackers chose not to make public.“It’s not hard to fix it. You just have to be aware of such things because most of the time you want contact them and saying that they have vulnerabilities, they just ignore you,” the hacker added.The hackers claimed to be under the age of 18 and from the Netherlands. They called themselves “grey hats” and claimed their hacking was an attempt to inform administrators about vulnerabilities on their websites.

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France’s only erotic museum shuts down, makes half a million euros in final sale Paris The Paris Museum of Eroticism’s closing-down sale brought in almost half a million euros (dollars) on Sunday, around three times the pre-sale estimate, the auctioneers said.Everything from a forest of phalluses to South American objects based on female genitalia, to a Thai pipe shaped liked a reclining male member went under the hammer.

Much of the 2,000-item collection, including its oldest object, an 18th-century marble plaque of the Hindu god Vishnu from an Indian tantric temple, comes from Asia.The auction also included many drawings and photographs from late 19thcentury “Belle Epoque” Paris, when the city was seen as the world capital of pleasure.

There were also objects taken from France’s legal brothels or “maisons closes” which were shut down after World War II. One of the highlights of the sale, handled by Paris auctioneers Cornette de Saint Cyr, was an imposing modern steel sculpture showing a woman having sex with a robot. It went for over 38,000 euros ($42,000), way

over its estimate of 7,000-8,000 euros.More than 500 potential buyers were present in the auction hall which a similar number were bidding via the internet.“Many people came here in the hope of acquiring a souvenir of this unforgettable museum,” said auctioneer

one of the cartoonists killed during the gun attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in January 2015.The artist, known for his saucy sense of humour, had been a supporter of the museum.France’s only erotic museum has been forced to

Bertrand Cornette.A work by Salvador Dali, a bas-relief version of his painting entitled “Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity” went for 20,608 euros, despite its inital estimate of 2,000-3,000 euros.A picture of a topless Mona Lisa was sold for over 13,000 euros.Other lots included drawings by Georges Wolinski,

close its doors as the owner of the building has decided not to renew the lease and no suitable premises could be found elsewhere for the entirely privateheld museum.Just down the street from the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret in Pigalle, the closure hastens the slide of Paris’ naughtiest neighbourhood towards respectability.

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Canada military probes mysterious Arctic pinging noise Ottawa The Canadian military has investigated a mysterious pinging sound coming from the sea floor in a remote region of the Arctic, officials have told the

BBC.The strange noise is reported by local people to have frightened animals away over the past few months.

A military aircraft conducted various multi-sensor searches in the area, officials said the other day.

But the military says it is so far unable to explain the cause of the “acoustic anomalies”.

“The [aircraft] crew did not detect any surface or sub-surface contacts,” the military said in a statement released to the BBC. “The only thing the crew did observe were two pods of whales

and six walruses in the area of interest.”

A spokesman in the department of national defence in Ottawa said the cause of the pinging noise - which locals say can even

be heard through the hulls of boats - remains a mystery.

The sound, sometimes also described as a “hum” or a “beep”, has been heard throughout the summer in Fury and Hecla Strait, legislative assembly member Paul Quassa told CBC, about 120km (74 miles) north-west of the hamlet of Igloolik.

The area is a narrow channel of water in Nunavut, which is the newest, largest and least populous territory of Canada, located next to Greenland.

“It’s one of the major hunting areas in the summer and winter

WHO urges curbs on online food marketing to children COPENHAGEN Governments must do more to protect children from sophisticated online methods used to market unhealthy foods to them, the World Health Organization in Europe said in a report released Friday.

By using digital analytics and geo-location data, companies were defining their audience with great precision, enabling them to target the most vulnerable groups of children, the UN agency warned. And it urged governments to set a minimum legal age of 16 for advertising foods high in fat, salt or sugar.

Current regulations about advertising such foods often only apply to non-digital media, or only related to young children and not adolescents, it said. “In digital media, an extensive, highly-complex system of advertising delivery has evolved, through which marketers can access much more specific audiences than in the broadcast era,” the report said. “For fastfood brands, geo-location data from mobile devices enable marketers to deliver ads and special offers in real time when users are in the area.”

The aim of the industry’s digital marketing was to “engage children in emotional, entertaining experiences and to encourage them to share these experiences with their friends,” it said. In the United States, the

because it’s an area of open water surrounded by ice that’s abundant with sea mammals,” Mr Quassa said.

“And this time around, this summer, there were hardly any.

And this became a suspicious thing.”

Another MLA member was quoted by CBC as saying the area is normally a migratory route for bowhead whales and various kinds of seals.

“But this summer there was none,” he said.

Various explanations for the sound have been put forward by the Canadian press: It is a sonar survey conducted by a mining company It is being generated on purpose

by Greenpeace to scare wildlife away from the rich hunting ground It is caused by military submarines However, local mining companies insist they do not work in the area, Greenpeace has denied it is responsible and the military say no submarines - either domestic or foreign - are known to have operated in the area.

“The cause of the pings remains mired in mystery,” the defence spokesman said.

Punjabi cabbie to get Australian of the Year series award for serving free food

Chandigarh A Punjabi taxi driver running a free-food van will receive the Northern Territory Local Hero 2017 award as part of the Australian of the Year awards at a function in Canberra on January 25.

For the past four years, Tejinder Pal Singh has been dedicating the last Sunday of each month to feed poor and needy locals of Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, after completing his 12hour shift of driving a taxi, reported an Australian news agency.

He prepares 80 kilograms of vegetarian curry and rice in his kitchen, and then serves it as free lunch. The feast is funded entirely from his pocket and his van bears the sign ‘free Indian food for hungry and needy

people’.

Like many other turbaned Sikhs living abroad, Tejinder too had been a victim of racist abuse. But he chose not to be demoralised by it. Taking inspiration from him, three other groups have also taken up the free-food service, reported the news agency.

“One more step to making awareness about Sikhism and share thoughts. Thanks to teachers and future of my beautiful Australia (sic),” said Tejinder Pal Singh in a social media post.

Northern Territory chief minister Michael Gunner, while recognising the recipients, said, “Our recipients hail from vastly different backgrounds, yet they all have one thing in common – an overwhelming desire to help others.”

Mexican lawmakers go after ‘narco series’

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) limits how much data can be collected from young children, and bans “behavioural advertising” directed

at children under 13 without parental notice and consent.

But the agency said the law appeared to be largely ineffective since many parents gave their children permission to play games or join certain sites without realising the implications of allowing their children’s data to be collected.

Social media platforms and marketers have themselves reported that social media marketing amplifies the effects of broadcast marketing.

Establishing a minimum legal age for such advertising must be accompanied by “effective oversight and enforcement by regulatory agencies,” it said.

“Children’s participation in digital media should not be predicated on receiving digital (high fat, sugar or salt food) advertising, nor should it be predicated on ‘devolving’ consent to parents,” it said.

MEXICO CITY Mexican lawmakers want the country’s terrestrial television networks to stop broadcasting “narco series” during primetime hours over concerns they could influence children in a country beset by organized crime.

Senator Zoe Robledo and Deputy Lia Limon, chairs of the television committees in the two chambers of Congress, said networks have recently announced shows that violate federal telecommunications laws regarding the hours they can be broadcast.Robledo said the narco series should be televised between midnight and 5:00 am instead of 9:00 pm, when children could be watching the country’s national channels.

TV Azteca, for instance, currently has a show titled “Rosario Tijeras” - about a female

assassin - that airs at 9:00 pm.

