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Total 100 articles, created at 2016-07-11 06:00 1 2 Russian pilots killed as ISIS shoots down chopper near Palmyra – MoD — RT News (1.02/2) Islamic State militants have downed a military helicopter near Palmyra, Syria, killing two Russian pilots on board. The helicopter had been attacking the advancing terrorists at Damascus’ request when it was taken down, according to the Russian defense ministry. 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB www.rt.com 2 Portugal stuns host France to win cup despite Ronaldo injury (1.00/2) SAINT-DENIS, France — Portugal overcame the loss of injured captain Cristiano Ronaldo to beat France 1-0 in the European Championship final on Sunday, with a goal in extra time from 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB sports.inquirer.net 3 All too often for Labour, equal representation is something we do when it's easy As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds (0.34/2) the best cards Equality of representation matters - even when it's difficult, says the director of the Labour Women's Network. 2016-07-11 02:18 10KB www.newstatesman.com 4 Does Reggie Yates have the weirdest career in television? "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on (0.05/2) gender fluidity and drag From presenting kids’ TV with a badly behaved puppet to serious documentaries, via an all-mouse reggae band. 2016-07-11 02:18 19KB www.newstatesman.com 5 Phoenix police use tear gas on Black Lives Matter rally (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) — RT America (0.02/2) Police have used pepper spray during a civil rights rally in Phoenix, Arizona, late on Friday night. The use of impact munitions didn’t lead to any injuries, and no arrests have been made, Phoenix Police Chief said. 2016-07-11 06:00 1KB www.rt.com 6 US police shootings: Protests spread with dozens of arrests (0.01/2) Protests against the police shooting of black men spread across US cities, with dozens of arrests made, but with most passing off peacefully. 2016-07-11 03:23 5KB www.bbc.co.uk 7 Of the People Americans share their hopes, fears and frustrations in interviews from the campaign trail. 2016-07-11 06:00 1KB www.nytimes.com 8 ‘Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless’ Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless‚ the congregation heard during a special thanksgiving service‚ celebrating his four decades of episcopal ministry‚ on Sunday. 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 9 Couldn’t find spaceman, illegally parked UFO gets towed (VIDEO) — RT Viral Finding a place to park in the galaxy is getting tougher these days judging by this video of what appears to be a spacecraft on the back of a truck speeding down a highway. 2016-07-11 06:00 1KB www.rt.com 10 Delta flight lands at Air Force base by mistake — RT America Pilots of a Delta flight mistook a South Dakota Air Force base for a civilian airport and landed their Airbus A320 with 130 passengers aboard without a hitch. Federal officials are investigating the incident. 2016-07-11 06:00 1KB www.rt.com 11 Brave Banyana lose 1-0 to USA in Chicago Crystal Dunn's first-half goal earned the USA a 1-0 win over SA in an international friendly match played at Soldier Field on Saturday‚ Goal.com reported. 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 12 NATO ‘speaks of defense, prepares offensive’, says Gorbachev — RT News Despite NATO assurances that it seeks deterrence and dialogue with Russia, the alliance seems to be preparing to escalate conflict, says Mikhail Gorbachev, the man praised for ending the Cold War after the alliance convened at a summit in Warsaw. 2016-07-11 06:00 5KB www.rt.com 13 'Kanye is the American AKA'- 4 Supa Mega quotes from AKA’s Sway interview Rapper AKA became only the second South African rapper to appear on popular US hip-hop radio show Sway In The Morning this week, where he bowled over American audiences with his charm and charisma. 2016-07-11 06:00 3KB www.timeslive.co.za 14 Tbo Touch spills beans on why he left SABC Former MetroFM presenter Thabo “Tbo Touch” Molefe is the latest SABC employee to go public about his beef with the national broadcaster. 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 15 Watch: Meet the man who Zuma’s guards can’t turn away This is President Jacob Zuma’s friend – Collen Chauke. He is probably the only man Zuma openly calls friend in front of the public. 2016-07-11 06:00 8KB www.timeslive.co.za 16 Russian helicopter pilot downed in Syria saved numerous lives over 25-yr service — RT News Veteran helicopter pilot Ryafagat Khabibulin, who died in battle in Syria’s Homs, was among Russia’s most decorated and renowned military pilots. He had taken part in multiple operations in the North Caucasus over the last 25 years. 2016-07-11 06:00 6KB www.rt.com 17 Pentagon wants injection of $20mn to fight ISIS drones — RT America An additional $20 million are needed to deal with Islamic State’s reconnaissance and bomber drones, the US Defense Department has told Congress. The money will be spent in addition to the $190 million already allocated to countering terrorist networks. 2016-07-11 06:00 3KB www.rt.com 18 Eskom’s capacity expansion programme for growth continuing at a pace Eskom says it is making major strides with its capacity expansion programme. 2016-07-11 06:00 934Bytes www.timeslive.co.za 19 Winning a council more important than saving economy The tragedy of South Africa today is that we are all consumed by street politics - and our leaders are loving it, happy to promise a tomorrow that will never come. 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 20 Will Ronaldo or Griezmann prevail in battle of the No.7s? — RT Sport Antoine Griezmann’s stunning performances in the number seven shirt for France at Euro 2016 have helped drive his team to the final. But will it be the Frenchman or Portugal’s very own number seven star, Cristiano Ronaldo, who has the last word on Sunday? 2016-07-11 06:00 4KB www.rt.com 21 ‘Pets’ fetches big earnings, sinks ‘Dory’ LOS ANGELES, United States — After a three-week reign, the beloved fish Dory's top box office spot has gone to the dogs -- literally. "The Secret Life of Pets" racked up an 2016-07-11 06:00 2KB entertainment.inquirer.net 22 UN sounds alarm over ‘structural and institutional racism’ in US — RT News There is a high level of structural and institutional racism in the US, Ricardo A. Sunga III, chair of the UN expert panel on people of African descent, said, commenting on the back-to-back killing of two black men by the American police. 2016-07-11 03:25 3KB www.rt.com 23 Spanish bullfighter gored to death in ring first time in over 20 years — RT News A top Spanish bullfighter has been gored to death in the ring during a fight observed by hundreds of horrified spectators. He is the first person to have died at a bullring in the country this century. 2016-07-11 03:25 2KB www.rt.com 24 Russia & UNESCO push for 'generation without racial, ethnic, religious prejudice' — RT News In an effort to find a solution to Europe's migration crisis, Russia's Federal Center for Tolerance has teamed up with UNESCO, campaigning to bring up a “new generation” of children and teachers “free from racial, ethnic and religious stereotypes.” 2016-07-11 03:25 5KB www.rt.com 25 Black kids killed by black kids in 99% of cases — RT America Black children have a 99 percent chance of killing one whereas white cops pose a 1 percent risk, said former NYC Mayor Giuliani in a TV interview. He added that the slogan “Black Lives Matter” is “inherently racist and anti-American.” 2016-07-11 03:25 3KB www.rt.com 26 Theresa May vows to put Conservative Party 'at service' of working people Theresa May will promise to put workers on the boards of major companies and curb excess corporate pay, as she starts her party leadership campaign. 2016-07-11 03:23 4KB www.bbc.co.uk 27 The UK women seeking divorce through Sharia councils The use of Sharia councils to settle disputes in the UK has been criticised for discriminating against women. But some say they are essential to help women escape from abusive relationships. 2016-07-11 03:23 6KB www.bbc.co.uk 28 Stevie Wonder brings Songs In The Key of Life tour to London Soul legend Stevie Wonder addresses recent outbreaks of violence as he brings his Songs In The Key Of Life tour to the UK. 2016-07-11 03:23 4KB www.bbc.co.uk 29 We need to talk about getting old, says charity Too many people avoid talking about getting old, suggests a survey by a charity for older people. 2016-07-11 03:23 2KB www.bbc.co.uk 30 Online Payments Get bank-beating exchange rates when you send money overseas, typically 3-4% better than the banks. Fast & secure international money transfer from CNN. 2016-07-11 03:23 760Bytes www.cnnmoneytransfers.com 31 World champ Isinbayeva & other Russian athletes barred from Olympic Games — RT Sport The IAAF has rejected all applications from Russian track and field athletes to compete in this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the Russian Olympic Committee has said, with the exception of long jumper Darya Klishina. 2016-07-11 03:25 4KB www.rt.com 32 Solon fears OFWs convicted abroad will also be killed STEPPING UP his case against the reimposition of the death penalty, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said yesterday that executing criminals would also work against Filipinos who are on death row 2016-07-11 02:58 2KB newsinfo.inquirer.net 33 Jewish groups look for answers after five cops killed in Dallas shootings ADL calls for ‘increased bias training’ for law enforcement officials. 2016-07-11 02:56 4KB www.jpost.com 34 MILF wants to join Duterte administration in fight vs drugs OZAMIZ CITY—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is open to collaborating with the administration of President Duterte in the campaign against illegal drugs. This developed as Mr. Duterte 2016-07-11 02:54 2KB newsinfo.inquirer.net

35 Leni preps for 1st Cabinet meet VICE PRESIDENT Leni Robredo will attend her first Cabinet meeting today at Malacañang and meet her new colleagues. Over the weekend, Robredo studied and prepared for the meeting, according 2016-07-11 02:53 1KB newsinfo.inquirer.net 36 VIDEO: The People's Assembly marches against police and bias killings About 75 people marched down Pacific Avenue on Saturday, protesting the spate of recent hate crimes and police shootings around the country. The march, organized by The People's Assembly (formerly known at Tacoma Stands Up), was coordinated with Tacoma's Pride event, Out in the Park. 2016-07-11 02:17 1KB www.thenewstribune.com 37 MLB Baseball Box Scores NEW YORK -- The Washington Nationals exited the final series of the first half with a healthy division lead and a sense things... 2016-07-11 02:18 5KB scoresandstats.newyork.cbslocal.com 38 PA security forces increase efforts in attempt to restore order in West Bank Abbas calls to hit lawbreakers with an "iron fist. " 2016-07-11 02:42 4KB www.jpost.com 39 Record traffic for the New Statesman website in June 2016 In a single month, four million unique users read more than 27 million pages. 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB www.newstatesman.com 40 Oscar Pistorius sentenced to six years for murder Leader: The Iraq War and its aftermath The sentence brings the three-and-a-half-year legal battle to an end. 2016-07-11 02:18 6KB www.newstatesman.com 41 The next wearable technology could be your skin Brain training: exposing the myth behind cognitive-enhancement games Electronic tattoos, nerve replacements, and e-skin. 2016-07-11 02:18 10KB www.newstatesman.com

42 The unseen realm with Michael Heiser Contact WND Click here for reuse options! 2016-07-11 02:18 4KB www.wnd.com 43 Dallas shootings: Police touched by outpouring of support For many people in Dallas this week, the police are heroes. And for the others - there's an uneasy truce. 2016-07-11 02:17 7KB www.bbc.co.uk 44 BBC comedy classics go on display Much-loved British comedians and sitcom stars are being celebrated in a new exhibition. 2016-07-11 02:17 6KB www.bbc.co.uk 45 ANOTHER Texas Police Department Takes Gunfire Yet another Texas police department was attacked with gunfire Saturday, and authorities are looking for the person responsible. Authorities say someone opened fire on the San Antonio police headqu 2016-07-11 02:18 2KB dailycaller.com 46 Facebook Is Finally Removing That Viral Picture Of Cop’s Throat Being Slit Facebook has begun removing a now-viral drawing of a cop's throat being slit from some users' accounts while it's being allowed to remain on others' pages, the company tells The Daily Caller. The g 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB dailycaller.com 47 CMPD Chief Putney speaks at Transformation Church in Indian Land Chief Kerr Putney talks about how Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is different and improving in recruiting good officers. 2016-07-11 02:17 1KB www.charlotteobserver.com 48 Despite hearing disability, she's trilingual Caroline Aufgebauer has a hearing disability, but that did not stop her from performing well on a national Spanish exam. She has developed her own learning methods and now speaks three languages. 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB www.charlotteobserver.com 49 Analysis: Solar Subsidies Aren't Leading To More Solar Power America isn't even close to getting enough energy from wind and solar power to the levels Democrats say are required despite extremely lucrative subsidies, according to an analysis of 2014 data fro 2016-07-11 02:18 6KB dailycaller.com

50 Newspaper headlines: Andy Murray's triumph and May's pledges Pictures of Andy Murray with the Wimbledon trophy dominate the front pages, while Tory party leadership hopeful Theresa May's plans for the UK also feature. 2016-07-11 02:17 923Bytes www.bbc.co.uk 51 National Living Wage has not led to job losses Employers have responded to the new National Living Wage by raising prices or reducing profits rather than cutting jobs, according to a new survey. 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB www.bbc.co.uk 52 Andrea Leadsom apologises to Theresa May over 'motherhood' remark Andrea Leadsom apologises to Theresa May after she was accused of suggesting being a mother made her a better candidate for prime minister. 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB www.bbc.co.uk 53 Angela Eagle launches leader bid 'to heal Labour' Angela Eagle says her bid for the Labour leadership is a "battle for a healed and united" party, as leader Jeremy Corbyn urges her to "think again". 2016-07-11 02:17 5KB www.bbc.co.uk 54 FGM: 'More community funding needed' to maintain progress Community groups tackling female genital mutilation in England and Wales say more local funding is needed to maintain progress against the illegal activity. 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB www.bbc.co.uk 55 In the line of duty: How often are US police killed? The US is reeling after a week of shootings, ending with a deadly ambush on police that left five people dead and seven others injured in the US state of Texas. 2016-07-11 02:17 5KB www.bbc.co.uk 56 Your pictures: Handmade Each week, we publish a gallery of readers' pictures on a set theme. This week, we asked for your pictures on the theme of "handmade". 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB www.bbc.co.uk 57 Analysis: Something positive at last Visits by Egyptian foreign ministers to Israel are few and far between. In the past, a succession of Israeli foreign ministers and heads of state made the trip to Cairo for consultations. 2016-07-11 02:36 4KB www.jpost.com

58 Germany Votes To Abandon Most Green Energy Subsidies Germany's legislature voted Friday to sharply cut back on subsidies and other financial incentives supporting green energy due to the strain wind and solar power placed on the country’s electricity 2016-07-11 02:18 4KB dailycaller.com 59 Possible Trump VP Takes Pro-Abortion Stance Former lieutenant general and potential Republican pick for vice president, Michael Flynn, told ABC News Sunday he supports abortion. "Women should be able to choose," Flynn began. "Women are so i 2016-07-11 02:18 2KB dailycaller.com 60 Saudis Screw OPEC And Embrace Low Oil Prices Saudi Arabia's energy minister announced Sunday his country will continue keeping the price of oil low. The statement is further evidence the country won't cut oil production to raise the global p 2016-07-11 02:18 4KB dailycaller.com 61 Miami Is Sinking, Sea Level Isn't Rising Grist.com ran an article Friday claiming the streets of Miami flood with every high tide, but The Daily Caller News Foundation has spoken to an official from Miami Beach that claims that is not true. 2016-07-11 02:18 5KB dailycaller.com 62 Women In Law Enforcement More Likely To Commit Suicide A person's job and gender may determine how likely they are to commit suicide, according to a report from the Center for Disease Control. Women in law enforcement, for instance, commit suicide at a h 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB dailycaller.com 63 Bin Laden's Son Wants Revenge On US The son of Al-Qaida founder Osama Bin Laden wants revenge on the U. S. for killing his father in 2011. Hamza Bin Laden promised to carry on Al-Qaida's fight against the U. S. and its allies in an aud 2016-07-11 02:18 1KB dailycaller.com 64 Sanders Gets His Way On The $15 Minimum Wage Sen. Bernie Sanders declared victory Saturday after the Democratic party platform committee announced support for the $15 minimum wage. Sanders introduced a bill in July 2015 aimed to pass the i 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB dailycaller.com 65 ‘Dark streaks’ on Mars give NASA a hint that Red Planet may have water — RT America NASA has examined thousands of “dark streaks” on Mars which might have formed due to liquid water, ice or vapor. The results of the study give “additional support for the notion that significant amounts of near-surface water can be found on Mars today. " 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB www.rt.com 66 S. Sudan Independence Day gun battles in capital claim over 100 — RT News The UN Security Council has condemned renewed violence in South Sudan after at least 100 people were killed in gun battles across the capital, Juba, on the eve of the country's fifth independence anniversary. 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB www.rt.com 67 Kurdish militants deny death of senior commander in Syria — RT News The Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) has denied reports that a senior Kurdish commander from the Turkey-based PKK has been killed in northern Syria. 2016-07-11 02:18 3KB www.rt.com 68 BLM Asks For Donations To Pay Bail Black Lives Matter Minneapolis is requesting donations to pay bail and legal fees for dozens of activists who were arrested during protests Saturday night. Authorities say the crowd threw rocks, bo 2016-07-11 02:18 2KB dailycaller.com 69 The Cops Are the Real Stars It’s a total utter lie that police shootings are a major cause of black deaths. The data is that maybe 1/10 of one... 2016-07-11 02:17 1KB spectator.org 70 Jaycee Dugard: 18 Years Spent in Captivity Photos Jaycee Dugard, 36, was 11 years old when she was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. 2016-07-11 02:16 954Bytes abcnews.go.com 71 Rock Hill man receives bond in animal cruelty case On Thursday, Rock Hill Municipal Court Judge Kesha Simpkins set bond at $9,000 for Rock Hill's DeAngelo Roseboro, 21, who is charged with three counts of ill treatment of animals. Each charge carries a sentence of up two years. Police say DeAngelo... 2016-07-11 02:15 3KB www.heraldonline.com

72 Trump, Saddam, and American Hubris This week punishment came to one presidential candidate telling a truth and reward came to another telling a lie. Such perverse incentives regarding honesty... 2016-07-11 02:17 5KB spectator.org 73 Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton’s Remarks About Philando Castile Are Unhelpful Minnesota’s Democrat Governor Mark Dayton claims that if Philando Castile, the man killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in a Twin... 2016-07-11 02:17 1KB spectator.org 74 Resisting the Orwellian Attorney Generals Over the past four years, climate change activists have been working to find ways to prosecute individuals, organizations, and companies that are... 2016-07-11 02:17 6KB spectator.org 75 The Problem With Loretta Lynch’s “Hard Look” at Wrongdoers Getting Their Hands on Weapons During her speech on last night’s massacre of Dallas police officers, Attorney General Loretta Lynch pushed the Obama Administration gun control line when she... 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB spectator.org 76 But Why Aren’t People Buying Electric Cars? Trump is ascendant not because he’s a freedom jouster but because the people are exasperated with a clueless (and contemptuous of them) party... 2016-07-11 02:17 6KB spectator.org 77 America’s Outlaw Heroes of World War II When Tigers Ruled the Sky: The Flying Tigers: American Outlaw Pilots over China in World War II By Bill Yenne (Berkley Caliber... 2016-07-11 02:17 6KB spectator.org 78 Dead Dallas Gunman Identified as a Black Panther; Wanted to Kill White Cops The gunman killed by Dallas PD following the deaths of five police officers and the wounding of a dozen others has been identified as Micah... 2016-07-11 02:17 2KB spectator.org 79 Comey’s Carelessness With Common Sense As I watch FBI Director James Comey respond to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, even as I attempt to correct... 2016-07-11 02:17 10KB spectator.org 80 Tony Blair’s Comeuppance The Chilcot report into Britain’s part in the 2003 Iraq war, which was finally published on Wednesday, is three times the size of... 2016-07-11 02:17 5KB spectator.org 81 The refugee who fled civil war and became a multi-millionaire How Daniele Henkel escaped Algeria before the start of its civil war, and started a health and beauty business in Canada that made her a multi-millionaire. 2016-07-11 02:16 5KB www.bbc.co.uk 82 The Chilean fighting in a foreign conflict in Colombia BBC Mundo's Natalio Cosoy speaks to a Chilean man who joined Colombia's largest left-wing rebel group, the Farc. 2016-07-11 02:16 5KB www.bbc.co.uk 83 A Californian town laid low by cheap oil Battered by low oil prices as well as drought, Bakersfield, California longs to be great again. 2016-07-11 02:16 6KB www.bbc.co.uk 84 Cambodian activist Kem Ley shot dead in Phnom Penh Kem Ley, a Cambodian political activist and prominent critic of the government has been shot dead in the capital Phnom Penh. 2016-07-11 02:16 1KB www.bbc.co.uk 85 Guyana's blind cricketers are in it to win it Carinya Sharples attends a training session of the Guyana Blind Cricket Association as it prepares for the Regional Blind Cricket T20 championship in Trinidad. 2016-07-11 02:16 5KB www.bbc.co.uk 86 Why this Indian state screams for ice cream Gujarat is India's biggest ice cream market, and is known for its offbeat local flavours, writes Soutik Biswas. 2016-07-11 02:16 7KB www.bbc.co.uk 87 Dallas shootings: Killer 'prepared larger attack' The man who shot dead five police officers in Dallas and wounded seven more was planning an even larger attack, the city's police chief says. 2016-07-11 02:16 4KB www.bbc.co.uk 88 Israel and Palestinians: Egypt FM urges two-state solution in rare visit Egypt's foreign minister pays a rare visit to Israel, offering his country's help to revive peace talks with the Palestinians. 2016-07-11 02:16 2KB www.bbc.co.uk 89 Photographing the things homeless people in California own Huang Qingjun spent nearly a decade travelling to remote parts of China to persuade people to be photographed with all their possessions. Now he has done the same for homeless people in California. 2016-07-11 02:16 7KB www.bbc.co.uk 90 Modi tour: Seven things about Africa and India India's prime minister is on an African charm offensive, visiting four nations where he hopes to tie up energy and trade deals and remind the continent of their cultural and historical bonds. But how do things stand now? 2016-07-11 02:16 8KB www.bbc.co.uk 91 Double suicide raises questions on gun licenses for security guards Former security guard calls psych evaluation "superficial, shallow. " 2016-07-11 02:19 5KB www.jpost.com 92 National ceremony commemorates Operation Entebbe – 40 years later The evening was especially symbolic for Netanyahu whose older brother Yonatan “Yoni” was killed while leading the Entebbe raid. 2016-07-11 02:11 2KB www.jpost.com 93 New job 'helped me heal my broken heart' The death of a much-loved pet inspired one woman to find her dream job with an internet start-up company. 2016-07-11 02:02 623Bytes www.bbc.co.uk 94 Leila seeks immediate probe SEN. LEILA de Lima said she would immediately file—either today or tomorrow—a resolution calling for an inquiry into the killing of drug suspects, as she called President Duterte to remind the 2016-07-11 01:59 2KB newsinfo.inquirer.net 95 Iglesia film wins awards in Madrid “WALANG Take Two” (No Second Take), a Philippine independent film produced by the Iglesia Ni Cristo, was named Best Film and given the Best Cinematography in a Foreign Language Film award in the 2016-07-11 01:57 2KB newsinfo.inquirer.net