“We don’t want to ban narco series. We want them to be on television at the appropriate hours,” Robledo told Radio Formula.Robledo said children should not be exposed to shows that “glorify crime” and could make them “grow up with the idea that a hero is one who breaks the law.”The lawmakers plan to summon officials from the interior ministry and the Federal Telecommunications Institute to discuss whether the networks should be sanctioned.

Robledo said cable channels and streaming services are different because parents have the ability to block shows not suitable for children.

Mexico’s decade-old drug war has given rise to “narco cultura,” a fascination with the underworld that has inspired singers to write

“narcocorridos” (drug ballads).

Some local governments have sought to prevent bands from performing narcocorridos by imposing fines.

Other drug war-inspired television shows have made a splash in recent years, including “El Senor de los Cielos” (“The Lord of the Skies”) and “La Reina del Sur” (“The Queen of the South”).

DVDs of “La Reina del Sur,” starring Kate del Castillo as a drug lord, were found in the house where real-life drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was captured in January in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Castillo has been under investigation since it was revealed that she arranged a meeting between US actor Sean Penn and Guzman last year when the Sinaloa drug cartel leader was on the lam.

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Opposition asks PM?May to ‘come clean’ Giant snowballs appear on Russian beach in Siberia on Britain’s role in Operation Blue Star London The UK’s Opposition Labour party has called on British Prime Minister Theresa May to “come clean” about the role played by Britain in Operation Blue Star before her three-day visit to India

starting on Sunday.

Labour party deputy leader, Tom Watson, said on Friday that Britain’s Sikh community deserves to know the truth in the wake of allegations by Sikh Federation UK that the UK Foreign Office had removed files with “new evidence” of British involvement in the military operation on Golden Temple in June 1984.

“Before her visit to India, Theresa May must come clean about the role played by the UK in the attack on the Golden Temple in 1984 and subsequent events.

There is increasing evidence that Margaret Thatcher’s administration worked more closely with the Indian

government than was known at the time,” Watson said in a statement.

His statement followed claims that the Foreign Office had intentionally removed files referring to the possibility of the

Special Air Services (SAS) unit of the British Army being involved after “an Indian request for military assistance in the setting up of a National Guard for internal security duties” during Operation Blue Star.

While the Foreign Office said it had merely “borrowed” the files, the Labour party said the fact the files exist raise important questions.Watson added: “David Cameron’s previous inquiry failed to reveal the full facts and we now learn that vital new documents relating to the massacre have been removed from the National Archives by ministers. The revelation that these new documents exist suggest that Parliament may have been

inadvertently misled by a former foreign secretary.

“After over 30 years of demanding answers, Britain’s Sikh community deserves to know the truth, no matter how embarrassing it is for the current government. After the failure of the cabinet secretary’s internal inquiry, there should be a full independent investigation into these matters.”

The cabinet secretary’s inquiry refers to an official UK government inquiry in 2014 into the exact nature of British involvement in the Indian Army operation at the Golden Temple.

The inquiry had been ordered by then British Prime Minister David Cameron after documents released previously under the 30year declassification rule had implied British SAS commanders had advised the Indian government as it drew up plans for the removal of militants from Golden Temple.

“The report concludes that the nature of the UK’s assistance was purely advisory, limited and provided to the Indian government at an early stage in their planning,” William Hague, then UK foreign secretary, had told the House of Commons in February 2014.

Sikh Federation UK claims the latest note it found, marked confidential, was written on July 3, 1984, a month after the operation, which points to a more prominent British role.

SIBERIA A strange and beautiful sight greeted locals in the Gulf of Ob, in northwest Siberia, after thousands of natural snowballs formed on the beach. An 11-mile (18km) stretch of coast was covered in the icy spheres. The sculptural shapes range from the size of a tennis ball to almost 1m (3ft) across. They result from a rare environmental process where small pieces of ice form, are rolled by wind and water, and end up as giant snowballs.

Locals in the village of Nyda, which lies on the Yamal Peninsula just above the Arctic Circle, say they have never seen anything to compare to them.

Russian TV quoted an explanation from Sergei Lisenkov, press secretary of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute: “As a rule, first there is a primary natural phenomenon sludge ice, slob ice.

Then comes a combination of the effects of the wind, the lay of the coastline, and the temperature and wind conditions.

“It can be such an original combination that it results in the formation of balls like these.”

A similar phenomenon was witnessed in the Gulf of Finland in December 2014, and on Lake Michigan in December 2015, the Ura.ru website said.

Discovery of 49,000-year-old cave dwelling in Australia opens debate

UK govt loses High Court case on air pollution LONDON Environmental campaigners in Britain won a High Court legal battle on Wednesday over the government’s failure to tackle air pollution to meet European standards. The ClientEarth non-

governmental organisation (NGO) argued that Britain’s environment minister had failed to take action to comply with European Union law on levels of nitrogen dioxide “as soon as possible”.

A judge ruled in favour of the group’s case, declaring that the government’s Air Quality Plan was unlawful and “must be quashed” and rewritten.

The defeat is a blow for the government as it seeks to demonstrate its commitment to the global climate change deal struck in Paris last year.

ClientEarth’s case focused on claims that ministers prioritised

costs over health implications when drawing up plans to cut emissions.

The government’s own data estimates that air pollution causes more than 40,000 premature deaths a year in

Britain. In his ruling, judge Neil Garnham said the government’s goal of complying with EU targets nationally by 2020 and in London by 2025 were too distant and its model for future emissions “too optimistic”.

Limits for nitrogen dioxide were introduced by EU law in 1999, and were to be achieved by 2010.

ClientEarth says that 37 out of 43 zones across Britain remain in breach of legal limits.

Britain is one of 60 countries committed to the COP21 climate deal struck in Paris in December 2015, with Prime Minister Theresa May promising to ratify the deal by the end of

the year.

However, questions about how emissions cuts will be divided among EU states have held up the deal in some countries, amid uncertainty over how Britain’s exit from the bloc will affect quotas.

Responding in parliament to Wednesday’s ruling, May said the government had taken action on air quality but added: “there’s more to do and we will do it”.

This case is the second the British government has lost in two years on its failure to clean up air pollution.

ClientEarth won a Supreme Court case on the same issue in April 2015, when ministers were ordered to draw up a plan to reduce air pollution. That plan has now been found to be legally flawed. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who backed the NGO’s case, said the government had “let down millions of people”.

“Today’s High Court ruling brings sharply into focus the scale of the country’s air pollution crisis and lays the blame at the door of the government for its complacency in failing to tackle the problem quickly and credibly,” he said. ClientEarth chief executive James Thornton welcomed the ruling and urged May to “take immediate action now to deal with illegal levels of pollution and prevent tens of thousands of additional early deaths in the UK.”

SYDNEY The discovery of a human settlement in Australia dating back 49,000 years has challenged theories about when the world’s oldest continued civilisation came to the country, the archaeologist who made the find said on Thursday.

Sophisticated tools and bone fragments from the largest ever marsupial were found in a cave high on a cliff in Flinders Ranges, in South Australia, according to archaeologist Giles Hamm.

Scientists working with Hamm’s team had determined the age of the site at 49,000 years.

Aboriginal Australians are the oldest continued civilisation in the world, descending from the first people to leave Africa, according to a genetic study published by the University of Copenhagen in September. But the time of arrival of the first Australians is debated among researchers. The consensus view has been that they had arrived 50,000 years ago.

But Hamm said their presence 49,000 years ago at a site at in southern Australia suggested they must have reached northern

parts far earlier. “If people did come 50,000 years ago, it doesn’t give them much time to move so far south,” said Hamm, referring to evidence of settlement 49,000 years ago.

“There could have been colonisation much earlier than the accepted time frame of 50,000 years ago. It could be 55,000 maybe 60,000 years ago.”

The site also contained evidence of human interaction with mega fauna, namely the Diprotodon optatum - a marsupial measuring 2 metres in height and weighing more than 2,500 kilograms.

Scientists have previously puzzled over how humans had interacted with them.

CAUGHT

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Zebrafish offers hope for spinal cord repair WASHINGTON The Zebrafish, which can

completely regenerate its severed spinal cord, might hold promise for research into tissue repair in humans, researchers said Thursday.

Scientists are looking at one protein in particular that is key to this accomplishment in the fish, the researchers said.“This is one of nature’s most remarkable feats of regeneration,” said the study’s senior investigator Kenneth Poss, a professor of cell biology at Duke University.“Given the limited number of successful therapies available today for

repairing lost tissues, we need to look to animals like zebrafish

for new clues about how to stimulate regeneration,” said Poss, whose study was published in the journal Science.

When the severed spinal cord of the zebrafish undergoes regeneration, a bridge forms.

Nerve cells follow and within eight weeks new nerve tissue has plugged the gap, allowing the fish to reverse their paralysis completely, the Poss team reported.

To figure out what is going on, scientists searched for all of the genes whose activity abruptly changed after spinal cord injury.

Seven of these were found to code for proteins secreted from cells.One of these proteins, called CTGF - connective tissue growth factor - was intriguing because its levels rose in supporting cells that formed the bridge in the first two weeks following injury.When the protein was deleted genetically, those fish failed to regenerate.People and zebrafish share many genes, and human CTGF protein is nearly 90 percent similar in its amino acid components to that of zebra fish.Inserting human CTGF into the injury site in fish helped the regeneration process.

“The fish go from paralyzed to swimming in the tank. The effect of the protein is striking,” said Mayssa Mokalled, a postdoctoral fellow in Poss’s group.But CTGF alone is probably not enough for people to regenerate their spinal cords, the team said. The process is more complex in mammals, in part because scar tissue forms around an injury.Future studies will look at mice to determine which of their cells express CTGF, the team said.

Researchers also plan to look at other proteins involved in the regeneration process in zebrafish.

3 hospitals in UK cancel operations over computer virus

LONDON Planned operations and outpatient appointments have been cancelled at three hospitals in northeastern England after a computer virus infected a health service network, the National Health Service Trust said. In a post on its website, the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust called the attack a “major incident” and said it had cancelled all planned operations, outpatient appointments and diagnostic procedures for Wednesday. “A virus infected our electronic systems on Sunday October 30 and we have taken the decision, following expert advice, to shut down the majority of our systems so we can isolate and destroy it,” it said on the website. Some patients, including major trauma cases and high-risk women in labour, were being diverted to other hospitals. It was not clear whether the virus was caused by an attack, but earlier this year, the United States and Canada

issued a rare joint cyber alert, warning against a surge in extortion attacks that infect computers with viruses known as ransomware which encrypt data and demand payments for it to be unlocked.

Ransomware is malicious software that locks up data in computers and leaves messages demanding payment to recover the data. In March, Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles paid a ransom of $17,000 to regain access to its systems.

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Three US military trainers killed in shootout at air base Jordan Three US military trainers were shot dead in Jordan on Friday when their car failed to stop at the gate of a military base and was fired on by Jordanian security forces, a Jordanian military source said.

The incident occurred at the Prince Faisal air base in the south of Jordan, which is a close strategic ally of the United States. Two trainers died immediately and the third later in hospital. A Jordanian army guard was also shot and wounded. “There was an exchange of fire at the entrance to the base after an attempt by the trainers’ vehicle to enter the gate without heeding orders of the guards to stop,” the military source said. “An investigation is now under way to know exactly what happened.”Another Jordanian security source said it was not possible to rule out political motives in the incident at an air base, where dozens of US trainers work alongside Jordanians. A third Jordanian source who requested anonymity said authorities were examining reports of friction among the US trainers and Jordanian army officers that might offer clues helping to explain the shooting. He did not elaborate.The base where the incident occurred is in the heart of the traditional Bedouin region of Jordan where radical Sunni Muslim influence has grown

over the last decade. Several incidents over the past year have jolted the Arab kingdom, which has been relatively unscathed by the uprisings, civil wars and Islamist militancy

sympathiser of the Islamic State militant group with strong anti-Western feelings.

Worrying incident “What is worrying is that if this (Friday’s shooting) turns out to

convoy who were unharmed in the incident.

The White House said on Friday that it would work with Jordan to determine the circumstances around the

that have swept the Middle East since 2011.

In November 2015, a Jordanian army officer shot dead two US government security contractors and a South African at a US-funded police training facility near Amman before being gunned down. The incident embarrassed Jordanian authorities, who did not publicly disclose the motive of the assassin. The gunman was later said by security sources to have been a

be deliberate, it would be much more damaging than if this was a suicide or terror attack on a base because it was perpetrated by someone within the Jordanian military,” another security source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters they were reviewing the incident and could not rule out the possibility of a deliberate attack. One said there were Americans in the

shooting.

“We will certainly want to draw on the kind of cooperation that the US has with Jordan to get to the bottom of what exactly happened,” White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters during a briefing.

Many ordinary Jordanians harbour strong anti-American sentiment over Washington’s strong support for Israel and its military interventions in the Middle East.

Jordan is among a few Arab

states that have taken part in a US-led air campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants holding territory in Syria. But many Jordanians oppose their country’s involvement, saying it has caused violent deaths of fellow Muslims and raised security threats inside Jordan.

Officials worry about radical Islam’s growing profile in Jordan and support in impoverished areas for militant groups.

Apart from the fatal shooting carried out by the Jordanian army officer a year ago, six Jordanian border guards were killed in June by an IS suicide bomber who drove a car at speed across the border from Syria and rammed it into a Usfunded military post.

Jordan hosts several hundred US contractors in a military cooperation programme which includes the stationing of US F16 fighter jets that use Jordanian airfields to hit Islamic State positions in neighbouring Syria.

Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Washington has spent millions of dollars to help Jordan set up an elaborate surveillance system known as the Border Security Programme to stem infiltration by militants from Syria and Iraq.

US officials say that aid to Jordan, one of the largest recipients of US foreign military assistance, is expected to rise to $800 million in 2016 and grow in future years.

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WikiLeaks impact: Clinton Foundation accepts it received $1mn gift from Qatar New York The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was US secretary of state without informing the State Department, even though she had promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments.

Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to mark the 65th birthday of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton’s husband, and sought to meet the former US president in person the following year to present him the check, according to an email from a foundation official to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. The email, among thousands hacked from Podesta’s account, was published last month by WikiLeaks.Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing her family’s globe-straddling foundation in order to become secretary of state in 2009. The agreement was designed to increase transparency to avoid appearances that US foreign policy could be swayed by wealthy donors. If a new foreign government wished to donate or if an existing foreign-government donor, such as Qatar, wanted to “increase materially” its support

of ongoing programs, Clinton promised that the State Department’s ethics official would be notified and given a chance to raise any concerns.Clinton Foundation officials last month declined to confirm the Qatar donation. In response to additional questions, a foundation spokesperson, Brian Cookstra, this week said that it accepted the $1 million gift from Qatar, but this did not amount to a “material increase” in the Gulf country’s support for the charity. Cookstra declined to say whether Qatari officials received their requested meeting with Bill Clinton. Officials at Qatar’s embassy in Washington and in its council of ministers in the capital, Doha, declined to discuss the donation. The State Department has said it has no record of the foundation submitting the Qatar gift for review, and that it was incumbent on the foundation to notify the department about donations that needed attention. A department spokesperson did not respond to additional questions about the donation.According to the foundation’s website, which lists donors in broad categories by cumulative amounts donated, Qatar’s government has directly given a total of between $1 million and $5 million over the years. The

Obama to hand digital keys to successor

WASHINGTON The White House announced plans Monday for the transfer of power, online power that is - in the form of Twitter and other social media accounts with millions of followers. “The handle @POTUS will be made available to the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017,” deputy chief digital officer Kori Schulman wrote, fittingly, in a blog post. Obama’s White House has aggressively used social media to bypass journalists and appeal unfiltered and unfact-checked to voters.