96 Likud MK calls to ‘eliminate inciters’ Rte. 60 closed to traffic as settlers march in memory of Rabbi Michael Mark. 2016-07-11 01:57 4KB www.jpost.com 97 Reaching out to descendants of conversos President of "Reconectar" says he receives emails from people around the world who discover Jewish ancestry. 2016-07-11 01:34 5KB www.jpost.com 98 Togo president to visit Israel in August Official: Netanyahu would like to convene a summit in West Africa soon. 2016-07-11 01:28 3KB www.jpost.com 99 Texas governor burned in accident; could miss GOP convention DALLAS (AP) — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sustained "extensive second- and third-degree burns" on both legs below the knees and both feet — and may... 2016-07-11 00:25 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk 100 Alex Noren grabs early birthday gift with Scottish Open victory Sweden's Alex Noren gave himself the perfect early birthday present by holding his nerve to claim a fifth European Tour title in the Aberdeen Asset Managemen... 2016-07-11 00:23 4KB www.dailymail.co.uk Articles

Total 100 articles, created at 2016-07-11 06:00

1 2 Russian pilots killed as ISIS shoots down chopper near Palmyra – MoD — RT News (1.02/2) “ On July 8, Russian military pilot-instructors Evgeny Dolgin and Ryafagat Khabibulin, were conducting a calibration flight on a Syrian Mi-25 (export version of the Mi-24) helicopter loaded with ammunition in the province of Homs, ” the official statement from the Ministry of Defense reads. “ The crew received a request from the Syrian command group to help defeat the advancing terrorists and fire for effect. The captain of the aircraft, Ryafagat Khabibullin, made the decision to attack.” The Ministry of Defense stated that due to the skillful actions of the crew the terrorists were thrown back and the attack had been thwarted. However, their helicopter was shot down by terrorists as it was turning to head back to the base. “ Having spent their ammunition, while turning back to the base, the helicopter was shot down by terrorists from the ground and crashed in an area controlled by the Syrian government. The crew did not survive, ” Russia’s defense ministry said, adding that both pilots will posthumously receive state awards for their actions. Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing a source in the Russian military, that the helicopter had been downed with the aid of an American TOW antitank missile system. “ According to reports, terrorists used the American TOW system to down the helicopter, which, having exhausted its ammunition, was on the course back to the base at an extremely low altitude, ” the source is quoted as saying. Friday’s tragedy puts the number of Russian military casualties in Syria at 10. In June, serviceman Anton Erygin suffered fatal wounds after falling under militant fire while guarding a Russian center for reconciliation convoy in Homs province. Earlier in April, Russia paid its respects to Lt. Aleksandr Prokhorenko, who called in artillery fire on his own position after being surrounded by the terrorists near the Syrian city of Palmyra. READ MORE: YPG secure & return ‘Russian Rambo’ of Palmyra’s body Prokhorenko, dubbed ‘Russian Rambo’ by international media, was awarded the title of Hero of Russia for his feat.

Watch ISIS Shoot Down This Helicopter Killing 2 Russians dailycaller.com 2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

2 Portugal stuns host France to win cup despite Ronaldo injury (1.00/2) SAINT-DENIS, France — Portugal overcame the loss of injured captain Cristiano Ronaldo to beat France 1-0 in the European Championship final on Sunday, with a goal in extra time from substitute Eder securing their country’s first football title. Just as the final looked destined for a penalty shootout, Eder cut through the French defense and struck a low shot from 25 meters (yards) past goalkeeper Hugo Lloris in the 109th minute at the Stade de France. Twelve years after losing to Greece on home soil in their last final appearance, it was Portugal’s turn to spoil the host nation’s party. And they achieved it by winning only one of their seven games at Euro 2016 inside 90 minutes. It was dull and stodgy at times but the record books will only show that Portugal went from third-place in its group to champion, with little help from Ronaldo in its last match. European football’s biggest match lost its biggest name midway through the first half of a cagey final on the outskirts of the French capital. Ronaldo went down under Dimitri Payet’s ninth-minute challenge and was twice forced off to receive treatment on the touchline. However determined Ronaldo was to lead Portugal to glory, his left knee could cope no more and he was carried off on a stretcher midway through the first half. Ronaldo was in tears but he returned just before extra time to address his weary teammates. They seemed to be inspired by Ronaldo’s re-emergence and the Real Madrid forward was soon leaping off the bench in celebrations. Then he was lying on the turf again at the final whistle, this time in disbelief rather than pain. Originally posted: 05:43 AM July 11th, 2016

Injured Ronaldo leaves European final in tears for 2nd time sports.inquirer.net 2016-07-11 06:00 Associated Press sports.inquirer.net

3 3 All too often for Labour, equal representation is something we do when it's easy As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards (0.34/2) Just three weeks ago, Jo Cox was stabbed and shot outside her local library. A week later, Pat Glass was told to avoid public places because she’d received a series of credible death threats. Graffiti is being scrawled on to the walls of constituency offices. Women MPs are being deafened by a daily cacophony of rape threats, intimidation and abuse. Women MPs, the pioneers for our rights, are no longer caucusing to discuss the pay gap and funding for women’s refuges, but to help each other find the strength to carry on. It’s not hard to conclude that a small, extreme minority want to silence women with violence and intimidation. We can rationalise that. We can condemn that. It is their fault, it is not ours. But it is much harder to accept that violent hatred of women is just one end of the spectrum of a much wider problem. The systematic oppression of women in our society. Our political culture has long been poisoned by the dismissal and belittling of women with opinions. The obsession with appearance over ideas. Women being told to calm down, while men are lauded for being passionate. Consistently low levels of representation across national and local government, particularly in leadership positions. And we are kidding ourselves if we don’t think this is a problem within the Labour Party as well, a problem I set out in a recent Fabian Society research report Practising what we preach. Women face harassment but have nowhere to go. A third of those who have stood for selection faced unwelcome scrutiny of their private lives. Where positive action is not used, women’s representation falls away. While we have made huge progress as a Party, thanks to the perseverance of Labour women, too much of that progress has been superficial. We’ve had All Women Shortlists when it is politically expedient, and a gender balanced cabinet when it is easy to achieve. All while the Conservative Party are set to elect a second woman Prime Minister. So when Labour Women’s Network call out Jeremy Corbyn for failing to keep his promise for 50:50 representation in the shadow cabinet, it isn’t party to a right wing conspiracy. It is simply saying that women’s equality shouldn’t be the first thing out the door when the going gets tough. It is not unreasonable to say we should have a standalone shadow minister for women and equalities. Surely, now, that post is more important than ever. Oppression is a remarkable thing. It weighs you down, it knocks the self- confidence out of you, and it makes you doubt whether you should even make a fuss. Writing this, I’ve been fighting an urge to qualify myself. To say that, of course, there are bigger problems facing the country. To say that, of course, all of our MPs are having to tolerate horrible abuse. Of course we need action on both. But I’m fed up with women’s equality always playing second fiddle. And I’m furious that just when it felt like we might be making progress that we’ve been engulfed by this toxic and suffocating backlash. I want leadership from the Party I love, and I want clear action to tackle abuse and to improve women’s representation. Practising what we preach sets out some simple steps that could be taken. But above all else I want Labour women to keep believing in themselves, to keep finding the strength to fight. Jo campaigned for women in the Labour Party. She would have celebrated the election of Rosena Allin-Khan, who would have been Labour’s 100 th woman MP. Jo’s successor must be a woman so that we can reach that milestone. But let us find strength from these dreadful few weeks to empower thousands more women like Jo to try and change the world. Olivia Bailey is chair of the Labour Women's Network. She tweets as @livbailey. So it’s war, then. Tom Watson has announced the end of talks about an amicable settlement between Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s rebels. Angela Eagle, an ever-present on Labour’s frontbench since 2007, has announced that she will challenge Corbyn for the leadership. What happens now? The fix may still be on. Corbyn may not make it to the ballot The Labour party is a bit like a post-Soviet state: it has a democratic constitution, but not a democratic culture. The somewhat vague wording of the party’s rules means that it is up in the air whether or not Corbyn, or merely his challengers, will need to seek the support of 20 per cent of the parliamentary Labour party (that includes not just his colleagues at Westminster but the 20 members of the European Parliament as well). There are competing bits of legal advice, and the precedent in 1988, when Tony Benn challenged Neil Kinnock (with the support of Corbyn among others) is that the leader had to seek nominations. My understanding is that GRM Law, the party’s official lawyers, advise that Corbyn would need to seek nominations, while Doughty Chambers, who were commissioned by the leaders’ office and whose legal advice has been well-leaked, say that he would not. But in the end what will matter is what the party’s ruling national executive committee decides to do. Certainly, some of the rebels have been alive to the possibility that Corbyn may need nominations to stand, with informal talks taking place in both the parliamentary party and the European parliamentary party. I’m told that the somewhat abrupt ending of negotiations by Watson took some of the trade unions by surprise, and the BBC’s Iain Watson, one of Westminster’s most experienced Labour-watchers, has heard the same. It may be that Watson is confident that he can keep Corbyn out of contention entirely. If he is on the ballot, he starts as the heavy favourite I said on the BBC last week that Corbyn either had a zero per cent chance of competing or a 100 per cent chance of winning. Having spent the back end of last week talking to Labour activists, it is clear to me that he remains well-placed to win. Although there is significant disquiet with Corbyn’s performance, particularly around competence, among Labour members, the grassroots are reluctant to change leaders as they fear that it will mean a return to the days of anti- immigration mugs and lukewarm opposition to the Conservative cuts. That both the candidates for the Conservative leadership – and indeed, George Osborne himself – have abandoned Osborne’s fiscal targets in the wake of Brexit means that the economic dividing line will not be a factor as both Corbyn and his rival will run on a ticket of fiscal stimulus – housebuilding, transport projects, and green energy will likely be the big themes. But Angela Eagle voted for the Iraq war. Though she has since U-turned, if she is the candidate, Corbyn’s campaign will be a noun, a verb and the Chilcot report. Team Corbyn will weaponise that vote to talk about their candidate's voting record and history of left-wing campaigns. (They will skate over the consistent opposition to the European project.) Corbyn will triumph and it won’t be close. That's why some Corbynsceptics are rallying around Owen Smith, who may yet also run. But Smith has suggested that there may be a “progressive case” against free movement, making him vulnerable on immigration. That also disqualifies him from running as an unapologeticaly pro-European candidate, probably the only dividing line that rebels can draw over which they emerge stronger than Corbyn. It will be difficult for any “unity candidate” to defeat Corbyn The phrase “unity candidate” is an unfortunate codeword for “candidate who no one in the parliamentary party regards as sufficiently formidable to be leader in a decade’s time”. Wavering supporters of Corbyn want to be inspired – but any candidate impressive enough to do that is unlikely to be acceptable as a “unity” candidate. The candidates who Corbyn would have reason to fear – from talking to members, Keir Starmer is the most lethal, though there are others – cannot run without triggering a full-blown, multi-candidate contest, which the PLP believes would hand victory to Corbyn. There is a narrow path to victory even for a unity candidate Although I would be fairly surprised if Corbyn were to be defeated, there is a plausible if thin path to victory for his opponent, even if it is Eagle or Smith. As I’ve written before, the rebels have come relatively late to effective social media organising, in stark contrast to the larger and more established presences of Red Labour and other groups on Facebook. Momentum, meanwhile, has a far bigger presence from a standing start than any of the anti-Corbyn groups and particularly Saving Labour, the new anti-Corbyn group. But despite their relative lack of preparation, the possibility for Saving Labour to gain traction despite itself remains a real one (they have the advantage of having the support of many high-profile Labour supporting celebrities, including the actors Jason Isaacs and Frances Barber and the author JK Rowling). The relative lack of dynamism of Eagle and Smith might even help as they are something of a blank canvas for a “save the party” message. It could be that the existence of a candidate, even a bad or bland one, galvanises a recruitment drive. That said, I wouldn’t bet on it. If he makes it to the ballot, Corbyn’s chances of winning might not quite be 100 per cent. But they aren’t far off. What Tory grandees Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind really think about the leadership race As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com

Divides run deep in the Conservative party – could they cost Theresa May the leadership? As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com Wake up to the political reality - Brexit's blade is splitting Labour in two As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com

We're still waiting for a female Labour leader - it's getting embarrassing As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com Campaign lies, immigration cuts - it's an unhappy birthday for the NHS As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com

Three ways that the case for Brexit overlaps with climate scepticism As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com Nigel Farage plans to pocket his £84,000 MEP salary until we officially quit the EU As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com

Iraqis don't need the Chilcot report to tell them what Tony Blair did wrong As Labour go to war, Jeremy Corbyn holds the best cards newstatesman.com 2016-07-11 02:18 George Eaton www.newstatesman.com

4 Does Reggie Yates have the weirdest career in television? "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on gender fluidity and drag (0.05/2) Is there a television persona with a more eclectic career than Reggie Yates? He’s woken kids up on Saturday mornings , counted down the biggest chart bangers for Radio 1, presented alongside a puppet , voiced the lead singer of an all- mouse reggae band , and set snarling dogs on cash- hungry members of the public. With over twenty years of light and fluffy jobs behind him, now, he’s forging a successful career as a documentary presenter via youth-oriented social programming for BBC Three. How on earth did he get here? As is so often the case, Yates began his career in TV at an extremely young age. At eight years old he appeared in sitcom The Desmonds as a particularly safety-aware child , producing perhaps the cutest Green Cross Code reference of the Nineties. This sparked a string of roles in minor programmes like Between the Lines , and Agent Z & The Penguin from Mars as well as Grange Hill and The Bill. After that, his career in kids’ Saturday Morning TV and his partnership with Fearne Cotton began: first on Diggit (at 15 years old), then Smile. Clockwise from top left: The Desmonds, with Fearne Cotton on Diggit, Nev from Smile, Crucial Tales, Grange Hill and Agent Z & The Penguin from Mars. He was charming, peppy, teasing – his presenting style, and experience interviewing teen pop stars on these programmes, made him a strong candidate for youth music radio, and he landed a job at BBC Radio 1’s black music counterpart 1Xtra at just 18, going on to present Top of the Pops with Cotton in 2003. After TOTP finished airing in 2005, Yates and Cotton took on a co-presenting slot at Radio 1 – Yates would stay at the station until 2012 – to attempt a move into factual programming. The transition from youth culture presenter to television journalist is not an easy one, but that’s not for a lack of people trying. After Big Brother , Davina McCall struggled with her own chat show, which was cancelled after awful reviews, and social documentaries like He's Having a Baby and Let's Talk Sex before finding her niche in filming herself doing extreme physical challenges for charity. Rick Edwards attempted to move into politics coverage with BBC Three show Free Speech and book None of the Above , but is now back presenting lighter fare, including ITV comedy gameshow Safeword and Sky’s comics fanshow DC Fancast. Mid-Noughties pop presenters like Miquita Oliver and Jameela Jamil have all tried a hand at a “serious” BBC Three documentary, but only produced one-offs. Even Yates’s co-presenter of over a decade, Fearne Cotton, had a stab at documentary programming with 2009’s The Truth about Online Anorexia (now she’s releasing a “wellness” cookbook). The difficulties of a smooth transition between two worlds are perhaps best explored through Yates’s own career: just look at this stunning image produced as part of a political engagement campaign called “Hands up Who's Bored?”. It bears all the hallmarks of a clumsy crossover attempt, including a two- tonne metaphor and patronising tone (#makeuthink). But Yates managed to cross this awkward hurdle – even if he had to host Release the Hounds to get there. In an interview with the Guardian , he recalls why one BBC exec, Danny Cohen, thought he had the potential to make the switch: [Cohen] said I should be doing docs, and asked me to front one on autism. I was adamant that I wasn’t right to do it, but all the reasons I gave Danny as to why I wasn’t a good fit were his reasons why I was. I said: ‘There are no young black guys presenting these shows, and I come from more of a music background; why is anyone going to listen to me?’ And he said: ‘It’s because there’s no one like you doing this that you have a point of difference.’ Yates’s transition began quietly with as the Noughties came to a close. While he continued to host entertainment programmes like The Voice , failed gameshows like Prized Apart , and kept a toe in kids’ TV with his voice role on Rastamouse , his filmography was also growing more factual. Cohen’s suggested autism documentary, Autistic Superstars aired in 2010. He featured in Rich, Famous and in the Slums (yes, that was the genuine title of the show) for Comic Relief the next year, visiting the slums of Kiberia. Despite the poverty porn tone of the title, here Yates did a much better job of integrating with the locals than his co-stars, and revealed a talent for talking sincerely to camera, without sentimentalising his surroundings. In 2012, two more BBC Three shows made it to screens: Tourettes: Let Me Entertain You , which was praised for its human exploration of an oft- mocked condition and the documentary Reggie Yates: Teen Gangs. This was popular enough to secure several follow-ups: Reggie Yates: Extreme South Africa , Reggie Yates: Extreme Russia and a whole series of domestic episodes under the umbrella Reggie Yates: Extreme UK (exploring “modern masculinity” across topics like homophobia and Men’s Rights Activism). As these shows slowly built up a following on BBC Three, Yates continued to dip into more mainstream audiences over the same years, with a popular exploration into the ethics of the fur industry on BBC Two, and a surprisingly arresting turn on BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are? that took in complex issues of abandonment, Ghanaian culture and the effects of British colonialism. In all of these shows, Yates’s strength comes from a mix of non-judgemental curiosity, and a relatable impulse to intervene with his own opinion when his subjects veer into extremes: whether it’s an eyebrow raised to camera or a straight confrontation of someone’s beliefs. Comparisons with Louis Theroux abound, but Yates doesn’t go for a disguising non-threatening persona, quirky asides or spend much time lingering in the background. There is a calm directness to his style that means his shows often delve immediately into the heart of their subject matter. If this results in a comparative lack of elasticity and colour, Yates’s own relatable personality makes up for it. He becomes a kind of everyman – every despairing headshake or expression of awe matches the audience’s reaction to what’s on screen. This can lead to what some would call problematic moments: Yates could be accused of, for example, being too lenient on some areas of Men’s Rights Activisim. Yates’s latest round of BBC Three documentaries, under the umbrella The Insider , are more immersive than his previous work. In Reggie Yates in the Mexican Drug War , he takes a more traditionally investigative approach, with surprisingly nuanced results, while In Reggie Yates in a Texan Jail , Yates lives like a prisoner for a week, marvelling at the terrible conditions, the trivial crimes that place people there, and the oppressive atmosphere. Again, their accessibility can leave them vulnerable to criticism. His experiences are foregrounded, which risks confining the genuine, lived experiences of real prisoners to the background – at times, the programme risks becoming something akin to Rich, Famous and in the Slums. Yates rescues the show from its own format by sincerely socialising with seemingly every prisoner he meets. But not being up to speed with all the most progressive stances of the minute ends up being crucial to his appeal – as Cohen notes, his lack of expertise can be a blessing in creating honest, accessible programming. It is this engaging mix that has and will continue to shape his success – at BBC Three and beyond. She could have been pre-tooled for the age. An androgynous, pansexual French singer with the dance moves of Michael Jackson and the monochrome aesthetic of Janelle Monáe. Big pop tunes in a musical gear as laid-back as Lorde’s, with cavernous dubstep echoes of Jamie xx. Then there’s the post-Florence name (woman plus invisible entity) and a complex alter ego descended from Lady Gaga’s Fame Monster and Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce (her name is Héloïse Letissier; “Christine” is the person she becomes onstage). Her debut album, Chaleur humaine (“Human Warmth”), is full of anthems for the LGBTQIA community (“She draws her own crotch by herself, but she’ll lose because it’s a fake. .. I’m a man now” – a line from her song “iT”). There’s even a backstory that will speak to anyone who has been glued to RuPaul’s Drag Race. In fact, the only way Letissier jars with the current climate is that her effortlessly bilingual music points to the kind of Europe that most Britons don’t seem to want after all. We spoke on the day of the EU referendum, before she went to Glastonbury. “I’m part of the Europe you’ll probably be leaving,” she said, laughing, not thinking that it would happen. She affected a wave from an imaginary stage. “Farewell! Let’s stay friends. I feel like we all know better than this,” she said. “This is just a symptom of something that is happening in many different countries, the symptom of sheltering because there is trouble. Let’s go back to basics. Let’s go back to ‘us’, whatever us is supposed to be. We hope you won’t leave us. We fight, but we can’t really leave each other like that.” Christine and the Queens went down a storm at the most miserable Glastonbury on record. She prowled, scowled and thrust her way through subtle, masculine psychodramas with her four male dancers; she slid and tiptoed through her icy signature song, “Tilted”. The mainstream has always had a tremendous appetite for outsiders: a performance on The Graham Norton Show last month put her at the top of the iTunes chart overnight. This was perfect pop, with a kink in it. “We are inside but outside,” she told me. “I have been saying this a lot, that I am a Trojan Horse. I am fascinated by pop machines but still rooted in being an outsider, and that’s what fuels my writing. I am obsessed with the idea of making it but never forgetting where I come from.” The girl onstage is different from the one I meet in a private room at a café in central London, where the walls have been lined with giant pictures of a donkey in a straw hat, its gums pulled back in various states of gurning. “What do you think of my new press photographs?” she says. Before she went to Glastonbury, Letissier played agony aunt for the Guardian , answering the letters of festival-goers in an exercise that belonged more to the era of Smash Hits. One punter wrote, “I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs and I don’t enjoy live music, but I’ve decided to go to my first festival this year. How can I make sure I have fun?” She replied, “Be on stage! You definitely have what it takes to be a pop star.” “The routine of a pop star is avoiding everything that is bad for your health,” she deadpans today. “Staying in shape, travelling all the time and losing all your friends. You try to keep your friends but they just don’t get what you are and what you do. They say, ‘She’s changed, she’s pretentious now.’ And you’re thinking, ‘No, I haven’t – I’m sitting on the plane, crying!’” She talks with cheerful intensity and with no attempt to disguise the single- minded, solitary nature that propels people towards a life on the stage. Things have not changed for her hugely since she found fame – in France, two years ago, then across Europe and the US – because she was “weirdly disciplined, focused and reclusive” to begin with. She is known to baulk when fans ask to take selfies with her. “People bump into me in the street and I’m shy and I start to sweat on my top lip,” she says. “I am always afraid of being a disappointment to people offstage. But I can’t be Madonna all the time, so I embrace the awkward. It’s like Spider-Man and Peter Parker. Peter Parker is the one you meet in the street.” Fans have tried to penetrate her private life on Twitter, noting that both Letissier and the comedian Océane Rose Marie had tweeted a picture of what looks like the same cat on the same rug in the same Paris apartment. ( Chaleur humaine is dedicated to “Océane, my beautiful wife”). But the pressures of fame have also been beneficial: she has lost her fear of flying. “I was always obsessed with being ill and dying,” she says, cheerily. “It’s been a part of my life forever, avoiding death. I’m a hypochondriac. I don’t have flu, I have imminent death.” It was a great story. Depressed theatre student, nursing a broken heart, comes to London alone for three weeks, stumbles into Madame JoJo’s, the now-defunct burlesque club on Brewer Street in Soho, and is taken under the wing of three drag queens, who tell her to harness her negative feelings and do something creative with her life. “I think sometimes that queer people have a radar for people who don’t feel well,” she says today. “I was actually so depressed that I was searching for something to happen to me. I was sending out signals, open to things – but dark open.” The drag queens took her back to a house in Wood Green, north London, where they fed her – “literally, with ideas and food. It was like a maternal love. But a tough one. They said, ‘Come on, stop crying, eat your f***ing food and do something!’ They were really realistic. I had wanted to work in the theatre and they said, ‘If you don’t like to work with people, you’re not going to be a stage director, girl, forget about it!’ They said, ‘Can you sing? Louder!’ They taught me how to contort my face, use less make- up and better make-up. They taught me how to be a woman.” The strange meeting has passed into pop legend. In the mind’s eye, three nameless six-foot divas wave handkerchiefs as their grateful protégée boards the Eurostar home. But what really happened? One of the drag stars was the Fabulous Russella, whose act includes extravagantly making pancakes onstage (while being fabulous) and who studied with Paloma Faith. I called him at home in Toronto to get his memories of the night. “I was surprised to hear I made an impression on Héloïse,” he says, “because I rarely stop to think about how other people view drag. With all respect, it was likely I was just having another night of dressing up and having fun. I think she was feeling a bit lost at the time we met. .. A sequin dress and a ‘couldn’t give a f***’ attitude is enough to impress anyone feeling down on their luck.” Russella is intrigued when I tell him that Letissier feels that he taught her how to be a woman. “I think that’s quite interesting, because I don’t consider dresses or heels as women’s clothing,” he says. “I think what we may have inspired Héloïse to do was to express herself however she wanted to. Being a drag queen is the extreme end of unacceptable behaviour. It’s essentially punk rock. Perhaps my expression of femininity gave her some freedom to experiment with her masculinity, or my extreme example of femininity gave her a scale where she could place her own expression of womanhood. She might’ve realised that heels and hair did not a woman make.” They have not remained in regular contact. “This is going to sound a bit heartless,” Letissier tells me, “but I’ve never tried to see them again. I recorded the album in London, so I definitely could have done. What happened was really short and dramatic – I felt like a character in a novel. It was really intense. I don’t think they were expecting me to actually make something of myself! It would be f***ing weird to see them now. It would be really awkward.” Letissier is living proof that a liberal upbringing and arty, inclusive parents – both are teachers in her home town of Nantes – do not guarantee smooth sailing for a child. “My parents are very curious, tolerant people,” she says, “and they know me better than I know myself. I never got to do my coming out, for instance. My father bought me books by Judith Butler [the author of Gender Trouble ] when I was a teenager. My mum understood before I did that I was in love with a girl, because I was blushing so hard when I was talking about her. She said, ‘You’re blushing!’ I was 17. I wonder why I have issues with self-love, because I grew up in an environment where it was OK to be myself. But you can internalise society a lot more than you know.” Last year, Letissier complained when the French edition of Elle photoshopped her picture on its cover: she said it felt violent to have her imperfections erased. Responding to the endless interest in her suits, she has suggested that if she had Miley Cyrus’s body, she would dress like Miley Cyrus. “I don’t relate to the idea of feminism being something that tries to control how women present themselves,” she says. “For me, feminism and humanism are all about ways of owning your body and finding a way to exist without being oppressed, so if you want to be sexual and lusting, you can be. When I first released the album in France, people said, ‘Oh, you’re a good feminist! You have suits on! You’re not obscene!’ And I thought, ‘Give me some time to have a sexual life and then I will be obscene.’ There are no ‘good’ ways to be a woman.” In the ten years since she was holed up in her bedroom reading Judith Butler, talk of gender fluidity has come out of its niche. “If I was growing up now, I would be more extreme with the gender-bending,” she says. “It took me some time to dare to question my femininity and maybe that would have happened sooner. This is the first step, but I’m just a bit afraid that it’s going to be a trend. It’s ‘trendy’ to see transgender people on the cover of a fashion magazine, but what about real transgender people? “Sometimes, I feel like I’m trendy. When I released the album in France two years ago, people advised me not to talk about being pansexual because it wasn’t ‘good for the sales’. Now, it’s all, ‘Shall we talk more about that?’ But it’s definitely better to have a voice. I would have loved that as a teenager.” Would she have dressed as a boy at school? “That would have been awesome,” she says. “My love life would have been way better. When you don’t feel comfortable with who you are, you are less able to love someone else. Maybe I would have been a killer in high school. And maybe I wouldn’t be onstage now, because I wouldn’t need anything. I would just live my life.” And that’s a tough one. Dissonance and dejection produce great music, from the best break-up albums to those acts who explore the collision between the public and private self. Prince and Madonna never let the mask slip. But Michael Jackson was different, Letissier says – the “sweet and shy person” was always terribly visible the moment the song was over. In our oversharing times, there is room for more of that. What you see onstage is not what you get behind closed doors, or on the street taking a selfie, for that matter. Christine and the Queens play at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk on 15 July

I fell asleep on a train – when I woke up, Paul McCartney was there "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on gender fluidity and drag newstatesman.com "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on gender fluidity and drag Does Reggie Yates have the weirdest career in television? newstatesman.com

The Formation World Tour reveals Beyoncé’s strength as a storyteller through songs old and new "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on gender fluidity and drag newstatesman.com

Chocolate flakes and paperweights: the mesmerizing voice of Roald Dahl "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on gender fluidity and drag newstatesman.com Life and storytelling: remembering Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian film director (1940-2016) "My love life would have been way better": Christine and the Queens on gender fluidity and drag newstatesman.com 2016-07-11 02:18 George Eaton www.newstatesman.com

5 Phoenix police use tear gas on Black Lives Matter rally (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) — RT America (0.02/2) The Black Lives Matter march kicked off outside Phoenix City Hall at 8 pm. An estimated 1,000 participants chanted: “Black lives matter” and “Hands up, don't shoot” as they marched. Police officers escorting the march weren’t dressed in riot gear. Rev. Jarrett Maupin, one of the civil rights leaders that helped stage the march, acknowledged the route of the march was changed to shut down Interstate 10. As a result, police declared the demonstration an “unlawful assembly” by 11 pm. Law enforcement officers in riot gear made a line in the way of the demonstration and put pepper spray to use when protesters approached, preventing demonstrators from taking over a freeway. The time had come to disperse the crowd, Phoenix Police Chief Joe Yahner said, declaring the protest “successful” and saying the demonstrators' message had been heard, ABC News reported. No arrests had been made as of 10:45 pm local time Friday, Yahner said. Damon Cecil, Arizona State Troopers’ public information officer, alleged protesters threw rocks at police and that an activist had been detained after an altercation with police. WATCH MORE:

Over 100 arrests made nationwide in Black Lives Matter protests — RT America rt.com

‘Black Lives Matter’ England shows support for US victims of police brutality — RT UK rt.com 2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

6 US police shootings: Protests spread with dozens of arrests (0.01/2) Protests continue to spread across US cities against the killing of black men by police, following recent deaths in Minnesota and Louisiana. Roads were blocked and missiles thrown in Minnesota, while armed New Black Panther Party members confronted police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dozens of arrests have been made but the rallies were mostly peaceful. The situation is also tense in Dallas, where five officers were killed by a black man during a protest rally. Security levels were raised at the police HQ after anonymous threats were received but an all clear was given after a search of a car park for a "suspicious person". The protests against police killings were sparked by the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana. In St Paul, Minnesota, overnight, fireworks, bottles and rocks were thrown at police as the demonstration closed a main interstate highway, causing gridlock. This is the fifth night of protests in Baton Rouge where there is not just anger, there is rage. Each night the gathering has intensified and police have responded with officers in riot gear. The two sides faced each other, often blocking the main highway outside police headquarters. Occasionally the force would line up and rush into the crowd to make several arrests. Earlier, hundreds marched to the Louisiana State Capitol and stood on the steps with clenched fists raised up high - a salute to black power. Read more from Baton Rouge and St Paul: US police protests near boiling point Police said some officers had been hurt by fireworks and a number of arrests made. Demonstrators said police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. In Baton Rouge, several hundred protesters gathered outside the police department shouting "No justice! No peace! " and also at the convenience store where Alton Sterling was shot. There was also tension as armed members of the New Black Panther Party stood face to face with officers in riot gear. Louisiana law allows weapons to be carried openly. Dozens of people were reported to have been arrested and at least two firearms confiscated. Among those held was DeRay Mckesson, who has become a national voice for the Black Lives Matter movement, and two journalists. Baton Rouge protester Marie Flowers told Associated Press: "Black boys are being killed and this is just the culmination of what has been going on for decades. " Several hundred protesters blocked roads and bridges in San Francisco and Fresno in California, hundreds more protested peacefully in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami in Florida. In New York, at least 20 people were arrested as hundreds of protesters marched through Manhattan. Protester Lorena Ambrosio told Reuters: "I'm feeling very haunted, very sad and just angry that black bodies just keep piling and piling up. " A "Weekend of Rage" called in Philadelphia saw a six-hour march by a multi-racial crowd. One protester told an officer: "Without the uniform and badge, you are just like us," AP reported. Other protests took place in Nashville, Indianapolis and Washington DC. Founded: 1989, Dallas. Current chairman is Hashim Nzinga Membership: Unknown. Has claimed a few thousand although independent estimates suggest lower. Nevertheless, its members are often very active in protests Manifesto: Has a 10-point platform that includes advocating the power to practise self-determination for a "black nation", the release of all black people in prison, an end to police brutality against black people, and a call for all black people to form a united front, arming themselves for self- defence What others say: Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center call the NBPP racist and anti-Semitic, defining it as a hate group Relation to original Black Panther Party: None. The Black Panthers, founded in 1966, were a militant, socialist organisation advocating black nationalism but also had community programmes. They largely disbanded in the mid-1970s. Co-founder Bobby Seale has called the NBPP's rhetoric "xenophobic" and "absurd" The protests have continued despite an effort by President Barack Obama to soothe the tension. On a trip to Europe, he said: "First of all, as painful as this week has been, I firmly believe that America is not as divided as some have suggested . "When we start suggesting that somehow there's this enormous polarisation, and we're back to the situation in the 60s, that's just not true. You're not seeing riots, and you're not seeing police going after people who are protesting peacefully. " On Thursday, five white police officers were shot dead by a black man, Micah Johnson, during a protest rally against the police killings. Seven other officers and two civilians were injured. Johnson, who was himself killed during the assault, supported black militant groups who encouraged violence against police. Dallas police chief David Brown said Johnson had told a negotiator that he had wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers, because he was angry about the recent shootings of black men by police. Johnson, 25, who officials say acted alone, was killed by remotely detonated explosives that were sent into a car park where he had taken refuge after the shootings.

Police shootings: Louisiana and Minnesota protests near boiling point bbc.co.uk 2016-07-11 03:23 www.bbc.co.uk

7 Of the People Mayor Shirley Franklin started a program in the city of Atlanta in which every single student who graduated from a public school, she’d find a way to pay for their first year of college. And, after hearing my story, she took an interest in me. She gave me a job in her office and she helped me get into college. Summer came, and I didn’t go to work because I didn’t have a suit. I got a call saying, “You need to get to work,” and she had someone take me suit shopping. They took me and bought me like five different suits and said, “This is how you invest in your kids.” I’m the first person in my family to graduate from college. That is the kind of local politics I grew to love in Atlanta. National politics is more messy. But I have hope that is going to change. Photograph by Ryan Stone for The New York Times

2016-07-11 06:00 The New www.nytimes.com

8 ‘Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless’ The service‚ held at St Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg‚ presided over by his close friend‚ Reverend Barney Pityana‚ saw a joyful Archbishop Tutu moving and singing during songs of worship and praise. “I can barely put it better‚ I think‚ than the late President Nelson Mandela did when he paid tribute to Archbishop Desmond - sometimes strident‚ he said‚ often tender‚ never afraid and seldom without humour. “Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless‚” Pityana said during the service. Archbishop Tutu‚ who served as Dean of St Mary’s prior to being appointed Bishop of Lesotho 40 years ago‚ said he was touched by the service and homily and thanked all who contributed to its success. Jokingly‚ he told members of the choir that if they didn’t come to his funeral‚ he would get up from the coffin and ask “where are you?” “I was ordained deacon here (St Mary’s Cathedral)‚ I was made a priest here‚ and then I became Dean here‚ and I was consecrated here‚ and had my first consecration as Archbishop here‚” he said. “Leah and I are just incredibly overwhelmed and all we can do is say thank you‚” he added as he turned in a circle addressing everyone in attendance. “Thank you so much to our former presidents. I didn’t expect any of this and it’s a deeply touching thing that you should be here present. Thank you‚ thank you‚ thank you‚” Tutu said. Former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe were also present. Earlier this month‚ on July 2‚ the Archbishop and his wife Leah celebrated 61 years of marriage.

2016-07-11 06:00 Deneesha Pillay www.timeslive.co.za

9 Couldn’t find spaceman, illegally parked UFO gets towed (VIDEO) — RT Viral The mysterious video that appeared online this week is sure to frustrate one alien out there who laughed at first before realizing that was his craft being towed. “He is in a hurry, and having a UFO on your trailer and gov officials waiting for it...it's no wonder why he is moving so fast,” Latest UFO Stories speculate on the video. Alternatively they suggest that a helpful farmer, who found the craft on his land, is taking it to an Air Force Base for the government to be nice and friendly to its occupants. We prefer to think that some alien tourists not knowing our earthbound laws parked illegally. Hopefully no one got hurt. An earlier video, claimed to be from near the famous Area 51 in Nevada, shows a similar looking object on the back of a truck. This time the supposed UFO is covered, maybe to protect a new coat of wax. Either aliens are notoriously poor at parking or they’re fantastic at selling second hand vehicles to the US government.

2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

10 Delta flight lands at Air Force base by mistake — RT America On Thursday evening, Delta Flight 2845 arriving from Minneapolis to South Dakota’s Rapid City Regional Airport landed on the runway of Ellsworth Air Force Base situated some 10 kilometers from the original destination. The landing strips of the civilian airport and the Air Force base are not only located in close proximity, but are also aligned in almost the same direction, so the pilots made a wrong visual identification of their destination. After the incident, Delta’s Airbus A320 spent a few hours at Ellsworth before taking off and heading to the nearby airport of Rapid City. The airline “offered a gesture of apology for the inconvenience” to the affected customers. “The crew has been taken off-duty while an investigation commences by the National Transportation Safety Board,” CNN cites the airline as saying in a statement. “Delta will fully cooperate with that investigation and has already begun an internal review of its own.” CNN recalled a similar incident with a Southwest Airlines jet two years ago, which mistakenly landed at Taney County’s local airport that doesn’t even have a control tower instead of going to Missouri’s Branson municipal airport. Because Taney County’s runway is half as long, the pilots had to brake very hard to prevent the aircraft from overshooting. Nobody onboard was hurt.