Obama has granted a host of interviews with platforms like Snapchat and YouTube to talk about his administration’s priorities while avoiding the most bothersome questions. The

administration has logged nearly 30,000 @WhiteHouse tweets and thousands of hours of video footage. The new president, whoever he or she is, will inherit a potent digital megaphone. The @POTUS handle alone has more than 11 million followers, and the White House more than 12 million.

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Clinton Foundation has said it would no longer accept money from foreign governments if Clinton is elected president and would spin off those programs that are dependent on foreign governments.

‘Material’ increase Foundation officials told Reuters last year that they did not always comply with central provisions of the agreement with President Barack Obama’s administration, blaming oversights in some cases.At least eight other countries besides Qatar gave new or increased funding to the foundation, in most cases to fund its health project, without the State Department being informed, according to foundation and agency records.

They include Algeria, which gave for the first time in 2010, and the United Kingdom, which nearly tripled its support for the foundation’s health project to $11.2 million between 2009 and 2012.Foundation officials have said some of those donations, including Algeria, were oversights and should have been flagged, while others, such as the UK increase, did not qualify as material increases.The foundation has declined to describe what sort of increase in funding by a foreign government would have triggered notification

of the State Department for review. Cookstra said the agreement was designed to “allow foreign funding for critical Clinton Foundation programs” to continue without disruption.

The State Department said it has no record of being asked by the foundation to review any increases in support by a foreign government.Asked whether Qatar was funding a specific programme at the foundation, Cookstra said the country supported the organisation’s “overall humanitarian work”.

“Qatar continued supporting Clinton Foundation at equal or lower levels” compared with the country’s pre-2009 support, he said. He declined to say if Qatar gave any money during the first three years of Clinton’s four-year term at the State Department, or what its support before 2009 amounted to. In another email

released by WikiLeaks, a former Clinton Foundation fundraiser said he raised more than $21 million in connection with Bill Clinton’s 65th birthday in 2011.

Spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Bill Clinton did not respond to emailed questions about the donation.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that major donors to the Clinton Foundation may have obtained favoured access to Clinton’s State Department, but has provided little evidence to that effect.

Clinton and her staff have dismissed this accusation as a political smear.Last month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ordered the Donald J Trump Foundation to stop fundraising in the state, saying it had not registered to solicit donations.

Britons survived in Mexican jungle on peanuts and fish TEES A woman has told how she and three travellers survived on peanuts and raw fish after becoming stranded for five days in the Mexican jungle.

Rachel Bradley’s group lost their gear when a canoe capsized in the Candelaria river, in the Yucatan Peninsula.

The group, which included the 31year-old from Stockton-on-Tees and fellow Briton Mike Burgess, 52, of Plymouth, got lost in a “labyrinth of swamps”. They were forced to stay in a tree for much of the time for safety.

A team of local rescuers eventually found the group, which also included a 42-year-old man from Gibraltar and a 24-year-old man from Mexico.

They lost their clothes, food and communication equipment when one of their two canoes capsized on 17 October. They were exploring the area for environmental consultancy Ninth Wave Global.Ms Bradley said the team became lost in a combination of unexpected rapids and a “labyrinth” of swamps and waterfalls created by heavy rainfall.

She said: “The water just kept flowing faster and faster, and by that point we realised it was too late to go back.

“We abandoned our second boat to try and exit the jungle on foot.

But it quickly became obvious the safest option was to stop walking and wait for help to arrive.

“Having lost most of our possessions in the river, we had

“By day three, my colleagues had started testing a local fruit they recognised and had caught some small fish using my mosquito net.

to drink river water and ate raw fish caught in a mosquito net.

“We stayed in this tree and explored a few different exit routes, walking to the other side of the palm field and swimming up and down stream.

“However, the best thing was to stay put. We had a safe place to sleep and a clear area if anything came overhead.

“We had a bag of M&M’s which we shared on the first evening and then we rationed a bag of caramelised peanuts I had - five each per sitting.

“They cut the heads off and swallowed them whole.”

After the party failed to return on time, officials at Ninth Wave raised the alarm.

A spokesman for the Hertfordshire-based organisation said: “Rachel and the others were found by a local search team who helped them get out of the jungle to food, clean water and a bed for the night.”

Ms Bradley, who suffered some injuries to her legs, has already undertaken another trip to Mexico’s Usumacinta River.”

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Body found on land in US where woman was chained up ‘like a dog’ Spartanburg A woman who was “chained up like a dog” for weeks in a dark storage container was lured to her captor’s South Carolina property for a cleaning job, a family friend said Friday as search teams digging up the area found one body and looked for more.

Authorities were “trying to make sure that we don’t have a serial killer on our hands,” the sheriff said. Investigators were told the property could hold as many as three other corpses.

Prosecutor Barry Barnette said the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her to the job. The body discovered Friday was not immediately identified.

The couple disappeared around August 31 when they went to do the work on the suspect’s nearly 100-acre property in a rural area near the community of Woodruff, said Daniel Herren, a friend who sat with her in her hospital room after she was rescued Thursday.

“They were going to do some work, help cleaning up the property. And he pulled out a gun and took them hostage,” Herren said, adding that the abduction happened quickly.Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, a 45-yearold registered sex offender with a previous kidnapping conviction as a teenager in Arizona, appeared at a bond hearing Friday in Spartanburg on a kidnapping charge. More charges will be filed later, the prosecutor told the court.

The judge did not set bond and instead referred the matter to circuit court. The suspect did not appear to have an attorney, and the judge urged him to get one.

The search of his property was unfolding as more details of the suspect’s violent past emerged, including an Arizona judge noting in 1987 that he had displayed aggressive behaviour and sexual preoccupation since he was a child — behaviour the judge expected to continue.

The Associated Press is not naming the woman because the suspect is a sex offender, though authorities have not said whether she was sexually assaulted. Her boyfriend was identified as 32year-old Charles Carver.

Herren, who visited her in the hospital and had dinner with her Thursday, said he did not ask the woman if she was sexually assaulted.But she did describe to him the details of her captivity, telling him she was in the container nearly the entire time except for when she was taken out for occasional walks.

“He never took the chain off of her, but he was taking her around, let her get, not so much exercise, but let her walk around some,” Herren said. “It didn’t sound like it was every day. It was kind of sporadic.”

She was fed once a day about 6 pm. She “didn’t tell us exactly what she was eating. But from what I gathered, it could have been fast food. ... It wasn’t like he was keeping her alive on bread and water. He was in a

weird, sick kind of way being, I guess, kind of humane, as far as feeding her,” Herren said.

She left the hospital late Thursday and is staying with

cellphone records led authorities to the property near Woodruff, 80 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, because it was the last place that a

family, Herren said.The property includes grassy areas, some covered in waist-high weeds, as well as stands of trees. Most or all of it is surrounded by a chainlink fence 6 to 7 feet tall.

In the middle was the cargo container, which measured about 30 feet by 15 feet. It was next to a two-car garage that had a living space on top, Barnette said.

During Friday’s search efforts, officers using all-terrain vehicles and a backhoe came and went while a law enforcement helicopter circled overhead.