2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

11 Brave Banyana lose 1-0 to USA in Chicago South Africa were hoping to stun reigning world champions United States of America (USA) in their maiden meeting in the city of Chicago in Illinois. The two sides were using this encounter as part of their preparations for the Rio 2016 Olympics. They were both trying to settle down in the first ten minutes of the game. USA defender Julie Johnstone missed an inviting header in the 16th minute as the Stars and Stripes looked to break the deadlock. The home side were dominating possession and four minutes later‚ SA defender Janine van Wyk made a great defensive block to deny the USA. On the half-hour mark Mallory Pugh found some space just outside the Banyana Banyana box and she unleashed a good shot which narrowly missed the target. However‚ the Stars and Stripes did take the lead five minutes later when Pugh's cross from the left was headed home by Crystal Dunn to make it 1-0 to the USA. Banyana managed to contain the hosts. The visitors made their second change at the beginning of the second-half introducing Nompumelelo Nyandeni for Robyn Moodaly. Injured Octovia Nongwanya had been replaced by her Banyana teammate Sanah Mollo in the 23rd minute as SA head coach Vera Pauw was forced into a change. The USA continued their dominance in the second-half and SA defender Nothando Vilakazi made a world class clearance in the 48th minute to deny the hosts. In the 68th minute‚ Jill Ellis‚ the Stars and Stripes head coach‚ decided to introduce defender Ali Krieger for striker Alex Morgan . Nevertheless‚ the USA held on to their slender lead in the dying minutes and they emerged 1-0 winners on the day.

2016-07-11 06:00 TMG Digital www.timeslive.co.za

12 NATO ‘speaks of defense, prepares offensive’, says Gorbachev — RT News “The rhetoric in Warsaw screams of an intention to practically declare war on Russia. They only talk about defense, but in fact they are preparing an offensive,” the former Soviet leader told Interfax. Gorbachev, who played a key part in deescalating tensions between the Soviet Union and the West in the 1980s and eventually withdrew soviet troops from eastern Europe, was commenting on the two-day NATO summit in the Polish capital. Ironically, the city once lent its name to NATO’s communist counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, but has now seen leaders of the US-led alliance negotiating increased pressure on Russia. In its final communique NATO accused Russia of “provocative military activities in the periphery of NATO territory” and “willingness to attain political goals by the threat and use of force”. The alliance said Moscow’s actions “are a source of regional instability, fundamentally challenge the alliance, have damaged Euro-Atlantic security, and threaten our long- standing goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.” The key result of the Warsaw summit was the long-promised deployment of additional NATO troops at Russia’s border, namely in host nation Poland and the Baltic States. NATO claims that the deployment is necessary to prevent a possible attack from Russia and reassure the eastern European nations that other members are committed to defend them. The anticipated decision and the entire event is perceived by many people as anti-Russian, Brian Becker from the anti-war 'Answer Coalition' told RT. “It is a big show: you have 2,500 officials; you have 2,000 media, and you have the 28 members of NATO plus 26 partnering countries […] almost a quarter of the countries in the world under a US-led military alliance threatening Russia,” he said. “It is perceived as such in Russia, and it should be perceived as such.” Russia believes that NATO’s new troop deployments as well as an increased number of military trainings near Russia’s territory, the creation of anti-ballistic missile sites in Europe and other moves are a threat to Russia’s national security. Its response was to increase its own troops in the west, saying it’s necessary to counter NATO’s new capabilities. The alliance, Moscow says, plays the card of perceived Russian aggression to justify its overdue existence and push European nations into increasing defense spending. Improving budget discipline was praised by the alliance at the summit, even though the majority of members are still below NATO’s 2 percent GDP benchmark for military spending. Critics of NATO like Gorbachev say it is taking risks by alienating Russia to secure its own goals. “The world should realize that it can’t pretend that nothing concerning is happening. Russia cannot but keep its defense line, and this horrifying process must be stopped,” he said. “World peoples should stop this slide towards war so that nobody dared gamble with escalating the global tension and push the world to a new shooting war.” The concern seems to be shared by some NATO members, which amid the summit reiterated on numerous occasions that the alliance is not seeking confrontation with Russia. “We must ask if the world would be a better place when both sides conduct military exercises on the borders and arm themselves,” German Vice- Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Passauer Neue Presse on Thursday. French President Francois Hollande said that the defensive block “has no role at all to be saying what Europe's relations with Russia should be,” adding that France doesn’t see Russia as a threat. NATO’s official stance on Russia is that it wants to deter it while keeping channels open “when Russia’s actions make that possible”. But it also condemned Russia’s military presence in Syria and its support of the Syrian government, even though in Syria, Russia and NATO members have a rare moment of limited cooperation in fighting against terrorist groups. Practically all ties with Russia were suspended by NATO after the Ukrainian political crisis escalated tension between the two. The NATO-Russia Council, a body that is supposed to tackle the differences, was reconvened after a two-year break and is to hold a meeting next week in Brussels. Other decisions taken by NATO members at the Warsaw summit included the continued training of Iraqi troops, which will be moved from Jordan to Iraq proper, closer cooperation with the European Union on issues like opposing Russia and tackling the refugee crisis and deploying AWACS aircraft to monitor airspace over Syria and Iraq, “raising situational awareness” for the anti-IS operation led by the US.

2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

13 'Kanye is the American AKA'- 4 Supa Mega quotes from AKA’s Sway interview AKA is known for not holding his tongue and has sometimes even been accused of arrogance but, like an old Johannesburg gold mine, his Sway interview was filled with treasures. Here are four mega treasures: “He sat right next to me” The feud between AKA and Cassper is one of the most intense rivalries seen in SA music, but AKA told Sway that the pair are now cool. He said that the rivals got to a point where they "even forgot what it was really about. " "We were too similar. I think maybe there wasn't enough space in town for the both of us," he added. In fact, the pair even had an awkward run-in recently, when they were seated together on a plane. "When we were boarding, I'm like, to my DJ, 'trust me, he's gonna sit next to me. Watch this' and sure as f*ck he sat right next to me," AKA recounted. But instead of ignoring each other, the pair apparently decided to call a truce and leave the beef behind. But don't get too excited. AKA says they are still some way from recording together. "I don't want to force it. It needs to be organic... organic, and we need to get a whole lot of bank from it," he said. AKA is known for speaking his mind on Twitter, something that often gets creates controversy. He told Sway that he often gets into arguments with people on Twitter but he loves the platform. "I've gone off on a lot of people. That's my vibe. I'm an expressive person. I don't have a problem letting people know how I feel. I don't shrink into myself. I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I'm not a rude person. I'm just expressive and sometimes, man, I feel like Twitter was designed for me," he added. "If people were biting my style on a record, hats off to them because that's like saying you can play ball like Michael Jordan" While musicians copying each other's style (referred to as biting) may be quite common in America, AKA noted that it isn't as rampant in South Africa. And while some young artists might try, he says that they would have to be really special to replicate some of his magic. "Nobody is really biting my style. If people were biting my style on a record, hats off to them, because that's like saying you can play ball like Michael Jordan," he said. After Cassper Nyovest proclaimed himself "the Kanye West of South Africa" on Sway last month, many fans wondered if AKA would run with a similar comparison. And while the topic wasn't really brought up, AKA couldn't help but finish the interview with perhaps his best line yet: "I think Kanye is the American AKA. " In case you missed it, watch the full interview below:

2016-07-11 06:00 Kyle Zeeman www.timeslive.co.za

14 Tbo Touch spills beans on why he left SABC The drive-time presenter left more than a million listeners wondering what had sparked his departure after he resigned two weeks ago. The reason had nothing to do with rumours that Idols South Africa judge and choreographer Somizi Mhlongo had been foisted on him and his Touchdown show. Molefe said he had quit over the SABC’s refusal to deny reports that he had been taken off air for a week for refusing to read a Hyundai advert, which subsequently lost SABC R15-million in advertising. He admitted that he had refused to read the advert, but said his suspension was due to a physical confrontation with one of the show’s producers in May. Molefe said he resigned because the SABC failed to dismiss the misinformation about his suspension. He said he “couldn’t work at the SABC” if it did not correct reports about his conduct. “It was about principle,” he said. “If I did not believe in myself I would not have resigned as the host of the No1 radio show nationwide, generating the most revenue and listenership. My lowest numbers averaged over 1.1 million listeners.” Despite the falling out, Molefe said he had no problem with chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng. “He introduced a lot of benefits for freelancers and had the courage to extend our contracts from 12 months to three years.” This week, SABC contributing editor and specialist anchor Vuyo Mvoko described working at the SABC under Motsoeneng as “hell”. Mvoko told The Star his show had been canned after he interviewed public protector Thuli Madonsela and shortly before a scheduled piece on state capture. On Thursday, in an article for Business Day, former SABC senior political correspondent Crystal Orderson wrote that Motsoeneng and his followers were “destroying the groundwork people like Govan Reddy, Zwelakhe Sisulu and others put into transforming the SABC from an apartheid voice to a broadcaster that informs, educates and entertains the nation”.

2016-07-11 06:00 GABI MBELE www.timeslive.co.za

15 Watch: Meet the man who Zuma’s guards can’t turn away Collen has attended almost every African National Congress (ANC) election manifesto launch in the country. His love for the ANC and Zuma has earned him benefits that very few citizens enjoy. He is always able to push through presidential protection guards and get his hug from the president. “I have told them before that this is my friend‚ they should allow him through‚” Zuma once remarked. The president occasionally gives Collen a R100 note to note his appreciation and they have a cordial relationship when they meet‚ greeting each other warmly. The president gives him a beaming smile‚ a handshake and a hug. Collen‚ 32‚ of Orange Farm‚ lives with his two brothers Gontse‚ 31‚ and Taelo‚ 43‚ on Kopano Street. ANC councillor Simon Motha introduced TMG Digital to his brothers. It was about 10am‚ and Collen was not around‚ but his brothers welcomed us into their home. They advised that he was likely to be at Orange Farm Mall‚ so we set off to look for him. As we walked through the mall‚ it was apparent that every cashier‚ security guard and other centre employees know him well. “We love him. Everybody loves him. He is a lovely kid‚” said one of the cashiers at KFC. His favourite place at the mall is the Thetha FM studios. “We put him on air. Everybody in Orange Farm adores him. He normally greets the listeners and says what is on his mind. He can say anything. It's Collen. He is allowed to do so‚” said administrators at the radio station. He is so famous that taxi drivers allow him free rides when he wants to go to Soweto‚ Johannesburg‚ and Lenasia from Orange Farm‚ which is in the south‚ 45km from the Joburg city centre. He also does not buy a ticket to get onto the train. The reason: “Everybody loves him”. Finally we meet Collen at the mall. He has a wide smile and projects positive energy. “Are we going to meet President Zuma? Why‚ therefore‚ are you looking for me?” he asked with a firm handshake. Taelo informed him that journalists are here to talk to him. He then asked if he was going to be on TV. His brothers only reply: “You are going to be famous”. He then kept quiet but walked faster than all of us as we head back to the car. Despite being such a well-known persona in his home town‚ Collen lives a life of destitution. The four-roomed house he shares with his brothers appears to be well- maintained - until you get inside. The kitchen cupboards are worn out‚ allowing you to see the emptiness inside. The best item is the microwave. There is no fridge. The sitting room is in equally poor condition. An old cupboard stands where the television set should be and the sofas show the years. Motha left us at the house with James Mofokeng to help with Setswana translation. Collen’s two brothers said they love him so much and have a sense of pride in his popularity. “I don’t know why but people love Collen. Some people here in Orange Farm have a framed picture of him on their walls. We have allowed him to be himself‚” Taelo explained as he sat us down. Collen does speak English but converses more freely in Setswana. We gave him a chance to say something to his favourite person‚ Zuma‚ on camera.: "It’s me‚ Kwenza‚ you know me‚ I am your friend. I am pleading with you‚ President Zuma‚ to please fix my home and build me a double-storey house so that I be can like everyone else. I am with my young brothers‚ I want a TV and to make this house a double-storey so that it can be like other houses. I want you to buy me building bricks and fix here so that when you come here to Orange Farm‚ they will know that you are my friend. Please fix my room and my bathroom; I don’t even have a bathroom. You know me. I am your friend and a number one ANC member. Please come here and build me a double-storey. " After the video‚ Taelo explained the family’s story. Their parents moved from Soweto to Orange Farm in the late 1980s. Their mother died in 2004 and their father in 2006. This left the brothers with the responsibility of caring for Collen. Their two sisters are both living with their husbands. The closest one is in Soweto. Collen visits her quite often. Taelo’s tone of voice changed when he spoke about the struggle for food in the house. “We do eat‚” he said. Gontse interjected‚ as if he wanted the truth to come out. “It is a hustle for us to get food. We are really struggling. Nobody is working and we don’t have anything to eat tonight‚” Gontse said. All this time‚ Collen was strangely silent. Then I asked the brothers‚ what is the one thing that I could buy for them at the mall. “Fish oil‚” Taelo said‚ and Collen got really upset. “No. No fish oil. We need a television set. Just a television set. Let us go now and buy it‚” Collen said in a high tone. His brother calmed him down and started to explain. The three brothers have not had a television set for years. One of the neighbours‚ who is a technician‚ has offered to sell them the set for just R150‚ but no one has that kind of money here. In the house there isn’t even a radio and none of the guys have an ID. They just enjoy basic electricity and water. Taelo travels to Malvern‚ in eastern Joburg‚ to work as a car guard but makes too little to meet every need in the house. I offered to buy them a meal at the mall and Collen proposed his favourite restaurant: KFC. As we left the house‚ the man who is selling the television set showed up. He was going about his own business but Collen ran to him and grabbed him by the arm‚ refusing to let him go. “This is him. He has the TV. Give him the money now. Let’s go get the TV.” The brothers calmed him down again. In the midst of the drama‚ Councillor Motha passed by in his ML Mercedes- Benz SUV. He reduced his speed‚ greeted us and drove off. Back at the mall‚ Collen ordered three pieces of chicken‚ chips and a coke. He then asked us to leave the restaurant to get the fish oil. We headed to the supermarket and when we came back‚ he was gone. Taelo decided to go look for him while we had lunch with Gontse. He opened up about the life at home. “It is not easy taking care of my brother but I love him. He is just an exciting guy. He leaves in the morning at 7am. I make sure that he baths and eats before he leaves. He leaves and goes to the mall‚ talking to people and he has friends everywhere. He also spends a lot of time at Thetha FM. They love him at the studio and even put him live on air to say whatever comes to his mind.” When their mother was alive‚ she made sure that Collen took his psychiatric medication and he had a close relationship with her. “My mother loved him more than anything in the world and Collen knew it. When she passed on‚ he struggled to live without her. He then refused to take his medication. But I can’t talk much about that part of our life‚” Gontse said‚ holding back the tears in his eyes. Collen is also a big friend of Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau and has met former president Thabo Mbeki too. But there are other problems on Collen’s doorstep. At 1pm‚ wheelie bins were still lined up on the streets and refuse had not been collected. Some portions of the area have not had water for more than a week. Most of the people living in Orange Farm work elsewhere‚ as there are little to no local job opportunities. Those who cannot find employment like Gontse and Taelo are left on the streets. “Things are getting bad now. We are seeing more boys in our street smoking nyaope. They don’t have jobs so they steal anything they can get‚” Gontse said. Nineteen percent of households have no income at all in Orange Farm‚ according to Statistics SA. The data shows the area has a total population of 76 767 and a dependency ratio of nearly 50%. Residents do have basic services like electricity‚ which have been rolled out by government‚ but poor education levels affect economic prospects. Collen and his brothers are amongst many in the City of Johannesburg who are hoping that things will improve for them after the August 3 local government elections. “We hope that somebody will see our story and help us with something. We are really battling‚” Taelo said as he waved goodbye.

2016-07-11 06:00 Penwell Dlamini www.timeslive.co.za

16 Russian helicopter pilot downed in Syria saved numerous lives over 25-yr service — RT News Ryafagat Khabibulin (b. 1965) graduated from Air Force school in 1988 and was stationed in Poland with the 55th combat helicopter regiment, where he trained to replace helicopter pilots taking part in the Afghanistan campaign. In February 1989, all Soviet troops were withdrawn from the country and Khabibulin continued to train with senior officers, as some 85 percent of the pilots in his unit had served missions in Afghanistan. They taught the younger pilots the tactics and tricks of warfare in the mountains. In 1992, Khabibulin’s helicopter squadron was redeployed back to Russia, in the southern Krasnodar region. In autumn 1992, pilots of the 55th squadron flew missions to curb the conflict in the North Caucasus between the Ingush and the Ossetians. The squadron then took part in putting an end to the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia. In 1993-1994, Ryafagat Khabibulin spent the whole148 days of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict on missions. During the 1994 campaign in Chechnya, Khabibulin's helicopter came under fire from militants. Ninety-seven bullet holes were later found in the aircraft's fuselage. Everybody onboard was killed except the pilot, who suffered a fragmentation wound to the face and had his right thigh shot through. Close to blacking out, in a cabin full of smoke and spilled fuel, Khabibulin managed to secure the aircraft. He spent the next eight months in hospital. Despite serious injuries, Khabibulin stepped back into the ranks and continued service in Chechnya until 1996. From Chechnya, Khabibulin returned to Abkhazia. He monitored the truce there, only to return to Chechnya in 1999, when Chechen militants led by Shamil Basaev attacked nearby Dagestan, thus beginning the second Chechen campaign. By that time he was one of the most experienced military helicopter pilots in Russia. After the active phase of the operations was over, Lieutenant- Colonel Ryafagat Khabibulin was regularly deployed to Chechnya where his squadron operated from the Khankala airfield. When Georgia attacked South Ossetia in August 2008, Khabibulin went on sorties in the Ossetian Mountains. During one, his helicopter evacuated 12 wounded soldiers from the battlefield. In his numerous rescue missions, many of them in extreme weather conditions or under fire, Khabibulin saved the lives of at least 40 wounded soldiers. He received numerous commendations for his skill. His last assignment came this spring, when he was deployed to Syria as pilot-instructor. Lieutenant-Colonel Ryafagat Khabibulin and weapons system operator Evgeny Dolgin died in combat in the Syrian province of Homs on July 8, when their Mi-25, after having fired on a group of advancing Islamic State militants, was hit with a missile in their tail and crashed to the ground. Later, the Defense Ministry announced: "The skillful actions of the helicopter pilots pushed back the terrorist attack and thwarted their effort to pierce through the Syrian Army defenses" in the area. Ryafagat Khabibulin and Evgeny Dolgin are now to be posthumously decorated with top state awards. WATCH MORE: ‘Pilots fly away and don’t come back’ – son of Russian helicopter pilot killed in Syria Inspired by his father’s bravery, the son of a Russian helicopter pilot killed in Syria has followed in his footsteps – he is also a pilot. In an interview with Russian channel Life News, he said he will do everything in his power to be like his father and “ not let him down. ” “It's very hard. This is a pilot’s life – as they say, pilots fly away and do not come back. [My father] is a great man, a great pilot. An honored officer of our country. I will keep trying to be like him as much as I can. We will not let him down,” Ryafagat Khabibulin’s son, Ruslan, told the tabloid channel. Ruslan says his father had been demanding but fair. The concepts of honor and keeping one’s word were always priorities. He dreamed of a time when his countrymen would sleep peacefully and did everything for it, Ruslan recalled, which to him, explained his father’s career achievements. “ I followed in his footsteps because I saw it all from childhood, it was my dream, he raised me correctly. Sometimes a child, I felt offended, but when I grew up, I realized that my father was doing everything right. “He grew from lieutenant to base commander. [The airbase he headed recently] has been the best base in Russia for three years now. A legendary base. Here he prepared combat pilots, legendary men, who performed the most difficult tasks in any conditions. It is the pride of the aviation and he was it’s commander ,” Ruslan said proudly. Ryafagat’s wife Ramilya said she could not believe the news when she heard it, but even more so she can not believe how many people have been reaching her and her son over the past two days to express their support and grief. “ We had a good life together. It's such an enormous for us. But all of Russia has been trying to reach us, worried for us, ” Ravilya said. Ryafagat’s 55th Separate Army Aviation regiment has been helping the family to organize the funeral. They even collected money needed for the proceedings, which Ramilya is very grateful for. “ I never asked for it, but I am very grateful. That’s just customary for them. We will have a public funeral for everyone to say their farewells and then we’ll bury Ryafagat in his native village near Ulyanovsk, ” Ramilya told journalists.