Investigators began excavating after cadaver dogs signalled the possible presence of remains.

Acting on a tip, deputies found the woman after hearing her banging inside the container, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said.

Anderson Police Chief Jim Stewart said computer and

cellphone pinged.

Guns and a large amount of ammunition were seized from Kohlhepp, the prosecutor said.

“It’s unbelievable how much he had,” he said.

Records indicate Kohlhepp is a licensed real estate agent and licensed pilot. As a teenager, he was convicted and sentenced to prison in Arizona for kidnapping and crimes against children, according to South Carolina’s sex offender registry.

Online prison records from Arizona show that Kohlhepp served about 14 years for the 1986 felony. He was released in 2001.In court Friday, Barnette said the Arizona case occurred when Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14year-old girl, bound her and raped her.Court records from the Arizona case obtained by WHNS-TV in South Carolina show that a judge decided in

January of 1987 to transfer the case to adult court partly because of concerns about Kohlhepp’s aggressive nature.

“At less than the age of 9 this juvenile was impulsive, explosive and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school,” the judge wrote, adding that his aggressive behavior was likely to continue into the future.

A real estate agent who worked at a firm run by Kohlhepp said she had known him for 10 years after they met at a university in the Spartanburg area and were study partners in a statistics class. She said she was in disbelief. “He’s not the kind of person to do something like this,” Cherry Laurens said by phone. “Working with him, he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we needed him.”She said it was widely known that he was registered as a sex offender, but he told people that it was based on trumped-up charges after he “had gone joyriding with a girl” and upset her father, who was a prominent local official.

Kohlhepp also had a house in Moore, on the outskirts of Spartanburg, about 15 minutes from the rural property where the woman was chained.

His neighbor there, 76-year-old Ron Owen, said Kohlhepp was private but pleasant.

“Todd was in my opinion a likable guy,” Owen said.

Smart drugs to change Giant Donald Trump to be torched in UK bonfire party humanity, Hawking predicts

LONDON A giant effigy of US presidential candidate Donald Trump wielding the head of rival Hillary Clinton is to go up in flames during traditional British bonfire celebrations this week. The 36foot (11-metre) high model of Trump dressed in shorts decorated with images of Mexicans will be packed with fireworks and set alight in Edenbridge, southeast England, on Saturday as part of the annual Bonfire Night celebrations, organisers announced Wednesday. Across Britain, bonfires will be lit, effigies torched and fireworks let off to mark the moment when Guy Fawkes was thwarted in a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5, 1605. “We are literally helping Trump to live out his own catchphrase ‘burn it

down’ by exploding the 11-metre effigy as the opening act for our fireworks display,” explained Edenbridge Bonfire Society spokesman Jeni Fox. “It only seemed fair that Hillary Clinton took some of the limelight, and we are sure the presidential candidates will be pleased to see they are both featured,” she added.

The town has been setting alight effigies of people who have riled the British public for more than 20 years, with then FIFA president Sepp Blatter in the firing line last year.

Other victims include Cherie Blair, Gordon Brown, comedian Russell Brand and Jose Manuel Barroso, former chief of the European Commission.

Traditionally it is Guy Fawkes, leader of the “Gunpowder Plot”, who gets thrown on the bonfire.

Washington Stephen Hawking has long been known as a go-to mind in the science community for future predictions. It was Hawking who stated that he fears contact with extraterrestrial life, warning us that alien life might try to conquer and colonize Earth. He goes on to cite examples throughout history that prove his theory saying “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” Hawking has said in a forthcoming documentary made for the Discovery Channel. He argues that, instead of trying to find and communicate with life in the cosmos, humans would be better off doing everything they can to avoid contact.

Many predictions have been made by great minds throughout history, most notably is famed philosopher and predictor, Nostradamus. What is it exactly that leads one into the field of making predictions? Turns out a little while back, notes from famous mathematician Sir Isaac Newton revealed a multitude of diverse ingredients that when combined together enhance brain function. This is no surprise, as Newton was well

known to be an Alchemist, mixing chemicals, serums, and ingredients and testing it on himself, all in search to find the philosopher’s stone. Is it possible that we have found that now?

Stephen Hawking credits his ability to function and maintain focus on such a high level to a certain set of “smart drugs” that enhance cognitive brain function and neural connectivity, while strengthening the prefrontal cortex, and boosting memory and recall. Upon the release of Newton’s formula, written in his notes he left behind, many teams of neurotropic brain pills hit the market, however the results would vary greatly. It wasn’t until BrainPlus IQ added and updated the formula that people started

reporting amazing results.

BrainPlus IQ did their homework. They have spent all their money on research and development, digging through the records of history page by page to find the ingredients. Upon their discovery they implemented a strategy among the top scientists on the verge of innovative breakthroughs in their specific field to work together on coming up with a formula for today’s market. They came up with BrainPlus IQ. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Stephen Hawking said that his ability to predict the future doesn’t exist, but his brain is sharper than ever, more clear and focused, and he credits a large part to using BrainPlus IQ.

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Ricky Ponting says Glenn McGrath was hardest player to lead in Australian team

Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath. Two names that were synonymous with the dominance of the Australian cricket team at the start of the 21st century. While Ponting demolished opponents with his attacking strokeplay, McGrath plugged with such metronomic accuracy that opponents would struggle to score runs.

Ponting became the highest run-getter for Australia in Tests with 13378 runs in 168 matches while McGrath became the highest wicket-taker for Australia

in Tests with 563 wickets in 124 games.

Ponting also led Australia to two consecutive World Cup triumphs while he led the team to a 5-0 whitewash over England in the 2006/07 Ashes.

McGrath was part of three consecutive World Cup victories. During Ponting’s captaincy tenure, he ensured the team’s dominance.

However, speaking on BT Sports during the first Test between Australia and South Africa at the WACA in Perth, Ponting revealed that for all of McGrath’s skills and brilliance, he

Dhoni’s India career under no threat, says Saba Karim

Former national selector, Saba Karim, does not see anyone who can immediately replace MS Dhoni and hence expects the limited-overs skipper to continue in his role for some more time.

However, the former India stumper says Dhoni, 35, will need to address his batting — he consumes many more deliveries of late — to ensure his longevity.

“Retirement is a very personal kind of thought which has to be dealt with

by Dhoni only. I feel he is extremely valuable for Indian cricket,” Saba, who played 34 ODIs, told HT.” We have yet to find a decent replacement for him, his glovework is really exceptional.”

SLOWING DOWN Saba, a former Bengal and Jharkhand batsman, completed his four-year term as national selector in September.

Dhoni, who gave up Test captaincy on the 2014-15 tour of Australia, has acknowledged that he can no longer play the role of finisher for which he was renowned for. After he struck a matchwinning 91-ball 80 batting at No 4, Dhoni accepted he can no longer finish chases and henceforth would only look to set up the innings.Dhoni’s honest assessment about his game may have raised many eyebrows, but Saba felt the admission is good for Indian cricket.

was the most difficult player to lead in the Australian cricket team.

“Everyone will sit back and think that he’s the easiest, that you give him the ball, he comes on and he’d do a job for you. At some stage you had to try and get the ball off him as well.

I’d tell him ‘that’s enough mate, have a rest’ and for the next 10 or 15 minutes he’d be walking around with his sleeve over his mouth calling me every name under the sun. “He’d stand down at fine leg and he’d be abusing all the crowd just because he wasn’t bowling,” Ponting remarked.

McGrath retired from international cricket after Australia’s victory over Sri Lanka in the 2007 World Cup while Ponting retired in the third Test against South Africa in Perth in 2012, a match which Australia lost by 309 runs to lose the series 1-0.