2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

17 Pentagon wants injection of $20mn to fight ISIS drones — RT America The money is expected to be given to the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO), the Pentagon’s special office dealing with improvised explosive devices, Defense News reports. By the end of 2016, the JIDO with a budget to deal with new IED threats that emerged during the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, will become a permanent establishment under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The new agency is set to deal with the full range of improvised threats emerging around the world, yet its priority is to engage IED and drone threats posed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and those that emerge in the course of operation Resolute Support, the US assist and advise mission to Afghanistan’s security forces. “This effort will fill critical capability gaps defined in the Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement (JUONS) to support counter-improvised explosive devices (C-IEDs) and improvised threat capability requirements in support of Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Resolute Support (C-ISIL/RS) missions,” Defense News quotes the reprogramming document. The program will focus on creating a means to detect and defeat small and tactical unmanned aerial systems posing a “direct threat to US and coalition forces,” the document says. The US Army is developing its own means to counter enemy drones, but their field is engaging large unmanned aerial systems, while the JIDO’s activities are “specifically focused on countering the smaller classes of unmanned aerial systems that can be used in an improvised manner,” JIDO’s spokesman David Small said, adding that it’s liaising with a number of organizations and agencies. IS drones are already on reconnaissance missions and carrying improvised explosive devices. The extremists use both free sale commercial quadrocopters and fixed wing drones. “We expect their use to increase because commercial unmanned aerial vehicles have become very accessible,” Small acknowledged, adding that IS militants in Iraq have already been spotted using drones to deliver with precision small-sized handmade explosive devises. “There are known efforts by ISIL to grow this capability,” Small said. If Congress approves the reprogramming funds, the JIDO’s counter-drone research will bear fruit within “zero to two years,” Small said. Still, the incidence of armed drones by terrorists is considered low now, the spokesman acknowledged, stressing that so far the drones are more commonly used by terrorists as a reconnaissance tool. The stats on use of armed drones by IS remain classified. According to Small, Islamic State has been using drones for four definite purposes, namely tactical observations, monitoring enemy response to IS attacks, guiding Vehicular Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED) and collecting propaganda material. Monitoring and observation missions require the use of full motion video, Small noted. He said IS attacks employing VBIEDs have become routine and “highly sophisticated.” Exactly what counter-drone means the JIDO will develop is top secret to “keep the enemy guessing,” Small said.

2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

18 Eskom’s capacity expansion programme for growth continuing at a pace Johan Ackermann's intuition has not let him down so far this season and the Lions coach will once again rely on his gut feel when he decides on whether to rest some of his influential players ahead of the Super Rugby playoffs.

2016-07-11 06:00 Tmg Digital www.timeslive.co.za

19 19 Winning a council more important than saving economy The biggest threat we now face as a nation is our sinking economy. Yesterday the International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for the country this year to 0.1%, a figure that should spur all of us into action. But this is South Africa, so we brush off the news and act as if nothing has happened. The confirmation of our abysmal economic performance should change the tone of our elections, not to mention the course of this country. It cannot be that a country that seemed so full of promise just a few years ago is now on the verge of zero growth. This is the time for all of us to take to the streets and demand action - now and without politicians' double-talk. This is the time for all our political parties to rally behind an economic vision that will take us out of this morass. But all we hear as the parties campaign for our votes are more empty promises. None of the parties actually has any real idea of how to kick-start this economy. How are they going to increase economic growth sufficiently to create jobs and attract direct foreign investment? It is important that we change the political narrative. The cult of personality will not save us. We need sensible strategies. Today we face our biggest challenge since the 1990s when we navigated the tricky path towards democracy. The Treasury has vowed to cut unnecessary government spending. It says it expects growth and employment to be supported by several structural reforms and state interventions. It remains to be seen whether we will be able to turn the corner fast enough to prevent the ratings agencies from hitting us with the humiliation of junk status at the end of the year.

2016-07-11 06:00 The Times www.timeslive.co.za

20 Will Ronaldo or Griezmann prevail in battle of the No.7s? — RT Sport Griezmann’s double in the semi-final against Germany on Thursday – a penalty and a poked finish from close range – sent the host-nation on its way to the Stade de France for the final against Portugal. While Portugal captain Ronaldo has been setting the world alight for the best part of a decade, it’s 25-year-old Griezmann who has dominated so far at Euro 2016. The French attacking midfielder-turned-striker is the tournament’s leading scorer with six goals as well as two assists – compared to Ronaldo’s return of three strikes and three assists. There is a sense that, going into Sunday’s final, there has been a changing of the guard at the top of European football. Ronaldo's three Ballon d'Or titles for world player of the year are testament to the success he has had. But, at 31, his powers are inevitably starting to wane, and Euro 2016 may be the first signs of that. The Portugal captain has surpassed a number of landmarks at the tournament – the first person to score at four European Championships, his country’s record appearance-holder, the highest number of appearances at Euros – but he has cut a frustrated figure at times. He put in a two-goal performance in the 3-3 draw with Hungary in the group stage, as well as a stunning leap to open the scoring against Wales in the semi-final, but at times he has been isolated and on the fringes of games. READ MORE: Portugal beats Wales 2-0 to reach Euro 2016 final His actions away from the matches may be a sign of his sense of frustration – the criticism of Iceland as having a “small mentality” after their 1-1 draw; hurling a reporter’s microphone into a lake after being asked a seemingly innocuous question. Contrast this with Griezmann, who, at 25, is hitting his peak and seems to be enjoying life at Euro 2016. Six goals and some stellar performances have led to widespread acclaim, and mean he is frontrunner for the golden boot and is many people's player of the tournament. He has also won plaudits off the pitch for giving the matchball from the win over Ireland to the son of a murdered French police officer. Club-level rivalry Adding to the spice of Sunday’s game is the club-level rivalry between the pair. Ronaldo famously wears the white of Real Madrid, where he is the club’s talisman and record scorer with 364 goals . Griezmann has played for Atletico Madrid since 2014, where he has netted 57 goals in 107 games. The last time the pair faced each other was in May’s UEFA Champions League Final, which Real won 5-3 on penalties following a 1-1 draw in which Griezmann missed a spot-kick during regular time. READ MORE: Real Madrid wins Champions League after beating Atletico on penalties Ronaldo scored the winning penalty in the shootout that day, and he is far and away ahead of the Frenchman in terms of club honors, having claimed three Champions League titles among various domestic honors in Spain and England. Griezmann is yet to land a major trophy, but went some way towards laying the ghost of the Champions League defeat to rest with his penalty against Germany in the semi-final. He will now be relishing the chance of his first honor coming at a home tournament. Ronaldo, though, will be desperate to win a first title at international level - something he is yet to do in his illustrious career despite having previously appeared at six major tournament finals with Portugal, stretching back to Euro 2004. The Portugal captain knows that Sunday may be his last chance to achieve this. To focus on the Ronaldo-Griezmann duel is, of course, to do injustice to the other array of talents that will be on display on Sunday, such as France’s Paul Pogba and Dimitri Payet, and Portugal’s teenage prodigy Renato Sanches. But the clash between the two number sevens will certainly be an intriguing subplot to events in Saint-Denis.

2016-07-11 06:00 www.rt.com

21 ‘Pets’ fetches big earnings, sinks ‘Dory’ LOS ANGELES, United States — After a three-week reign, the beloved fish Dory’s top box office spot has gone to the dogs — literally. “The Secret Life of Pets” racked up an impressive $103.2 million in its debut weekend, according to industry tracker Exhibitor Relations, raking in five times the earnings of its closest competition to nab first place. It’s the third-biggest premiere for an animated film, behind “Finding Dory” and “Minions.” The Illumination-produced comedy centers on the misadventures of two canines unleashed on the streets of New York, featuring the voices of comedian Louis CK and Eric Stonestreet. “The Legend of Tarzan,” starring Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie, clung to number two for the second straight week, making $21.6 million. After floating on top of the charts since its record-breaking June 8 premiere, “Finding Dory” sank to third place with $20.3 million. The sequel to the 2003 hit “Finding Nemo” earned $135.1 million its debut weekend, and experts project the comedy will hit $1 billion this summer. “Max and Dave Need Wedding Dates” about hard-partying brothers searching online for plus-ones opened at $16.6 million, taking fourth place. Fifth with $11.7 million was “The Purge: Election Year”, a dystopian thriller in which the government has sanctioned an annual night of lawlessness, violence and murder. Rounding out the top 10 films of the weekend were: — “Central Intelligence” ($8.1 million) — “Independence Day: Resurgence” ($7.7 million) — “The BFG” ($7.6 million) — “The Shallows” ($4.8 million) — “Sultan” ($2.2 million)

2016-07-11 06:00 Agence France entertainment.inquirer.net

22 UN sounds alarm over ‘structural and institutional racism’ in US — RT News “The Working Group [of Experts on People of African Descent] is outraged and strongly condemns the new police killings of two African- American men,” Sunga said in a statement published on the United Nations’ official website. The deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana at the hands of the officers earlier this week, “cannot be ignored,” the statement read, urging a “prompt independent investigations to ensure the perpetrators are prosecuted and punished.” The UN working group stressed that excessive use of force by the police against African Americans has become a “regular” occurrence in America, with black people twice as likely to be shot as whites. “The killings also demonstrate a high level of structural and institutional racism. The United States is far from recognizing the same rights for all its citizens. Existing measures to address racist crimes motivated by prejudice are insufficient and have failed to stop the killings,” the experts said. According to the statement, the UN working group has repeatedly expressed its concern to the US authorities about various killings of African- Americans by law enforcers. Experts said that they are convinced that the root of the problem lies in the lack of accountability for perpetrators of such killings despite overwhelming evidence against them, including video footage of the crime, being present. “It is time, now, for the US Government to strongly assert that Black lives matter and prevent any further killings as a matter of national priority,” Sunga stressed. The UN working group also condemned Thursday’s sniper attacks on police officers in downtown Dallas, which took place during a protest over the killings of Castile and Sterling. Five officers were killed and nine people wounded, including two civilians. One sniper was later killed in a standoff with the police. Three other suspects involved in the shooting were detained. During negotiations, the perpetrator said that he was angered by the killings of African Americans, and wanted to kill more white officers in retaliation, the police said. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attacks of officers in Dallas and expressed condolences to the families and colleagues of the victims. “There is no justification for such violence. Those responsible compounded the suffering that many in the United States feel following the killing of two African-American men over two days. Those killings must be the subject of a thorough and impartial investigation,” Stephane Dujarric, the UN head’s spokesman, said. READ MORE: Slain Dallas suspect said he acted alone, wanted to kill white cops - police chief The events in Dallas once again emphasize the need to address discrimination, including racial disparities in law enforcement, Dujarric stressed. WATCH MORE:

2016-07-11 03:25 www.rt.com

23 Spanish bullfighter gored to death in ring first time in over 20 years — RT News Victor Barrio, 29, was killed on Saturday when a bull's horn ripped through the man’s chest. The fight was being staged in the town of Teruel in the eastern region of Aragon. The performance ending with Barrio’s death was also broadcast on television. The last matador who was killed during a bullfight in Spain was Jose Cubero, also known as Yiyo, in 1985. Manolo Montoliu and Ramon Soto Vargas were the last bandilleros, or matador’s assistants, that died at a bullring, both in 1992. Barrio’s wife was among the audience who watched the tragedy happen before her own eyes. The moment he fell on the ground other matadors rushed to help. Barrio was taken to the hospital, but doctors said they were unable to save him. Barrio was pronounced dead at the scene. The website of Madrid's Las Ventas bullring at which Barrio began as an apprentice, confirmed his death. On Twitter, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy offered his condolences over Barrio’s death. The same day another Spaniard was killed during a bull-run that took place in a village near Valencia. Two other people were gored to death at the festival in the town of Pamplona. Around 2,000 bullfights are held in Spain annually. According to El Pais, as many as 134 people were killed by bulls in Spain in the past century. While some condemn the event as barbaric, others support the long-established tradition. In 2010, Catalonia became the second Spanish region after the Canary Islands to ban the tradition. READ MORE: Strip corrida: Raging bull tears man's underwear off (VIDEO)

2016-07-11 03:25 www.rt.com

24 Russia & UNESCO push for 'generation without racial, ethnic, religious prejudice' — RT News Acting with the support of the Russian Federation of Jewish Communities at Moscow's Jewish Museum, Russia's Federal Center for Tolerance and UNESCO held their first joint conference on migration earlier this week. The conference, "Migration for Sustainable Development: Social transformations, media discourses and education," took place in UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, and was attended by leading experts in social sciences and humanities from more than 30 countries. “The organization of this conference plays an important role in solving a burning issue – that of the current migration crisis in Europe. Through this project, the Center of Tolerance managed to provide the latest interactive methods in educational activities, along with a scientific and methodological base,” Aleksandr Boroda, head of Russian Federation of Jewish Communities and General Director of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, said in a statement. Boroda added that publications describing the above mentioned experience are set to come out in the near future. “It was also decided to conduct a global campaign (supported by the UNESCO Network of Associated Schools) and called 'With an Open Heart and Mind to the Refugees.' This campaign will be implemented in six languages in 10,000 educational institutions in 181 countries, and is aimed at children of pre-school, primary and secondary school age, as well as at teachers-to-be. We hope this program will help educate a new generation that is free from racial, ethnic and religious stereotypes, while maintaining their own values and culture in a difficult situation we currently face with the migration and assimilation, " Boroda said. "I am convinced that an effective and timely measure for a sustainable development is to increase the role of education as the basis for the world's political behavior, and the role of UNESCO, based on universal moral principles and inseparable rights and freedoms of the individual, is key," Benjamin Kaganov, Russia's Deputy Minister of Education and Science, said. Frank La Rue, assistant director-general of UNESCO for Communication and Information, said the challenge is to boost international understanding and tolerance. "This impressive joint project of UNESCO and the Russian Federal Scientific and Methodological Center in the field of psychology and pedagogy of tolerance provides an opportunity for international cooperation, which aims to find answers to the pressing issues related to migration, as well as to increase the level of mutual understanding and tolerance,” he said. “We should not consider migrants as victims, even less so as a threat. Migrants are the same people, just like any other individuals, enjoying full human rights," Frank La Rue stressed. Russia’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, Eleonora Mitrofanova, said it was only natural for a country that has the second-largest foreign migrant population in the world to be the co-organizer of a key conference on migration. "It seems reasonable that the co-organizer of our conference, along with UNESCO, is Russia's Tolerance Center. In our country, we know what migration is not by hearsay. Russia hosts the world's largest population of immigrants after the US. Up to 12 million migrants live in Russia. We've got a large experience regulating migration flows, and we share it," Mitrofanova said. Humanity & migration 'two sides of the same coin' Europe is currently facing its worst refugee crisis since World War II. Last year alone some 1.8 million asylum-seekers entered the European Union fleeing war and poverty in Middle-Eastern countries, according to data from the European Union border agency Frontex. Humanity and migration are actually “two sides of the same coin, enjoying a symbiotic relationship that will never be broken no matter how much people and politicians may try,” RT contributor John Wight recently wrote in an opinion piece . “Absorbing migrants from other parts of the EU has become a particular concern in countries where austerity has been most severe in response to the economic crisis. Cutting spending on welfare, on health, education, and housing, merely increases the demand, especially on the part of the poorer sections of the population, which relies on them most. This inevitably results in increased hostility towards migrants; hostility is easily exploited by the political and far right for ideological reasons,” he added. Stopping immigration by setting quotas and implementing tougher border controls and measures is “futile,” according to Wight. “The only way to reduce it is to deal with its underlying causes – namely inequality, poverty, and unfettered capitalism, ” the analyst concluded. WATCH MORE: 2016-07-11 03:25 www.rt.com

25 Black kids killed by black kids in 99% of cases — RT America Giuliani made the controversial comments during an interview on CBS show ‘Face the Nation’ amid an ongoing period of racially- loaded protest in the US, following several killings of black men by white police officers and a black gunman targeting white cops in Dallas. “There is too much violence in the black community – so a black will die one percent or less at the hands of the police and 99 percent at the hands of a civilian, most often another black,” he said. He used the number to argue that the colored community shares part of the blame for the racial tension in America and fails to see the problem of violence among them while putting a disproportionate focus on the killings of black people by white law enforcement officers. Giuliani’s apparently rhetorical figure may be derived from the FBI’s 2014 homicide statistics which recorded that 90 percent of black people are killed by black people. For comparison white people are killed by white people 82 percent of time, the same statistic shown. Interestingly, white men are more likely to shoot and kill a cop than black men, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which tracks police fatalities. As of May, 71 percent of officers were killed by white people. Giuliani’s advice to the black community is to teach respect for the police. “You’ve got to teach your children to be respectful to the police and you’ve got to teach your children that the real danger to them is not the police, the real danger to them 99 of 100 times are other black kids who are going to kill them,” he said, while acknowledging that “some” police are a danger to black people. The police, he added, must see that there is a dominating sense of fear of them in the black community, whether it is justified or not, and maintain a zero-tolerance policy towards disrespect by officers towards people of color. Giuliani also criticized the Black Lives Matter protest movement, branding the slogan as “inherently racist” and “anti-American” for focusing on black lives only. “Black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter. That’s anti-American and it’s racist,” he said. He said the movement is painting “a target on the back” of police officers by drawing disproportionate attention to the killings of black men by white cops. “Every cop in America will tell you that if you ask them,” Giuliani said. Unsurprisingly the controversial comments sparked a backlash online resulting in Rudy Giuliani trending across the US on Twitter.

2016-07-11 03:25 www.rt.com

26 Theresa May vows to put Conservative Party 'at service' of working people Theresa May will promise to put workers on the boards of major firms and curb excess corporate pay, as she starts her campaign to be Tory leader and PM. The home secretary will vow to put the Conservative party "at the service" of working people. She will also stress: "Brexit means Brexit and we're going to make a success of it. " Party members will choose between Mrs May and energy minister Andrea Leadsom in a nationwide leadership vote. Setting out plans to change the way big businesses are governed, Mrs May will say consumers and workers should have places on their boards. She will also commit to making shareholder votes on corporate pay binding, rather than merely advisory, insisting that support for enterprise does not mean "anything goes" in the City. Head-to-head: The women hoping to be PM Are women taking over British politics? Profile: Theresa May Profile: Andrea Leadsom Guide to the contest At the event in Birmingham, Mrs May will set out her desire to address inequality and restore trust in politics. The home secretary will acknowledge the criminal justice system treats black people "more harshly" than white counterparts. She will also say politicians often fail to realise how hard life is for working- class families. Outlining her plans to reform corporate governance, she will hit out at the way non-executive directors who are supposed to provide oversight of the way firms are run often come from the same "narrow social and professional circles" as the executive team and "the scrutiny they provide is just not good enough". She will say: "So if I'm prime minister, we're going to change that system - and we're going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but workers as well. " She will also promise to strengthen "say on pay" rules. "We're the Conservative Party, and yes, we're the party of enterprise - but that does not mean we should be prepared to accept that 'anything goes'," she will say. The coalition government introduced a law forcing companies to hold legally binding votes on future pay policies every three years, on top of the annual non-binding vote on the packages contained in that year's remuneration report. Mrs May's plans would involve binding votes on policy and specific pay packages each year. She will set out three key planks to her strategy for No 10: "First, we need a bold, new, positive vision for the future of our country - a vision of a country that works for everyone - not just the privileged few. "Second, we need to unite our party and our country. "And third, our country needs strong, proven leadership - to steer us through this time of economic and political uncertainty and to negotiate the best deal for Britain as we leave the European Union and forge a new role for ourselves in the world. "Brexit means Brexit and we're going to make a success of it. " Outlining some of the social issues she wants to address, Mrs May will say: "Right now, if you're born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others. "If you're black, you're treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you're white. If you're a white, working-class boy, you're less likely than anybody else to go to university. If you're at a state school, you're less likely to reach the top professions than if you're educated privately. "If you're a woman, you still earn less than a man. If you suffer from mental health problems, there's too often not enough help to hand. If you're young, you'll find it harder than ever before to own your own home. " She will say that "fighting these injustices is not enough", and add: "If you're from a working-class family, life is just much harder than many people in politics realise. " "These are the reasons why, under my leadership, the Conservative Party will put itself - completely, absolutely, unequivocally - at the service of working people," Mrs May will add.

2016-07-11 03:23 www.bbc.co.uk

27 The UK women seeking divorce through Sharia councils The use of Sharia councils in the UK to settle disputes using Islamic religious law has been criticised for discriminating against women. With rare access, the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme looks at what takes place inside one such council. "Is it not possible to forget all the things he has done to you? " one of three Islamic scholars asks Yasmeenah - not her real name - in a side room of Birmingham Central Mosque. Yasmeenah has been in an arranged marriage since the age of 15, and says her husband has emotionally and physically abused her throughout the relationship. She has come to this Sharia council - one of an estimated 30 established councils across the UK, often referred to as Sharia "courts" - in the hope the scholars will grant her an Islamic divorce, or nikah. She dismisses the idea that she can overlook the past and continue the relationship. "But he loves you very much," the scholar continues, having spoken to her husband previously that day. "Yes, but this is not enough," she replies. "Something makes me afraid of him and scared of him. If I see him, suddenly all my body starts shaking," she had explained shortly before. The scholars listen to her case and, when they feel they have enough information, ask Yasmeenah to leave the room to allow them time to deliberate. She returns nervously, but it is good news - the scholars have unanimously decided the marriage should be terminated with immediate effect, saying they are sad to hear what she has been through. "When they announced [their decision] I felt that something happened that I had wanted for years," she explains, overjoyed. "I'm really surprised, because they cared about my emotions. I thought, 'Finally I've got my freedom.'" Find out more The Victoria Derbyshire programme is broadcast on weekdays from 09:00- 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel. The courts' rulings, such as this one, are not recognised by the UK system, and these councils have no legal powers - although many of the women who claim they have been abused also go to the police. The scholars' judgements, however, can carry moral and cultural weight by ending the divorce before God. "If I went to an English court [my ex-husband] would say, 'Where is their right to decide about my life?' Now he can't say anything because the decision has been made using Sharia law, and we all believe in that," she explains. There are claims, however, that some Sharia council decisions legitimise forced marriage and act unfairly towards women - although the council in Birmingham visited by the Victoria Derbyshire programme is regarded by many as one of the fairer councils. "I am quite concerned [about Sharia councils], purely because of the cases we get on our helpline - and they come in regularly," says Shaista Gohir, chairwoman of the charity Muslim Women's Network UK. She worries that women are being asked intrusive questions about their personal lives, and, in some cases, being discriminated against. Many incidents concern women being told to mediate with their husbands, against their will. Aleena - not her real name - says she wanted a divorce because her partner used to rape her on a regular basis. He was also a polygamist. "When I contacted my nearest Sharia council for a divorce they pressured me into mediation, which I didn't want. "It arranged the mediation with one of its local religious advisers. I had to visit this man alone at his home. He asked me very personal questions about my sex life. "He said that polygamy was allowed. He said, 'Be patient, you have lasted 22 years, why do you want a divorce now?'" Another woman told us she was referred to mediation with her husband, even though "there were injunctions stopping him going anywhere near me". Sources: Islamic Sharia Council, University of Reading The Sharia councils are not regulated, so it can be difficult to assess what takes place inside - especially in some of the smaller councils that are not linked to mosques. In May, the government announced an independent review to assess whether Sharia law in England and Wales was compatible with UK laws and whether it has been used to discriminate against women. But Ms Gohir believes any recommendations it suggests will be difficult to enforce. "Who is going to force these bodies to implement those recommendations," she asks. "There is no way of forcing them because most of them do not operate under the arbitration act anyway. So it might just be left to good will. " The Home Office says it can propose legislation should the review set out a clear case for it. The councils, however, believe they are providing an essential service. Amra Bone, the UK's first female Sharia council judge, says without them, the women could feel trapped and oppressed. Their Islamic marriages are often not legally binding and so can only be ended by one of these councils, rather than a civil court. "If we left them [without the option of these councils] in miserable situations - where they're distraught, they don't know what to do, where to go - [they could] fall into deep depression," she explains. Yasmeenah also sees the courts as something of a lifeline. "If the council wasn't here for me, what would I have done, how would I have got my divorce," she enthuses, as she pays the £300 it cost to bring her case. But with a lack of consistent rules and standards, the councils do not work for everyone. Ms Gohir believes that, if the rights of Muslim women were improved in wider society, they would not need to turn to such councils for a divorce. "What I would like to see is civil solutions - and laws and policies strengthened - so Muslim women are less reliant on these Sharia councils. That would then - in the longer term, over 10 to 15 years - make a lot of them redundant. "

2016-07-11 03:23 By Jean www.bbc.co.uk

28 Stevie Wonder brings Songs In The Key of Life tour to London Stevie Wonder has closed London's BST festival with a meaningful but meandering stroll thorough his landmark double album, Songs In The Key Of Life. The 66-year-old played for almost four hours, backed by a razor-sharp band of more than 20 musicians. Addressing recent outbreaks of violence, Wonder said he wanted music to bring people together "in this horrible time we're living in. "Choose love over hate... kindness over meanness, hope over no hope at all. " The soul legend said it "breaks my heart" that songs like Love's In Need Of Love Today and Village Ghetto Land remained relevant, "almost 40 years" after he wrote them. The tracks, which both appear on the first volume of Songs In The Key Of Life, tackle topics including racial hatred, police corruption and political inertia. "I'm not happy that those conditions still exist in the world," Wonder told the 65,000-strong crowd in Hyde Park. The sentiment was woven into the fabric of the show: Pastime Paradise gained the gospel refrain, "we shall overcome"; while Wonder added a raw, powerful cover of Curtis Mayfield's peace anthem People Get Ready to his set. "Tell all the leaders of the world to cut the bull... and fix it," he implored the audience. "We were all made in God's image. When you hate someone, you're hating that image. "If I'm blind and I can see it, you can see it too. " His comments were applauded by an audience that included stars Julianne Moore, Bradley Cooper, Natalie Portman and Martin Freeman, supermodel Naomi Campbell and musicians Jarvis Cocker and Emeli Sande. Released in 1976, Songs In The Key Of Life is regarded as Wonder's most accomplished album. An attempt to capture the nuance of existence - from the birth of his daughter to the politics of fear - it topped the US charts for 14 weeks and earned a Grammy for Album of the Year. In a 1995 interview with Q Magazine, Wonder called it the record "I'm most happy about". But it is also a complex, sprawling experience. It comprises 21 tracks that originally filled two albums and a four-song EP. Many of those songs last almost 10 minutes and, on stage, Wonder extended them further. A festival was probably the wrong setting for such an ambitious show. Some of the album's deeper cuts left casual fans bewildered; and an interlude in which each of Wonder's six backing vocalists was given a solo number dragged on for far too long. "I just want Stevie," shouted one audience member in frustration. But when the star rolled out hits like I Wish and Isn't She Lovely, the crowd sang and danced as one. Sir Duke even prompted fans to parp along with the brass section, before launching into the uplifting hook: "You can feel it all over" Wonder was in superb voice throughout, recreating all the album's high notes, and even inventing a few new ones along the way. But he took no credit for his octave-scaling performance, confessing: "Earlier today I felt like I wasn't going to be able to sing nothing - "but then I prayed on it. " In fact, it was Wonder's warmth and humour (including a passable attempt at a Cockney accent) that stopped the show feeling indulgent or bloated. On several occasions he suddenly declared, "I've had an idea", and led his band down a funky, improvised side alley, giving the highly-rehearsed set a sense of freedom and unpredictability. The Songs In The Key Of Life set wrapped up with the joyous, Latin-funk excursion Another Star (prompting spontaneous conga lines around Hyde Park) but Wonder still had time left before the curfew. Calling himself "DJ Tick Tick Boom" the star played recordings of Kiss and When Doves Cry, in tribute to his friend, and musical protégé, Prince. But he returned to his own material for the closing number - a medley of Part Time Lover; Signed, Sealed, Delivered; and Superstition. "I love you," Wonder said as he left the stage. "Maybe next year, we'll do it again. Are you with me on that? " The crowd seemed to agree. Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts , on Instagram at bbcnewsents , or email [email protected] .

2016-07-11 03:23 By Mark www.bbc.co.uk

29 We need to talk about getting old, says charity Too many people avoid talking about getting old, particularly conversations about end-of-life care, suggests a survey by a charity for older people. Two out of three adults aged over 65 in the study said they had never talked to their family about the issue. But Independent Age said cuts to social care budgets meant it was more important than ever for families to talk about the future. One in four over-65s said they were not planning to broach the subject at all. This group also said they were not planning to discuss issues such as who would care for them and where they would live if they could no longer look after themselves. Around 2,000 adults completed an online questionnaire for the research. Although 82% of adults recognised it was important to talk to older relatives about issues of ageing, only a minority had actually had these conversations. This tended to be because they didn't want to face up to the issue, didn't know how to start the conversation or didn't want to upset their relatives. But the charity warned that families risked making rushed decisions about care, health, housing and financial matters if they didn't starting talking. It has launched a new online guide to help families broach the potentially difficult subject of ageing. Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age, said: "For many families, having these conversations will never be easy. For older people, it can mean facing the prospect of losing independence. "For their relatives, it can mean facing the thought of losing a loved one or feeling overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility. "But these are issues that only get more pressing with time. It is vital that families start talking about these issues now, so they're not left making important decisions at times of crisis or suddenly struggling to cope with significant caring responsibilities. " She added that an ageing population meant that fewer people were receiving care from local councils and were more reliant on informal care from family members. It is estimated that the number of older people living with a disability will rise from 2.9 million to 4.8 million between 2015 and 2035. Over the same time period, the number of disabled older people receiving informal care is projected to increase from 2.2 million to 3.5 million.

2016-07-11 03:23 www.bbc.co.uk

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2016-07-11 03:23 www.cnnmoneytransfers.com

31 World champ Isinbayeva & other Russian athletes barred from Olympic Games — RT Sport The decision made by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) means that athletes such as the pole vault world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva won’t be allowed to compete when the games get underway in Brazil in August, her trainer Evgeny Trofimov told R-Sport. “Everyone received a refusal, including Yelena. As a result of this refusal, we will file a lawsuit to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in order to defend the rights of the sportsmen and women. They knew that if there were refusals that we would file lawsuits and our lawyers are ready to do this,” Trofimov said. Isinbayeva, who has been outspoken at the stance taken by the IAAF, once again hit out at the organization. “The fact that they threw this out shows their weakness and their helplessness,” Isinbayeva told TASS, referring to the IAAF. “The presumption of innocence before guilt does not exist and they cannot show who is clean in Russia and who isn’t. They just show their ineffectiveness.” The 34 year old from Volgograd is widely seen as the greatest ever female pole-vaulter. She has won two Olympic golds in 2004 and 2008. Isinbayeva only returned to the sport after giving birth to a daughter and many believed the Rio Olympics would be her swansong before hanging up her spikes. However, it looks increasingly likely that Isinbayeva, who has never tested positive for any banned substances, will be denied the chance to compete in Rio and try and claim a hat-trick of Olympic gold’s following the IAAF’s decision. “I would disband the whole federation and would change those running the organization yet again. They are ineffective and are breaking up world athletics. Everyone understands clearly that without the Russians at the Games, only half the TV audience is going to watch the Olympics and this is bad for the sponsors. It’s also bad for the public who want to watch us compete,” Isinbayeva added. The only athlete who has been given the green light to compete is Klishina who will be able to take part as a neutral athlete. The 25-year-old long jumper, who is based in the US, meets the "exceptional eligibility criteria," according to the IAAF. The IAAF said the board "unanimously accepted the application of [Darya] Klishina who, subject to completing the formalities, is now eligible to compete in international competitions as an independent neutral athlete. " Isinbayeva was one of 68 athletes who were included in Russia’s track and field team for the Rio Olympics on Tuesday by the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF). On July 2, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the 68 athletes filed appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the IAAF ban and asked to be allowed to take part in international competition in time for the Olympics. The three parties agreed an expedited procedure, with a final decision due by July 21, CAS has said. The IAAF upheld a decision on June 17, which was later backed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to ban Russian athletes from competing at the games as it believes Russia is guilty of systematic doping in the sport. Rune Andersen, who heads the IAAF task force overseeing Russia's attempts to reform, said that a "deep-seated culture of tolerance, or worse, appears not to be materially changed". "No athlete will compete in Rio under a Russian flag," he said. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the ban “unjust” and believes a “solution” can be found to the conflict, stressing that Russia will continue to fight doping. On July 1, Putin announced that Russian law enforcers would have more power when investigating doping cases. "The responsibility [for doping abuse] must be tightened," Putin said, as cited by TASS. "We’ve made a decision to support amendments to tighten legislation: to enhance responsibility and to adopt legislation allowing the use of detective and policing methods to let our law enforcers use investigative methods to expose the use and proliferation of doping substances. "

2016-07-11 03:25 www.rt.com

32 Solon fears OFWs convicted abroad will also be killed STEPPING UP his case against the reimposition of the death penalty, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said yesterday that executing criminals would also work against Filipinos who are on death row overseas. In a statement, Atienza said the reimposition of the death penalty would take away the country’s “moral high ground” in appealing to other countries to spare the lives of Filipinos convicted of crimes. “One of the many ramifications [of the return of the death penalty] is that the Philippine government would be deprived of the moral high ground when it comes to our official appeals for clemency for our citizens facing execution abroad,” Atienza said. The lawmaker said it would be difficult to seek “compassion” from the other governments if the Philippine government itself executed its own convicted criminals. Citing records from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Atienza said there were 88 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) on death row, mostly in Malaysia and China. He noted that eight of the top 10 destinations of land-based OFWs imposed the death penalty “and aggressively carried out executions.” These were Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Qatar, Kuwait, Taiwan, Malaysia and Bahrain, Atienza said, citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). The other top two destinations for OFWs—Canada and Hong Kong—do not have a death penalty. 2016-07-11 02:58 Nikko Dizon newsinfo.inquirer.net

33 Jewish groups look for answers after five cops killed in Dallas shootings “We are at a turning point here in the US” is a statement uttered by many Americans, following the recent violence in Dallas that left five police officers dead. “We know some of the operational steps,” says Drew Schwartz, an educational speaker who founded an educational program called “Gateway2change,” following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the ensuing riots in August 2014. “The question now becomes how we are able think about our history as Jews, as people who know the pain of being subjugated and mistreated, to take some positive steps. Michael Brown was shot and killed in the back yard where I taught,” Schwartz tells The Jerusalem Post, explaining the impetus for his program which brought together students from a wide range of ethnic groups and backgrounds. It has since expanded to other cities including Rochester, New York, where police have arrested dozens of protesters in Black Lives Matter rallies in recent days. Schwartz, who drew on his MA in conflict resolution in founding the program, explicitly set out to have students talk about “the elephant in the room – race – and ways to improve their society.” While his response to the recent tensions between the African-American community and law enforcement officials lies in education, others are looking to training methods and the very makeup of law enforcement bodies. The Anti-Defamation League, for instance, has called for “increased training for law enforcement, including implicit bias training that was announced by the Department of Justice recently.” “We need to build police departments with racial and ethnic makeups that mirror the communities they serve,” said Seth Marnin, ADL vice president of civil rights. “We need official statistics on police killings, tracking what happens and what has gone wrong each time. We pledge that we will work tirelessly on these and other systemic reforms so that when we proclaim ‘not one more,’ it is not just a hope but a promise.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center has for some 10 years been operating a training program for police officers from all over the world, including China, Japan, Russia, Canada, the UK and the US. The organization tailors the seminar to the specific problems faced in each country, and also provides follow-up after the officers complete their training. Consultant Brett Goldman, who has spent much of his career working in the US Jewish community, says that US Jewry today is highly fragmented, making a cohesive response to the issue difficult. “In the 1960s, the last time there was this much social upheaval, the Jewish community and the black community were arm in arm – this is that moment now,” asserts Goldman. “We’re either going to be on the right side of history or the wrong side, or we’ll let it pass us by. Some people say it’s not our [the Jews’] problem, but it is. This is our fight, this is our issue.” “I think there have been different types of responses,” Schwartz says, echoing Goldman’s sentiment. “Some Americans have gravitated toward the notion that as a Jewish people, we are very connected to the plight of African Americans who are being mistreated in a horrific way. “I’ve seen Jewish people stand up and be very explicitly involved in these protests,” he asserts. “I’ve also seen Jews shy away from those efforts because maybe they don’t feel comfortable, or they feel that by getting involved they are in opposition to police officers. It’s not mutually exclusive to support officers of law and to support African Americans and to say the system needs to change.”

2016-07-11 02:56 TAMARA ZIEVE www.jpost.com

34 MILF wants to join Duterte administration in fight vs drugs OZAMIZ CITY—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is open to collaborating with the administration of President Duterte in the campaign against illegal drugs. This developed as Mr. Duterte disclosed on Thursday the web of individuals allegedly running the illicit drugs trade in the country. In November last year, the MILF central committee issued a directive to its political and military leaders to help curb the brisk trading in “shabu” in Moro communities in Mindanao. But this was met with objections from government security agencies fearing that this would breach the ceasefire accord between the government and the MILF. “With the election of Duterte as president of this country and his hardline policy on drugs, the campaign of the MILF against drugs finds comfort,” read a recent editorial on the MILF’s official website. “In fact, a possible understanding or arrangement can be worked out. This can be done through the existing mechanisms of the peace process, such as the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (Ahjag) and the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH),” the group said. The MILF, which forged a peace pact with the government in 2014, said it was compelled to launch the anti-shabu campaign as “the drug menace is already destroying the future of the Bangsamoro people and hence should be confronted head on.” The group said it had “identified hundreds to thousands of drug pushers, especially in central Mindanao” through the campaign which, it added, already “achieved some successes… and saved so many users or addicts from further destruction.” Ryan D. Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao

2016-07-11 02:54 Philippine Daily newsinfo.inquirer.net

35 Leni preps for 1st Cabinet meet VICE PRESIDENT Leni Robredo will attend her first Cabinet meeting today at Malacañang and meet her new colleagues. Over the weekend, Robredo studied and prepared for the meeting, according to her spokesperson, Georgina Hernandez. Hernandez said in a statement that Robredo had an initial briefing with officials from the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) on Friday night. President Duterte last week appointed Robredo, who belongs to the rival Liberal Party, to head the HUDCC, effectively giving her a Cabinet position after initially declaring that he was not doing so because he did not want to hurt the feelings of his friend, losing vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. “She was given a packet of documents to study and prepare for her first Cabinet meeting. “As it is her first meeting, her initial aim is to get up to speed with the policy and work priorities of the administration,” Hernandez said. She added that Robredo “is also looking forward to get to know and work with the other Cabinet members.” Robredo had thanked Mr. Duterte for giving her the housing portfolio, saying it would give her a bigger opportunity to serve the marginalized sectors in society. Nikko Dizon

2016-07-11 02:53 Philippine Daily newsinfo.inquirer.net

36 VIDEO: The People's Assembly marches against police and bias killings Colombian immigrant Laura Yanez, 28, and Mexican immigrant Audrey Chavarria, 22, discuss the particular challenges gay Latinos face and how the Orlando massacre colored their worldview. Linda Groshart, 73, gleefully check off her bucket list going parasailing as she soared 1,000 feet above Commencement Bay in Tacoma, Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The sheriff's department alleges that a Spanaway pot shop was selling unlicensed pot and other drugs to minors and others. East Pierce Fire Olympia firefighters, as well as crews from Lacey and McLane Fire Departments are still on the scene of an early morning two-alarm structure fire in downtown Olympia. No injuries have been reported. Fircrest man celebrates a Fourth of July tradition by reading the Declaration of Independence. Will Allen, a graduate of Kent Meridian H. S. gave Brynn Grimley, a reporter for The News Tribune, a aerobatic thrill ride during a media day preview of the Gig Harbor Wings Former medical marijuana dispensary owners in Tacoma discuss the shutdown of their businesses and their concern for disadvantaged patients. City of Tacoma budget shortfall may force closure of Tacoma Public Library's Northwest Room which houses Tacoma's historic documents and relics. Students take part in a kayaking class near Skansie Brothers Park in Gig Harbor.