DDCA’s Lodha line on Mudgal invites court ire

The Indian cricket Board (BCCI) is refusing to fully implement the Lodha committee recommendations. Now, the Delhi unit (DDCA), quite strangely, has used one of the Supreme Court panel’s recommendations to trip up a former judge appointed observer by court to run its affairs.

Justice Mukul Mudgal, a retired high court chief justice, was appointed by the Delhi High Court to run the controversy-

ridden DDCA. On Saturday, DDCA officials removed the Mudgal-appointed selection panel citing conflict of interest, a point raised by the Lodha panel. A letter said the executive committee was axing former India players Atul Wassan, Maninder Singh and Nikhil Chopra as selectors citing their media commitments. It said the DDCA sought affidavits declaring they had no conflict of interest, but they didn’t submit

them as they report to Mudgal.

The move by the executive committee members, most of whom are opposed to the Lodha directives, didn’t go down well with the Delhi High Court too, and it pulled them up.

“We think you (DDCA) are testing everyone’s patience here. This is contempt of court.

Evidently, somebody is over-reaching,” observed the bench.

Justice Mudgal had gone to the court saying, “The act of removing the selectors unanimously by certain directors and the convener, sports working committee (DDCA), without any approval from the selection panel formed by me or by the Delhi HC is only aimed to scuttle the domestic season.”

Kapil Dev, VVS Laxman back Hardik Pandya to make India Test grade During his time as India Test captain, MS Dhoni often lamented the lack of a fast-bowling all-rounder in the lineup. He would manage with a spinner, who could chip in with the bat, or a batsman who could roll his arm over if needed. Many experts felt the absence of a pace bowler who could bat robbed India of the chance to become a complete side. Over the past decade, India have seen Irfan Pathan come and disappear, Stuart Binny flatter to deceive due to his limited bowling, and Praveen Kumar fail to come close even to the promise he held in domestic cricket of filling that role.

Now comes Hardik Pandya, who has pace and can bat. Ahead of the first Test against England at Rajkot, he appears to hold an edge over Karun Nair for the No. 6 slot.

ON PROMISE Though he has played only a handful of long-format games even at domestic

level, the selectors have thrust him into the team on the basis of the promise he showed in Australia recently. He scored an important 79 in the second unofficial Test when India A were struggling at 46/6.

He also picked four toporder wickets across the two games.

“I think the selectors have picked him because of his all-round ability. They must be thinking he has the ability to become an allrounder and the presence of one can make the team strong,” former India skipper Kapil Dev told HT on Monday.

Since Kapil’s retirement over two decades ago, no player has even promised

he can fill the shoes of the great all-rounder.

RIGHT BALANCE Former India batsman, VVS Laxman told HT: “Hardik lends balance to the team. The skill set of an all-rounder, especially a pace-bowling one, is very rare in India. If you identify and find someone having that ability, then it is important to nurture, encourage and mould him and show a lot of patience. You won’t get results overnight.”

Although Kapil feels the c h o i c e between Karun Nair and Pandya for the first Test should

be made only after seeing the Rajkot pitch, Laxman feels Pandya should be blooded.

“Hardik can bowl 10-15 overs that a second fast bowler gives. And importantly, he bowls at 140 kph and has control over line and length. Also, he adds strength to the batting line-up. I have seen a huge improvement, not just in his skills but also his personality.”

What perhaps will be the key to his becoming a long-term option is managing workload. Kapil says, “These guys play 10 months a year and you are bound to face fitness issues. You pick someone on his ability and that’s what they’ve done with Hardik. They must ask him to work hard. That inspiration comes from within.”

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Rajnath: Man and cow have similar genes New Delhi HOME Minister Rajnath Singh stressed on the importance of cow protection on Sunday by bringing up the relevance of cows during the Mughal rule and drawing on scientific studies to exhort states to strictly implement rules against cow slaughter. Sharing the stage with gau rakshaks at a function held in memory of those killed during a demonstration on

the issue here 50 years ago, Rajnath said, “According to a study by scientists in USA, cows and humans share 80 percent of same genes. So there is not much difference between us.” “As far as cow is concerned, it is not just a cultural issue, it is an issue of faith. But besides being an issue of faith, it is also an issue which should be viewed from economic, historical and scientific perspective,” he

said. Singh said the NDA government was working towards enforcing complete ban on smuggling of cattle to Bangladesh and taken a number of steps in this regard, but achieved only “partial success” keeping in view the long borders. He said that apart from the steps taken by the Centre, there needs to be introspection in this matter even from the point of view of climate change,

which is a challenge for the country. “We have taken a number of measures and will try to put a complete ban on smuggling of cows, but I feel this will take some time,” Singh said, adding Article 48 of the Constitution mentions that governments will work to stop cow slaughter. “We should understand that India is a federal country and there is need to take the states into confidence.

He also said that there is a historical importance attached to the issue. “Cow slaughter and beef was banned since the vedic times. Even during the Mughal rule, it was banned during the times of Bahadurshah Zafar, Akbar and Jehangir.

It has even been written in the ‘Babarnama’ that one cannot rule over Hindustan unless you stop cow slaughter,” said Singh. Swami Gyanand Maharaj, who shared the stage, promised the gathering that the government was actively looking at making an amendment to such an MHA advisory against cow vigilantes.

However, sources indicate that the sentiment expressed at the dais is not one shared by the central government.

This is, however, the first time any cabinet minister was seen sharing such a dais with cow protection groups after Prime Minister Narendra Modi publically condemned actions by anti-social elements masquerading as gau rakshaks. Modi had in August this year asked the State governments to prepare a dossier on such “cow protectors”, while asserting that about 80 per cent of them would be found to be involved in illegal activities. The crowds in stadium were men gathered from across the country. They also included BJP members, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and even RSS men. Senior RSS leader Suresh Bhaiyaji Joshi said it “duty of the government” to take care of cows.

Another Sangh leader said “that this government has taken steps like surgical strike was capable of bringing in law to ban cow slaughter.”

Genie conjures up a real-life Jasmine A model and singer who dressed up as Princess Jasmine for Halloween has amazed admirers with her physical similarity to the Aladdin character.

Olayinka Mia Noel, 23, wore a blue and gold two-piece to imitate the Disney figure and even recreated her hairstyle. The social media star, who is Guyanese and lives in New York, even treated her fans to a rendition of A Whole New World on Instagram. Accompanied by her boyfriend Sheldon Strickland, who was dressed as Aladdin, she sung a small segment from the famous duet. Sharing a picture of herself in full costume, which has been liked nearly 80,000 times, she wrote: "Guess who?" After being bombarded with compliments and comments about her similarity to Jasmine, she shared a picture of herself side-by-side with the character, writing: "Starting to freak myself out foreal

[sic]." In the video, watched 174,000 times, she danced and sang with the Aladdincostumed man, attracting compliments for her voice. But some viewers were less impressed by Aladdin's talents. "Hollywood really do need to cast her she got the look and voice..yall can find a better Aladdin tho lol [sic]," wrote 'kenrickelodeon'. Olayinka,

who is in band XSO, admitted that her Aladdin took some persuading to sing the song with her, joking that she "kinda forced him [sic]". She told Daily Mail Online it has been her dream to dress as Jasmine since she was a young girl, adding: "She has always been my favorite Disney princess." Over the years she has been compared to Jasmine "a few times" but NY model's likeness makes her online

hit she did not see the resemb lance until she tried on the costume, which she bought for less than $10 online. She said: "We went to Six Flags Over Georgia for fright fest on Halloween night and it was so much fun." "That was when I started to realize how much I looked like Princess Jasmine. Some people asked to record us and thought we worked at the park."