2016-07-11 02:17 www.thenewstribune.com

37 MLB Baseball Box Scores NEW YORK -- The Washington Nationals exited the final series of the first half with a healthy division lead and a sense things could get even better in the coming weeks. The New York Mets were left to rely on the hope that history will repeat itself. Daniel Murphy remained a thorn in the side of his former club Sunday, when his two-run homer in the first inning gave the Nationals a lead they'd never relinquish in a 3-2 win over the New York Mets. The Nationals (54-36) won the final three contests of the four- game series to extend their National League East lead over the Mets (47- 41) to six games. Washington has been alone atop the NL East for the last 43 days and has held at least a share of the lead every day since May 12. "It was a good first half, feel good about it," Nationals left fielder Jayson Werth said. "I think we still haven't played our best baseball. "The Nationals' run- differential of plus-105 is second-best in baseball behind only the Chicago Cubs (plus-139) Washington has the best run-differential in the NL since June 1 (plus-49). In addition, Murphy leads the majors with a.348 batting average while his fellow All-Stars Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer are the only teammates in baseball with 10 wins at the break. Strasburg is the first NL pitcher to go 12-0 before the All-Star Break in more than 100 years while Scherzer is 5-2 with a 1.66 ERA in his last eight starts. "We're really starting to mesh," Werth said as he linked his hands together. "You can kind of feel it. You've got that good feeling going into the break (that) you can come back and you can really do some things in the second half. Hopefully, that'll be us in the second half. "The Mets, who could have tied the Nationals atop the NL East with a sweep, are taking solace in what they achieved last season, when New York trailed by as many as 4 1/2 games on July 5 before surging past Washington in August and winning the division by six games on its way to the World Series. "We're still in the race," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "We've been in this situation one year ago, where things looked bleak. We end up playing in the World Series. So we're going to take the rest and get ready for the second half. "The best news for the Mets heading into the break might be that they won't have to see Murphy for six more weeks. Murphy, who won NL Championship Series MVP honors for New York last fall before signing with the Nationals in December, went 1-for- 4 Sunday to "drop" his average against the Mets this season to.423 (22-for- 52). He was 7-for-17 with three homers and 10 RBIs in the series and has seven homers and 21 RBIs in 13 games overall against the Mets. "He is definitely a cyborg right now," said Nationals left-hander Gio Gonzalez, who earned the win after allowing two runs on four hits and four walks while striking out three over 5 2/3 innings. "You don't even know what to throw him anymore. You might have to go there and throw a ping-pong ball, sneak it by him. But I doubt it. "Wilson Ramos, who will also represent the Nationals at the All-Star Game, had what proved to be a decisive RBI single in the third. Right-hander Tanner Roark, a usual member of the Washington rotation, threw 2 1/3 perfect innings before Jonathan Papelbon earned his 19th save with a one-hit ninth. "You want to win this last game, you want to feel good about yourselves over the break," Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. "You hope the guys take some time off but (will) kind of be itching come Thursday to get back to work. "Jose Reyes, who rejoined his original major league team Tuesday, hit two homers for the Mets. It was the first two-homer game for Reyes since Sept 27, 2011 -- the penultimate game of his first stint in New York. Left-hander Steven Matz (7-5) remained winless in his last eight starts after allowing three runs on six hits and four walks while striking out five for the Mets, who finished 7-4 on a season-long 11-game homestand. "We didn't flip any switches last year -- we just ground out game after game," Collins said. "And we've got to do that. "NOTES: Mets OF Yoenis Cespedes (strained right quad) missed his second straight game. Cespedes said he wasn't sure if he'll be able to return when the second half resumes on Friday. ... The 11-game homestand was the Mets' longest since an 11-game stretch in September 2013. LHP Steven Matz is the first Mets' pitcher to start three games in a homestand since RHP Bobby Parnell accomplished the feat in 2009. ... The save for RHP Jonathan Papelbon was the 377th of his career breaking a tie with Jeff Reardon for ninth place on the all-time list. ... The Nationals reached the All-Star Break with at least a share of first place for the third straight season and the fifth time since moving to Washington in 2005. It also accounted for the 10th time in the franchise history of the Nationals/Montreal Expos.

2016-07-11 02:18 The Sports scoresandstats.newyork.cbslocal.com

38 PA security forces increase efforts in attempt to restore order in West Bank The Palestinian Authority Security Forces have launched an effort to restore security to West Bank villages and cities, focusing on arresting wanted individuals and confiscating unregistered weapons in light of recent deadly violence between Palestinian families in the Jenin area, and gunmen and PASF officers in Nablus. Palestinian Authority Police spokesman Louay Zreikat told The Jerusalem Post the effort is based on directives issued by Palestinian leadership and will continue until security is restored to all regions of the West Bank. “President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah have issued orders to the security services to undertake intensified security efforts to end all violence within Palestinian society,” Zreikat said. Eleven days ago, in the latter half of the month-long Ramadan celebration, a tribal dispute broke out in Yabad, a village near Jenin, and later that day, a shooting incident took place in Nablus. In Yabad, the Amarneh and Qubha families clashed in an inter-family fight, leaving three members of the Qubha family dead and 14 others from both families wounded. The same night, a group of gunmen approached a Preventive Security officer’s home in Nablus and opened fire, wounding the officer’s wife. When PASF officers Adi al-Saifi, 24, and Anan al-Tubuq, 26, arrived at the scene, the gunmen opened fire on them, as well, killing them. The incidents in Yabad and Nablus led to widespread condemnation from Palestinian political and security figures, shedding light on the growing instability in Nablus and Jenin. The following day, in a rare public statement, PA General Intelligence Services chief Majid Faraj said, “These incidents fall outside the spectrum of our tolerant religion, ethics and social and national values.” In an emergency meeting, Abbas told the heads of the PASF branches that they must hit everyone who breaks the law and violates the sanctity of Palestinian blood with “an iron fist,” according to Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat. After the meeting the PASF launched efforts to restore security. On July 5, it arrested a primary suspect, Sabri al-Kurdi, in the killing of the two PASF officers in Nablus. The following day, it arrested another suspect, his brother Sameh al-Kurdi, in a store in Kalandiya, near Ramallah. On Saturday, another four wanted individuals, who were hiding in an apartment in Jenin, were arrested and their weapons were confiscated. Zreikat warned that challenges lie ahead. “The intensified security effort has achieved some successes, but many goals have not been achieved. We are working to accomplish these goals.” Zreikat said the PASF has sent a request to Israel to allow its forces into Palestinian towns in Area C, where it is believed a number of criminals are hiding. He said only a few of PASF’s requests to operate in Area C in recent days have been approved. “Israel rejects the permanent presence of PASF officers in these regions. This is undermining the Palestinian security services and the enforcement of the law,” he said. As established in the Oslo Accords, Area C is under Israeli administrative and security control, but Israel sometimes allows PASF officers to enter Area C for short periods of time to carry out security work. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), responsible for security coordination with the PASF, said it cannot comment about security cooperation or internal Palestinian violence due to the sensitivity of the issues. Jenin and Nablus have suffered from disturbances for a long time; shootings and violent incidents have become commonplace in recent years. In 2007, when Nablus and Jenin faced a security crisis, the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) and newly appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad led a campaign to restore security. According to a 2010 International Crisis Group report, their efforts returned a sense of normalcy to those two cities. While the Palestinians are launching another effort to restore security, it is still unclear if it will be as successful as the 2007 campaign.

2016-07-11 02:42 Adam Rasgon www.jpost.com

39 Record traffic for the New Statesman website in June 2016 The New Statesman website had record web traffic in June, thanks to its intelligent, informative and passionate coverage of the EU referendum and its aftermath. The site registered more than four million unique users and 27 million page views in June. The most popular single article was Laurie Penny's response to the EU referendum and the death of Jo Cox, " I want my country back ", which was read by 2.6 million people. In a single day - 25 June - more than a million users visited the site. In total there were 4,091,832 unique visitors to the site in June. There were 27,291,666 page views. Jason Cowley, editor of the New Statesman , said: "In these momentous times there is real desire for honest, intelligent reporting and authoritative comment and analysis. Last month's record online traffic figures - boosted by the EU referendum and subsequent fallout - follow very strong online growth since our site relaunched in August last year. Our print magazine sales continue to grow and the New Statesman has not been in better shape for four decades. " Helen Lewis, deputy editor, added: "From social media to supermarket tills, the vote to leave the EU has driven millions of conversations about politics. The New Statesman website has responded by offering intelligent, informative critiques of our options for Brexit, extensive coverage of the fast-moving developments in the Tory leadership race and Labour's shadow cabinet revolt, and passionate polemic about what happens next. The NS now has more than 125,000 fans on both Facebook and Twitter, sharing our stories with their friends and family. " The newstatesman.com team has been boosted by the arrival of Julia Rampen as editor of the Westminster-focused Staggers blog. She joins politics editor George Eaton , special correspondent Stephen Bush and deputy web editor Anoosh Chakelian in reporting on politics inside and outside Westminster. The New Statesman was the first British periodical to launch an online edition (in 1995) and currently publishes all its magazine content online, free to view, a week after print publication. There are also PDF, Kindle and iPad editions of the magazine, published every Thursday. The website combines essays, cultural criticism and reportage with witty, irreverent and polemical blogs and social commentary. More than 40 per cent of the New Statesman's web traffic is generated by online readers sharing content on social media.

2016-07-11 02:18 George Eaton www.newstatesman.com

40 Oscar Pistorius sentenced to six years for murder Leader: The Iraq War and its aftermath Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius’s initial sentence of five years for manslaughter was overturned on appeal last December. The verdict was delivered by Judge Masipa at Pretoria’s High Court. Before delivering the verdict, Judge Masipa said: “The sentence that I impose will have to reflect the seriousness of the offence. It will, insofar as it is possible, be fair to the accused, as well as the deceased’s family, and society at large.” Pistorius was taken to jail immediately following the sentencing. Although prosecution and defence can appeal, both have since stated they intend not to. The verdict given by Judge Masipa is lower than some had expected. Murder in South Africa carries a mandatory minimum term of 15 years. On 14 February 2013, Pistorius fatally shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at their home in Pretoria, South Africa. In the initial trial, Pistorius admitted to shooting Steenkamp but claimed he thought she was an intruder. Prosecutors presented Pistorius as a jealous man, who killed his girlfriend in a fit of jealousy. In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for release after serving just ten months of his first sentence in prison. And in October of the same year he left prison to serve the remainder of his term under house arrest. Half of the six-year term must be served until he is eligible for parole. The publication of the Chilcot inquiry report on 6 July was belated but also timely. Many of the causes of the public’s vote to leave the European Union – the loathing of mainstream politicians, the distrust of the elite, the desire for the United Kingdom to disengage from the world – can be traced back to the decision to invade Iraq 13 years ago. On 15 February 2003, one million protesters in Britain marched against the war. They were expressing not only their opposition to the impending conflict in Iraq, but their disbelief about the infamous, and now debunked, claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be activated within 45 minutes. They were also voicing their scepticism about the ambitions of Tony Blair, who responded to the atrocities of 11 September 2001 by declaring, in a speech to the Labour party conference, “The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, soon they will settle again. ​Before they do, let us reorder this world around us.” The world has certainly been reordered since Blair’s speech, but not in ways that he promised. According to Iraq Body Count, up to 180,000 civilians have died in the various conflicts that have followed the invasion of Iraq in March 2003; the death toll, including combatants, exceeds 250,000. The blighted country remains in a state of war: a suicide bomb in Baghdad on 3 July killed more than 150 people. As our diarist Jeremy Bowen writes on page 21, Iraq “has not had a day of real peace since the invasion in 2003”. The latest attack was claimed by Islamic State, which grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a militant group that became active after the invasion and because of the botched US-led occupation. The Baghdad bombing ended four horrific weeks in which Islamic State was responsible for or inspired attacks that claimed more than 800 lives in Bangladesh, France, Libya, the Philippines, Turkey and the United States. Instead of creating a benign liberal democracy, the war in Iraq has emboldened violent jihadis and inflamed sectarian conflict. The country’s politics remain precarious and deeply unstable, defined by sectarianism that pits Arabs against Kurds, and Shias against Sunnis. Christians have fled or been “cleansed” from much of the region. The disorder in Iraq has gravely affected the wider Middle East, empowering Iran, heightening tensions with Saudi Arabia and greatly complicating the civil war in neighbouring Syria, where as many as 400,000 people have died since 2011 and many millions have been displaced. The instability in the Middle East has also contributed to the worst refugee crisis in Europe since the end of the Second World War. This crisis was shamelessly exploited by the Leave side in the EU referendum campaign. A week before the vote, Nigel Farage, who this week resigned from front-line politics, unveiled a poster showing a long queue of desolate refugees behind a caption declaring that Britain had reached “breaking point”. The mendacious claim that Turkey was on the verge of joining the EU – bringing 75 million people, mostly Muslims, into a free-movement zone – was repeated constantly by the Brexiteers. The Iraq War has also had a profound impact on the culture of British politics. It was the first in a chain of events, followed by the banking crash of 2008, the MPs’ expenses scandal, and the breaking of promises – notably the Liberal Democrats’ pledge to oppose any increase in university tuition fees – during the coalition government, which has culminated in a corrosive breakdown of trust in the elite. “People in this country have had enough of experts,” declared Michael Gove during the EU referendum campaign. He was proved right. Many of those who cast their vote for Leave were not merely ignoring the advice of leading politicians, banks and businesses; some appear to have been motivated by an active desire to antagonise this elite. All the while, the veracity or otherwise of the grand claims made by the Leave campaign was irrelevant. As we have discovered in the days since the vote, there was little plan for Brexit, just as there was little plan for a post-invasion reconstruction of Iraq. Once again, our politicians have focused on the necessity of winning over the public to their point of view, and given scant thought to what comes once they get what they have argued for. The UK is in an era of post-truth politics, for which the Iraq War and its legacy can take much of the blame.

2016-07-11 02:18 George Eaton www.newstatesman.com

41 The next wearable technology could be your skin Brain training: exposing the myth behind cognitive-enhancement games Technology can be awkward. Our pockets are weighed down with ever- larger smartphones, and attempts to introduce more easily accessible smart watches have so far fallen flat. But what if a part of your body could become your computer, with a screen on your arm and maybe even a direct link to your brain? Artificial electronic skin (e- skin) could one day make this a possibility. Researchers are developing flexible, bendable and even stretchable electronic circuits that can be applied directly to the skin. As well as turning your skin into a touchscreen, this could also help replace feeling if you’ve suffered burns or problems with your nervous system. The simplest version of this technology is essentially an electronic tattoo. In 2004, researchers in the US and Japan unveiled a pressure sensor circuit made from pre-stretched thinned silicon strips that could be applied to the forearm. But inorganic materials such as silicon are rigid and the skin is flexible and stretchy. So researchers are now looking to electronic circuits made from organic materials (usually special plastics or forms of carbon such as graphene that conduct electricity) as the basis of e-skin. Typical e-skin consists of a matrix of different electronic components – flexible transistors, organic LEDs, sensors and organic photovoltaic (solar) cells – connected to each other by stretchable or flexible conductive wires. These devices are often built up from very thin layers of material that are sprayed or evaporated onto a flexible base, producing a large (up to tens of cm 2 ) electronic circuit in a skin-like form. Much of the effort to create this technology in the last few years has been driven by robotics and a desire to give machines human-like sensing capabilities. We now have e-skin devices that can detect approaching objects and measure temperature and applied pressure. These can help robots work more safely by being more aware of their surroundings (and any humans that might get in the way). But if integrated with wearable technology , they could do the same for humans, detecting, for example, harmful movements during sport. The technology has also led to the creation of bendable screens , while at least one company is hoping to turn the skin into a touchscreen using sensors and a pico-projector rather than a display. But will we one day come to build this technology directly into our bodies, and how common will it be? The problem with organic electronics at the moment is that they aren’t very reliable and give relatively poor electronic performance. Just like real skin, the e-skin developed so far eventually develops wrinkles. These cause its layers to come apart and the circuits to fail. Plus, atoms in organic materials are more chaotically organised than the inorganic materials used to make traditional electronics. This means electrons move 1,000 times slower in organic materials, so devices made from them will operate much more slowly and would’t deal as well with the heat the circuits generate. Bio-compatibility The other big issue is how to integrate e-skin with the human body so that it doesn’t cause medical problems and so that it can interface with the nervous system. Organic materials are carbon-based (like our bodies) so in some senses are more likely to be biocompatible and not rejected by the body. But carbon particles are good at passing through the cells that make up our body and this would likely to lead to inflammation, generating an immune response that could even, according to certain unverified theories , generate tumours. However, scientists have already had some success linking electronic devices to the nervous system. Researchers at the University of Osaka are leading pioneering research to develop a brain implant from a flexible matrix of organic thin-film transistors that could be activated just by thinking. The difficulty is that such an invasive approach could lead to further problems, especially when we start testing the technology on humans. In coming years we are are likely to see prototype e-skin devices gaining momentum in the form of wearable bodily sensors, and potentially as a way to harvest energy from the body’s movement. What will take much longer are the more complicated circuits such as those found in smartphones. And the other big question we’ve yet to answer is how many people will accept permanent or semi-permanent electronic implants. Would you be willing to effectively become a cyborg? Only time will tell. Luca Santarelli is a PhD Candidate at UCL This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. If you’ve ever searched for a quick-fix to mental lethargy, it’s likely that you’ve browsed through your smartphone app store to take a look at the latest offerings of brain-training games. I certainly have. These games have been designed to sharpen people’s mental acuity, while offering “scientifically proven” means for improving IQs; through a variety of mini-games and careful documentation of improvements to intelligence parameters, people would wield the tools needed to craft the desired, smarter minds that the apps promise. And the market for them has showed no sign of slowing down. In the space of a few years, the demand for the apps has made the industry a billion- dollar one , with growth expected to continue. A couple of the most popular apps have included Lumosity , a web-based program boasting more than 50m users seeking to “improve memory, attention, flexibility, speed of processing and problem solving”, and mobile-based Peak , whose similar goals and striking visuals entice potential users. Though the apps have had huge amounts of success, there is a new body of research emerging to suggest that the successes may not be as a result of the games themselves, but because of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a phenomenon in which a dummy treatment or process can cause significant changes in a person – simply because that person believes the placebo (posing as a real treatment) will help them. With medication, it can be the mere presentation of a sugar pill disguised as a medicine which can cause a patient to get better. And in the case of apps and games, it seems that anything which promises users cognitive benefit, is more likely to do so. In a study entitled “Placebo effects in cognitive training” published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers found that participants who engaged in brain-training games for a single, one hour session showed improvements in IQ by up to ten points, but only if they believed the games would benefit them. The group of cognitive scientists from George Mason University, Virginia, set up the experiment in a particular way to determine whether or not the placebo effect was involved. 50 participants were recruited, after two different posters asking people to sign up to a study were plastered around campus: one labelled “brain training & cognitive enhancement” and the other “email today & participate in a study”. The rewards for the former promised boosts in intelligence, while rewards for the latter granted study credits. Unknown to participants, however, was that both tests were the same, meaning any resulting changes to IQ were as a result of what participants were telling themselves about the tests. The tests centred around the engagement of working memory and other factors to impact fluid intelligence – a type of intelligence which revolves around the application of logic and reason, independent of acquired knowledge. Those who chose to sign up to the “brain training & cognitive enhancement” study, aka the placebo study, were the ones to show remarkable gains in IQ after completing a post-brain games IQ test; gains of five to ten IQ points being made. Those who signed up for the control showed no signs of improvement. Speaking to the Huffington Post , researcher and co-author of the study Cyrus Foroughi said: “Placebos are very pervasive and they have to be controlled for in a tremendous number of fields. This field is no different. So we put together the study to actually test whether expectation for a positive effect can lead to a positive outcome.” Within the scientific community, frustration had already mounted as a result of the falsely promoted uses of brain games, particularly as tools to reverse age-related, cognitive-faltering illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease. Overstated claims through advertising were enough to encourage scientists to sign an open letter in 2014, condemning the inaccurately purported benefits of brain training games. Earlier this year, Lumosity was fined $2m by the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving consumers with “unfounded claims”. The recent findings strengthen this position, as the effects of cognitive training games seem less to do with the content of the games themselves, and more to do with what users tell themselves will happen after a session of, brain-training puzzle bonanzas. That’s not to say the games themselves don’t offer some benefit – it’s just that further clarification is needed to understand what they exactly contribute to, with the placebo effect factored in. While scientists expand on their research to pinpoint the real effects of brain games, it seems for now that the best options to keep our brains active are the ones we are most familiar with: learn a language , do some exercise , or maybe just read a book .