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Health Work burdening you with stress?

Staying fit can help you deal!

London Work stress is a common problem among most office-goers. Deadlines, pressure, job security, new tasks, new responsibilities, targets, etc., all seem to accumulate into stress, which can make you feel burdened and lead to many health-related issues.

There are many ways to deal with work-related stress, like time management, lesser expectations, accepting only those responsibilities which you feel you can control, etc., but more often than not, people tend to give up on them sooner or later.

A new study, however, has suggested that there is one sure shot way to deal with stress related to work – staying fit.

The study says that, regular exercise and physically fitness can

assure you protection against the health hazards of professional stress.

The findings showed that a high fitness level offers particularly effective protection for professionals who experience a high degree of stress in the workplace known as psychosocial stress.

Psychosocial stress is one of the key factors leading to illness-related absences from work. This type of stress is

accompanied by impaired mental well-being and an increase in depressive symptoms.

It also raises the likelihood of cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and an unfavourable blood lipid profile. Conversely, a high fitness level is associated with fewer depressive symptoms and fewer cardiovascular risk factors, the researchers said.

“The study is significant because it is precisely

when people are stressed that they tend to engage in physical activity less often,” said Markus Gerber, Professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

To promote a physically active lifestyle, a high priority should be attached to the systematic measurement of cardiorespiratory fitness and the provision of theoretically sound and evidence-based physical activity counselling, the researchers stated.

In addition, the study also has direct implications for the therapy and treatment of stress-related disorders, Gerber said.

It therefore pays to stay physically active, especially during periods of high stress, the researchers noted in the paper published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (MSSE).

Elderly complaining of arthritis pain may reduce it with mild exercise, says study

New York Arthritis is a clear sign of poor bone health that approaches primarily as one starts ageing. It mainly affects the joints and people suffering from it complain of joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, swelling, and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. There are medications and physiotherapy to avoid aches and pains related to the condition, but a new study has suggested that mild exercise could help reduce arthritis pain in the elderly. The study says

that, low-impact exercise programme helps to decrease pain, improve mobility and enhance quality of life in older adults with arthritis and other muscle and joint conditions. “Joints will often stiffen if not used and muscles will weaken if not exercised. Our bodies are meant to move, and inactivity leads to weakness and stiffness, and joints with arthritis often worsen with inactivity,” said Theodore Fields, Managing Director of Rheumatology Faculty Practice Plan at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), US.

Keeping strokes at bay - Eat an Smoking may shorten lifespan of HIV egg every morning for breakfast! patients more than the virus itself New York A new research has shown that eating an egg a day could cut the risk of suffering a stroke. The study found that consuming an egg nutrient-rich source of high quality protein per may reduce the risk of stroke by 12 per cent.

One large egg boasts six grams of high-quality protein and antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, found within the egg yolk,

as well as vitamins E, D, and A, the study said.

“Eggs do have many

positive nutritional attributes, including antioxidants, which have been shown to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. They are also an excellent source of protein, which has been related to lower blood pressure,” said lead researcher Dominik Alexander of the DRUNK & DRIVING? EpidStat Institute, Michigan, US. CALL VICKY SINGH For the study, the

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416-992-5489

team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies dating back between 1982 and 2015. The study also found that there was no link between eating an egg and coronary heart disease.

They evaluated relationships between egg intake and coronary heart disease in 2,76,000 participants and stroke in 3,08,000 participants. “The study underscores prior research, showing the lack of a relationship between eggs and heart disease and now suggests a possible beneficial effect of eating eggs on risk of stroke,” added Tia M. Rains, Interim Executive Director of the Egg Nutrition Center — the scientific research arm of the American Egg Board.

New York Smoking is by far the leading risk factor for lung cancer. Cigarette smoking is especially dangerous for people living with HIV, putting them at high risk for heart disease, cancer, serious lung diseases and other infections.

There is very good evidence that people with HIV who smoke are more likely to get certain infections and illnesses, particularly those affecting the chest. Now, a new study led by an Indian researcher has shown that

cigarette smoking substantially reduces the lifespan of people living with HIV, potentially even more than HIV itself. “A person with HIV who consistently takes HIV medicines but smokes is much more likely to die of a smoking-related disease than of HIV itself,” explained study author Krishna P Reddy of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The study suggests that making smoking cessation a priority and finding

effective ways to help people with HIV quit can significantly improve their lifespan.

“Now that HIV-specific medicines are so effective against the virus itself, we also need to add other interventions that could improve and extend the lives of people with HIV,” Reddy noted.In their study, the researchers used a computer simulation of HIV disease and treatment to project the life expectancy of people living with HIV based on their smoking status. For men and women with HIV who adhere well to HIV medicines, the study found that smoking reduces life expectancy by about twice as much as HIV. “It is wellknown that smoking is bad for health, but we demonstrate in this study just how bad it is,” Reddy said.

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How our mind wanders may help decode mental illness Toronto Scientists have developed a new framework of how our mind wanders even when we are doing nothing, an advance that may help better understand mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A new review of mind-wandering research, led by University of British Columbia in Canada, proposes a new framework for understanding how thoughts flow, even at rest.

“Mind-wandering is typically characterised as thoughts that stray from what you’re doing,” said Kalina Christoff, professor at UBC. “Sometimes the mind moves freely from one idea to another, but at other times it keeps coming back to the same idea, drawn by some worry or emotion,” said Christoff.

“Understanding what makes thought free and what makes it constrained

is crucial because it can help us understand how thoughts move in the minds of those diagnosed with mental illness,” she said. In the review, researchers propose that thoughts flow freely when the mind is in its default state - mind-wandering.

Yet two types of constraints one automatic and the other deliberate - can curtail the spontaneous movement of thoughts. Reviewing more than 200 journals, researchers gave an account of how the flow of thoughts is grounded in the

interaction between different brain networks - a framework that promises to guide future research in neuroscience.

This perspective on mindwandering may help psychologists gain a more in-depth understanding of mental illnesses, said Zachary Irving, postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Everyone’s mind has a natural ebb and flow of thought, but our framework reconceptualises disorders like ADHD, depression and anxiety as extensions of that normal variation in

thinking,” said Irving.

“This framework suggests, in a sense, that we all have someone with anxiety and ADHD in our minds.

The anxious mind helps us focus on what’s personally important; the ADHD mind allows us to think freely and creatively,” he said.

Within this framework, spontaneous thought processes - including mind-wandering, but also creative thinking and dreaming - arise when thoughts are relatively free from deliberate and automatic constraints.

Mind-wandering is not far from creative thinking, researchers said.

“We propose that mindwandering isn’t an odd quirk of the mind,” said Christoff.

“Rather, it’s something that the mind does when it enters into a spontaneous mode.

Without this spontaneous mode, we couldn’t do things like dream or think creatively,” he said. The study was published in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Want to reduce that belly fat? Include Canola oil in your diet!

New York Reducing unwanted belly fat is something almost everyone is obsessed with these days. Poor lifestyle choices, a fast-paced life that doesn’t allow time to fit into your hectic schedules and lack of physical activity makes you resort to one thing – diet.

But do they always work? It takes a long time and an insane amount of control and willpower to reach your desired goal. You have to balance things out, sacrifice some food you love, et al. Now, however, a study has suggested that making canola oil part of your diet may help you burn extra abdominal fat in less than four weeks. “Visceral, or abdominal, fat increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, and is also associated with increased risk for conditions such as

metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Monounsaturated fats in canola oil decreases fat that has adverse health effects,” said Penny M. Kris-Etherton, Professor at the

Pennsylvania State University, US. For the study, the researchers tested the effect of five different vegetable oil blended in 101 participants’ diets through a controlled study. The researchers found that after one month of adhering to diets that included canola oil, participants had 11 kgs, or a quarter pound, less belly fat than they did before the diet.

Reduce migraine with a low-fat diet, says study!

New York Migraines are a huge nuisance. They occur at the most inappropriate times, reduce concentration and happen due to various reasons.

Migraine is a severe headache and also the most common and painful things that a person can experience.

They are super intense and give you a splitting headache that takes hours to subside and the associated dizziness and sensitivity to light don’t exactly help matters.

Because of their magnitude and intensity, those suffering from it resort to strong

medications. However, a new study conducted by an Indian-origin researcher has suggested that following a comprehensive low-fat diet may help reduce those headaches.

“The beauty of these diets is that they not only reduce headaches, but may produce weight loss and prevent heart disease,” said Associate Professor Brinder Vij from the University of Cincinnati, US. There have been three comprehensive diets so far whose very composition may prevent headaches, the study suggests.

These include low fat and low carbohydrate diets

and those that increase the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids and decreases the Omega-6 fatty acids.

“Low fat diets restrict the amount of fat in the diet to less than 20 per cent of your daily energy requirements,” said Vij. “Low carbohydrate diets such as ketogenic diets can reduce headache frequency, but should not be considered without strict supervision. The diet limits carbohydrates more than the well-known Atkins diet,” Vij added.

According to this study, published in The Journal of Head and Face Pain, withdrawal of caffeine by regular drinkers may also trigger headache.

Alcohol, too, especially vodka and red wine are also common dietary triggers for migraine.

Besides, Monosodium glutamate, which is a flavour enhancer used in a variety of processed foods – canned foods, soups, snack foods, salad dressing, seasoning salts, ketchup, barbecue sauce, and heavily in Chinese cooking.

Protein rich diet can reduce fatty liver disease London Consuming foods rich in proteins such as lean meat, fish, legumes and almonds can significantly reduce fat accumulated in the liver within six weeks, researchers say.

The findings showed that liver fat levels dropped by up to 48 per cent after eating high-protein diet regardless of whether it came from a plant or animal source, and also prevented the occurrence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease — a very common disorder where excess fat accumulates in the liver especially in people with diabetes.

“When left untreated, fatty liver is an important step progress to Type 2 diabetes and can develop

into liver cirrhosis, which can have life-threatening effects,” said lead author Andreas F.H. Pfeiffer, Endocrinologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DifE), in Germany.

Further, the study showed that high-protein diet caused favourable changes in the liver and lipid metabolism, improved insulin sensitivity and led to a significant reduction in the hormone fibroblast growth factor 21 in the blood. For the study, t h e researchers investigated the effects of two high-

protein diets plant- or animal-based on the metabolism of 37 female and male subjects between the ages of 49 and 78 years suffering from Type 2 diabetes and, in most cases, from fatty liver.

The main source for the plant protein group were foods such as noodles or bread that were enriched with pea protein. The animal protein group consumed lean milk products as well as white meat and fish as protein sources.

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8 - 14 Nov., 2016

Juicy Roasted Chicken Baked Honey Mustard Chicken

Ingredients: 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cup honey 1/2 cup prepared mustard

1 teaspoon dried basil 1 teaspoon paprika 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper to taste, and place in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. In a small bowl, combine the honey, mustard, basil, paprika, and parsley. Mix well. Pour 1/2 of this mixture over the chicken, and brush to cover.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Turn chicken pieces over and brush with the remaining 1/2 of the honey mustard mixture. Bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Lime Chicken Soft Tacos

Ingredients: 1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast meat - cubed 1/8 cup red wine vinegar 1/2 lime, juiced, 1 teaspoon white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt

Chicken Enchiladas Ingredients: 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves 1 onion, chopped 1/2 pint sour cream 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon dried parsley 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional) 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce 1/2 cup water 1 tablespoon chili powder 1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper 1 clove garlic, minced

8 (10 inch) flour tortillas 1 (12 ounce) jar taco sauce 3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a medium, non-stick skillet over medium heat, cook chicken until no longer pink and juices run clear. Drain excess fat. Cube the chicken and return it to the skillet. Add the onion, sour cream, Cheddar cheese, parsley, oregano and ground black pepper. Heat until cheese melts. Stir in salt, tomato sauce, water, chili powder, green pepper and garlic.

Roll even amounts of the mixture in the tortillas. Arrange in a 9x13 inch baking dish.

Cover with taco sauce and 3/ 4 cup Cheddar cheese. Bake uncovered in the preheated oven 20 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 green onions, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon dried oregano 10 (6 inch) flour tortillas 1 tomato, diced 1/4 cup shredded lettuce 1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese, 1/4 cup salsa Directions: Saute chicken in a medium saucepan over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. Add vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper, green onion, garlic and oregano. Simmer for an extra 10 minutes.

Heat an iron skillet over medium heat. Place a tortilla in the pan, warm, and turn over to heat the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Serve lime chicken mixture in warm tortillas topped with tomato, lettuce, cheese and salsa.

Ingredients: 1 (3 pound) whole chicken, giblets removed salt and black pepper to taste 1 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste 1/2 cup margarine, divided 1 stalk celery, leaves removed Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Place chicken in a roasting pan, and season generously inside and out with salt and pepper. Sprinkle inside and out with onion powder. Place 3 table-

spoons margarine in the chicken cavity. Arrange dollops of the remaining margarine around the chicken's exterior. Cut the celery into 3 or 4 pieces, and place in the chicken cavity.

Bake uncovered 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees F (82 degrees C). Remove from heat, and baste with melted margarine and drippings. Cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest about 30 minutes before serving.

American Lasagna

Ginger Glazed Mahi Ingredients: 3 tablespoons honey 3 tablespoons soy sauce 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root 1 clove garlic, crushed or to taste 2 teaspoons olive oil 4 (6 ounce) mahi mahi fillets salt and pepper to taste 1 tablespoon vegetable oil Directions: In a shallow glass dish, stir together the honey, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, ginger, garlic and olive oil.

Season fish fillets with salt and pepper, and place them into the dish. If the fillets have skin on them, place them skin side down. Cover, and refrigerate for 20 minutes to marinate.

Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove fish from the

dish, and reserve marinade. Fry fish for 4 to 6 minutes on each side, turning only once, until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Remove fillets to a serving platter and keep warm.

Pour reserved marinade into the skillet, and heat over medium heat until the mixture reduces to a glaze consistently. Spoon glaze over fish, and serve immediately.

Ingredients: 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef 1 onion, chopped, 2 cloves garlic, minced, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil, 1 teaspoon dried oregano 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 (29 ounce) can diced tomatoes 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste 12 dry lasagna noodles 2 eggs, beaten, 1 pint partskim ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 2 tablespoons dried parsley, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese Directions: In a skillet over medium heat, brown ground beef, onion and garlic; drain fat.

Mix in basil, oregano, brown sugar, 1 1/2 tea-

spoons salt, diced tomatoes and tomato paste.

Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add lasagna noodles, and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, or until al dente; drain. Lay noodles flat on towels, and blot dry. In a medium bowl, mix together eggs, ricotta, Parmesan cheese, parsley and 1 teaspoon salt. Layer 1/3 of the lasagna noodles in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Cover noodles with 1/2 ricotta mixture, 1/ 2 of the mozzarella cheese and 1/3 of the sauce. Repeat. Top with remaining noodles and sauce.

Sprinkle additional Parmesan cheese over the top. Bake in the preheated oven 30 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

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