2016-07-11 02:18 George Eaton www.newstatesman.com

42 The unseen realm with Michael Heiser Contact WND Why did the Lord command the ancient Hebrews to wipe out entire people groups? Joel Richardson on the critical differences between two wars Joel Richardson explains why Jesus clearly was teaching eternal conscious torment for wicked Why the traditional position is indeed the correct and biblical stance Joel Richardson on why believes eternal conscious torment awaits the wicked Joel Richardson is joined by 2 Christian workers giving digital Bibles to refugees to Europe Daniel 11 cited as source of more information than any other part The reality on the ground Prophecy imminent? Or does the text reveal something else? Will Isaiah 17 soon to be fulfilled amid Syrian civil war? How has the Christian church inherited a distorted version of biblical hope? Could Bible prophecy reveal the next major war to unfold across the Middle East? Find out why terrorists put multi-million dollar bounty on Coptic priest Richardson: 'If I could only recommend 1 book this year, John P. Harrigan's would be it' What might we learn from Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish virgins? Dalton Thomas discusses serving Christians in the Middle East What is it like to live as an underground believer in the Middle East? Billy Ray, a Christian, recounts how ISIS swept into the region. What can we do as Christians in the midst of this? What is the primary sign that Jesus gave relating to the timing of the rapture? Discussing nationalism and the Kingdom of God Learn what God is doing in Israel and the Middle East Does Ezekiel 38-39 point to a coming invasion of Israel? Is it not the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy? Joel Richardson interviews key Christian leader on whether downfall looming Why did the Lord command the ancient Hebrews to wipe out entire people groups? Exclusive: David Rives asks if we can be Christian while believing in 'terrible lizards' Exclusive: Richard Rives reviews how 2 were blended in early times Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews author, minister James Goll Exclusive: David Rives reminds us complexity of molecular language bears fingerprint of our Creator Exclusive: Richard Rives warns aspects can still be found in aspects of contemporary Christianity Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews evangelist, minister, author David Hernandez Joel Richardson on the critical differences between two wars Exclusive: David Rives explains natural selection cannot create brand-new generic material Exclusive: Richard Rives warns against pastors who know truth but refuse to present it Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews evangelist Perry Stone Exclusive: David Rives poses thorny dilemma of moral consciousness and what makes humans different Exclusive: Richard Rives urges caution about adopting aspects of pagan worship Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews Christian cardiologist Dr. Chauncey Crandall Joel Richardson explains why Jesus clearly was teaching eternal conscious torment for wicked Exclusive: David Rives points out influences behind aesthetically pleasing, practical creations Exclusive: Richard Rives questions Roman leader's choice of god to worship Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews pastor Ron Phillips Exclusive: David Rives points out current holocaust no one will stop Exclusive: Richard Rives recounts when pagan influences began infiltrating believers in Yeshua Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews pastor, author Time Sheets Why the traditional position is indeed the correct and biblical stance Exclusive: David Rives notes biblical deluge key to understanding geological world Exclusive: Richard Rives reminds us reminds us what happens when we transgress the law Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews author, minister Bill Morford Exclusive: David Rives reviews Isaiah verse to explain galaxy expansion Exclusive: Richard Rives reminds us 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God' Exclusive: Sid Roth interviews pastor, author Kerry Kirkwood Joel Richardson on why believes eternal conscious torment awaits the wicked Exclusive: David Rives notes most changes are detrimental, not beneficial

2016-07-11 02:18 The Underground www.wnd.com

43 Dallas shootings: Police touched by outpouring of support For many people in Dallas this week, the police are heroes. And for the others - there's an uneasy truce. Police officer Chris Gilliam, 52, is a big, burly man, a 29- year veteran of the police force, and he rides a motorcycle. People don't usually give him flowers. But on Friday a long-stemmed red rose was lying next to one of the motorcycle tyres. The motorcycle was blocking off a street in downtown Dallas near the place where his colleagues had been killed the night before. Someone had left the rose there - part of an outpouring of support that Gilliam and other members of the police force received from the Dallas community on Friday. People were shocked and horrified by the way that officers were targeted and gunned down - and shared condolences, sympathy and bottled water, among other things, with the survivors. On the night of the carnage, a 25-year-old sniper, Micah Johnson, had used an AR-15 rifle to shoot and kill five officers: Lorne Ahrens; Michael Krol; Michael Smith; Brent Thompson, a Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer; and Patrick Zamarripa. Besides the dead, seven officers and two civilians were wounded in the attacks. The officers were shot during a protest by supporters of Black Lives Matter and others who had been campaigning against police violence. Tension between black protesters and white police officers has flared up over the past two years, and people had taken to the streets of Dallas after black men were killed by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota. Johnson, a former army private, was enraged by the treatment of African- Americans at the hands of the police. After the attacks in central Dallas, police cornered him in a parking garage. He said he wanted to kill white officers, and he had stockpiled bomb- making equipment, ammunition and rifles at his house. The police killed him with a robot and a bomb. The Dallas police chief, David Brown, spoke about the shootings of the police officers during a press conference on Friday morning. He also talked about the way that police officers are seen by members of the community - and that the officers themselves sometimes feel unappreciated. He said he hoped that things would be different on that day and that people would recognise the sacrifices that officers make. "We don't feel much support most days," he said. "Let's not make today most days. Please, we need your support to be able to protect you from men like these who carried out this tragic, tragic event. " The people who live in Dallas found it easy to follow his advice. In many US cities, police officers are feared and hated. But in Dallas things are a little different - the number of complaints against the police has fallen dramatically. The force has plenty of detractors, including some of those who were marching against violence in the police force on the night of the assaults. But many people in this Texas city admire their officers, who are trained to bring down the possibility of violent encounters - "de-escalation", as mayor Mike Rawlings explained in a press conference on Friday. He said that the police officers are drilled for these difficult situations. "We're one of the premier community policing cities in the country," he said. "This year we have the fewest police officer-related shootings than any large city in America. " The Dallas police force has maintained its record in part because the officers receive training in diversity and other aspects of community police work. One police officer, Paul Kovach, who works in the southeast patrol division, said that the police department also runs outreach programmes so senior officers can spend time with students, teaching them about police work. On Friday Kovach said that he saw "a big outpouring of appreciation" from people in the community. Standing on patrol at the airport, he watched travellers walk down the hallway and described what it was like to work with the community that morning. "Just a lot of people thanking us," he said. "And praying for us. " Gilliam spent much of the day standing next to his motorcycle, blocking off a street in the downtown area where the shootings had occurred. The neighbourhood had been turned into a crime scene, with yellow police tape wrapped around trees and motorcycle barricades set up for the investigation. Empty pizza boxes - lunch was a gift from strangers - were stacked near him at a traffic light, a light that blinked red and orange all day. It was hot on the corner, with a breeze that moved things around but didn't seem to cool anything. A soldier dressed in camouflage walked up to Gilliam and offered him a bottle of Gatorade. Then the soldier glanced down and saw he'd just finished a sport drink. "Oh, you already got one," said the soldier, heading off to find an officer who was still thirsty. Nearby a memorial was made of soft toys, candles and flowers. People had hung a sign ("THANK YOU DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT") from a building. One man, a military veteran, walked up to Gilliam and asked me to take a picture of them, standing together. "We feel the support," he told me. The shootings of police officers made even the critics of the police force soften their language. One of these critics, Greg Johnson, a stage technician, came into a convenience store in the neighbourhood with a colleague, Keelen Whitfield, during their lunch break. Johnson said he resented the way police officers carry heavy weaponry and artillery when dealing with the community. He said that they tote around the kind of weapons that are used in war zones. "Why do you have to got so militarised? " he said, describing the police force. Still he didn't condone the violence. "At the end of the day, those police officers - they're innocent," he said. Standing next to his friend, Whitfield said he hoped that the shootings, however brutal, might change things - and that the other police officers would re-examine the way they act towards members of the community. "The police may get the message to kind of tone it down on African Americans," he said. In a park near the convenience store, Eric Adejuwon, 17, an activist with Black Lives Matter, was eating a microwaved cheeseburger near a spot where he'd marched the night before - and heard the shootings. Wearing a Malcolm X T-shirt and a piece of ivory carved in the shape of Africa, Adejuwon said he was worried the police will retaliate against him and other activists, cracking down on their organisation. "There's a fear," he said. Yet this weekend, at least, the police officers and protesters appear to have reached a truce. For the activists, it is a time to reflect - and plan for the future. For the officers, it is a period of grief. "It's been the worst day of my 29-year career," Gilliam told me. The thoughtful gestures, he said, were appreciated.

2016-07-11 02:17 By Tara www.bbc.co.uk

44 BBC comedy classics go on display Much-loved British comedians and sitcom stars are being celebrated in a new exhibition. Comedy faces from Frankie Howerd to Ricky Gervais are on display at the Compton Verney art gallery in Warwickshire from 9 July. BBC Faces of Comedy is showing 100 pictures ranging from the 1950s to the present day. Leading comics have curated the exhibition - including Have I Got News For You panellist Paul Merton and the star of Citizen Khan, Adil Ray. Here they talk about some of their favourite comedy moments. "This was the first time I remember seeing comedy that had the power to move you as well as just make you laugh," says Merton. The show centred on a father and son struggling in the rag-and-bone trade. There was a moment in the first episode, called The Offer, which Merton remembers especially. "The son is trying to leave. He's trying to leave the scrapyard behind. He's trying to leave his dad behind. "He's trying to move this cart on his own and he can't shift it and he breaks down in tears. No other comedian up to this point would have dared play a scene like this," explains Merton. "And then the brilliance of the next line - the old man says, 'Never mind, son, I'll make you some sausages.' I think that's heartbreaking. One word, just one word that conjures up - I'm going to look after you. " "I think people do look back and go, 'Oh, you couldn't do that any more,'" says Adil Ray. Till Death Us Do Part first aired in 1965. "It's a little bit racist, a little bit offensive. But we loved it in our house. I remember watching it with my dad, my Pakistani father, and I think we completely got it. " The sitcom focused on one family in London's East End and the controversial views of the father, Alf Garnett. "Yes, he's offensive and yes, he says the wrong things but he's vulnerable, he feels threatened by this ever-changing society around him," explains Ray. "What was important was that he didn't get away with it. " "I was about 12 at the time," says Merton. The series began as a radio show before eventually making it to television. "You'd hear that Hancock was coming on and you'd have this reel-to-reel tape recorder and this microphone that you'd hold in front of the loudspeaker to tape it, quite illegally of course. And then your mother would come in halfway through, say something, and then it would be on there forever. "I would play back this show and try and practise comic timing by copying how they were doing it," he adds. Michael Crawford was famous for doing his own stunts in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. "There was this very famous roller skates sequence where he gets up on a bus and under a truck and ends up in a removal van. It was genius," recalls Ray. "If I wanted to try and do any of those stunts on Citizen Khan, I'd have to fill in about 50 health and safety forms. " The physical comedy in the show is what gives it international appeal, says Ray. "The time that I realised how brilliant this show is was when I went to Kenya and saw that they still play it on Kenyan television and it's dubbed in Swahili. " "My first real memory of anarchic, surreal humour was undoubtedly The Goons," says Merton. "Here we have them clowning around with an early TV camera. It looks like a cross between a lawnmower and a Volkswagen. " It started life as a radio show, he explains. "It showed the power of radio to conjure up jokes. "In radio anything is possible - the sound effects tell the story. " "I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's probably the Bible of sitcom," says Ray. "Only ever 12 episodes filmed, but you sit and watch them and as a writer, viewer or performer, you learn something from it every time. "It was the energy they had and how they managed to keep it up. You watched John Cleese and saw that in every scene there was more and more sweat gathering on his forehead. " "It was 1975, the day that England beat Scotland about 5-1 at Wembley and I went to see a recording of Dad's Army," remembers Merton. The episode was My Brother and I, where Arthur Lowe plays the part of his estranged twin for a special episode. "But because it was the day of the slaughter of the Scots by the English at football, John Laurie came out and went 'Oh, dear', and the whole audience laughed because they knew what he was talking about. "What a magnificent thing to work on a programme like that, that creates such joy and such laughter. " "Only Fools and Horse for me is the ultimate in sitcom when it comes to hearts and family and all those things that really matter," says Ray. "In comedy, when we're writing at least, the jokes actually come afterwards. What you're really trying to get is the reason why people will care and watch the show. In a sense you're writing the drama first. " Only Fools and Horses focuses on the relationship between Derek "Del Boy" Trotter and his younger brother Rodney. "They were brothers but they were like father and son, they were mates, they were married, it was all of that and it was utterly brilliant. They must have felt like brothers off set," adds Ray. "The Young Ones was one of the first TV shows I was actually in," remembers Merton. "I went up to Bristol one morning, at about half six to film a moment where I was sitting on a log. " The series was broadcast in the early 80s and "completely changed what a sitcom was", he adds. "You might take the elements of a surreal sketch that Spike Milligan might have done but then you make it into a half-hour. "The rules were broken and characters could become anything. " "To the Manor Born was an absolutely huge show," says Ray. "For me, it was the experience. I was again quite young and would watch it with my mum. " More than 30 years after watching the show as a child, Ray ended up working with one of its stars. "The interesting and really weird thing is that I've ended up working with Peter Bowles. He was so gracious and accepted a guest part in the last series of Citizen Khan. "I used to just sit there watching it with my mum - and who knew that one day I would be doing the same thing? And I think that's a message for us all. Sitcom connects so much for us, and it can really push something inside of you and make you really want to tell your story. " For more from the BBC's archives visit Rewind on Facebook and Twitter If you are interested in discovering more about the BBC, visit the History of the BBC website.

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

45 ANOTHER Texas Police Department Takes Gunfire Yet another Texas police department was attacked with gunfire Saturday, and authorities are looking for the person responsible. Authorities say someone opened fire on the San Antonio police headquarters Saturday night but no one was hurt. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said authorities found “ bullet marks ” on the wall of the headquarters. Police took one person into custody but said that person is not a suspect. Authorities are searching for another suspect, The San Antonio Express News reports. “We don’t know what the motive was,” McManus said. “If someone was randomly firing or if they saw a big building and decided to shoot at it, or other motives.” McManus pointed out the timing with the shooting of police in Dallas was “too coincidental.” The bomb squad investigated a car left near the crime scene that may be connected. Authorities found shell casings nearby and said the suspect was wearing blue pants and an orange shirt. The shooting comes as police around the country are on edge after a lone gunman shot 12 Dallas cops, killing five, during a Black Lives Matter protest Thursday. Black Lives Matter protesters angry about the deaths of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana sparked protests around the country Saturday , with hundreds arrested. Authorities reported that protesters threw bottles, bricks, fireworks and more at cops. Send tips to [email protected]. Follow Casey on Twitter and like him on Facebook. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

46 Facebook Is Finally Removing That Viral Picture Of Cop’s Throat Being Slit Facebook has begun removing a now-viral drawing of a cop’s throat being slit from some users’ accounts while it’s being allowed to remain on others’ pages, the company tells The Daily Caller. The graphic image began circulating on the social media site — as well as Twitter — earlier this week after the police-involved shootings of two black men. The picture, which is a picture of a painting by an artist named Cepeda Brunson, bears resemblance to the disturbing video footage of ISIS members cutting the throats of Western hostages released in recent years. WARNING: EXTREMELY DISTURBING IMAGE BELOW In the picture, a cloaked figure is shown cutting a kneeling police officer’s throat, with blood pouring out of the open wound. On Saturday, The Daily Mail reported that Facebook was refusing to take down the image. After one user reported the image’s appearance on the Black Panther Party of Mississippi’s Facebook page, the company said it would allow the content to remain on its site. “We reviewed the post you reported for promoting graphic violence and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards,” Facebook responded to the user, The Daily Mail reported. A similar response was provided to a Facebook user who reported Brunson’s post of his painting on that platform. Brunson’s painting has since been removed from his Facebook page. It is also absent from the Black Panther Party of Mississippi’s page. It does remain on Brunson’s Twitter account. The painter added a comment to the image which reads “American Freedom Fighter R. I. P. #AltonSterling.” Sterling was fatally shot by Baton Rouge police Tuesday outside of a convenience store. The painting sparked outrage on social media after it was published. But it took on new significance Thursday night after 25-year-old Micah X. Johnson killed five police officers in Dallas during a protest over Sterling’s killing and that of Philando Castile, who was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota. Johnson, who was killed during a standoff with police, embraced the black liberation ideology of the Black Panther party and other radical groups. He reportedly told police negotiators before his death that he had wanted to kill white people, especially white cops. While Facebook has started removing the blood-curdling image from some users’ accounts, it remains on others. That’s because the company is allowing the drawing to remain on a users’ page if it is shared in a way that condemns violence and has text explicitly condemning violence, Facebook spokeswoman Andrea Saul told TheDC on Sunday. If it is shared as a call to action against police — or if it is shared without commentary — it is removed, she said. Saul said that the decision to remove the image is made on a case-by-case basis and by employees of the company, not by computer algorithm. She declined to comment on the company’s internal deliberations on the issue or the timeline of those discussions. Twitter did not respond to TheDC’s request for comment about its decision to not remove Brunson’s painting. “American Freedom Fighter” R. I. P #altonsterling pic.twitter.com/ium62uCTsE — Cepeda Brunson (@paintingsbypeda) July 6, 2016 Follow Chuck on Twitter

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

47 CMPD Chief Putney speaks at Transformation Church in Indian Land Readers share their videos from a protest in uptown Charlotte Thursday night. Caroline Aufgebauer has a hearing disability, but that did not stop her from performing well on a national Spanish exam. She has developed her own learning methods and now speaks three languages. Protesters blocked Trade and Tryon Streets in uptown Charlotte late Thursday night. They were protesting the killing by police of two black men in separate incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota. Protesters continue to march in Charlotte, stopping traffic at center of city at Trade and Tryon. Raw video by Tony Lone Fight Charlotte residents Ryan Baker, 17, Sierra Arnold, 16, and Symone Johnson, 16, discuss their reaction to recent police shootings of African- American men. According to Latresha Wilson, program manager of Bell READy at Grand Oak Elementary, about 160 children are participating in the five-week literacy program this Summer. Mecklenburg County officials are considering a plan that would take water from the U. S. National Whitewater Center blamed in the death of a teenager and dump it into the Catawba River. WBTV meteorologist Lyndsay Tapases with The Charlotte Observer weather forecast for July 7, 2016. Duo from Spartanburg, S. C., talks about cleaning and polishing Panthers mascot statues.

2016-07-11 02:17 www.charlotteobserver.com

48 Despite hearing disability, she's trilingual Joe Clifford, the newly elected head pastor of Myers Park Presbyterian Church, shares his journey of faith. A vigil was held Friday night at New Christian Outreach Center in response to the shootings of Dallas police officers. “Hurt has no color, and there needs to be healing in this land,” said Pastor Brenda Stevenson. “All lives matter, and I’m ready for the killing to stop.” Charlotte's professional hockey team, the Charlotte Checkers, introduced its new head coach Friday afternoon. Ulf Samuelsson is joining the organization. He has 16 years as a defensiveman in the NHL. City and community leaders came together at Belmont Regional Center Friday to stand united and to discuss Charlotte's response to recent tragic events around the country. Readers share their videos from a protest in uptown Charlotte Thursday night. Protesters blocked Trade and Tryon Streets in uptown Charlotte late Thursday night. They were protesting the killing by police of two black men in separate incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota. Protesters continue to march in Charlotte, stopping traffic at center of city at Trade and Tryon. Raw video by Tony Lone Fight A group of marchers started at Time Warner Cable Arena Thursday night and ended with speeches at Romare Bearden Park. The group protested the separate shootings of two black men, one in Louisiana and another in Minnesota. Charlotte residents Ryan Baker, 17, Sierra Arnold, 16, and Symone Johnson, 16, discuss their reaction to recent police shootings of African- American men. The Charlotte Hornets introduced center Roy Hibbert and point guard Ramon Sessions during a new conference on Thursday at Time Warner Cable Arena.

2016-07-11 02:17 www.charlotteobserver.com

49 Analysis: Solar Subsidies Aren't Leading To More Solar Power America isn’t even close to getting enough energy from wind and solar power to the levels Democrats say are required despite extremely

lucrative subsidies, according to an analysis of 2014 data from the U. S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) conducted by The Daily Caller News Foundation. A draft of the Democratic Party’s proposed platform for this year’s election would require every state get 50 percent of its electricity from “clean sources” by 2020 and 100 percent by 2050. Though the platform never defines what constitutes a “clean” source, wind and solar energy are the only “clean” sources that can significantly expand. Wind and solar power provided 4.4 and 0.4 of all electricity produced in America in 2014 respectively, according to the EIA. Last year, wind and solar power only accounted for 4.7 and 0.6 percent of all electricity generated in America respectively, according to data from the EIA. Hydropower and biofuels account for six and 1.6 percent of all electricity generated last year, but both are increasingly targeted by the green movement, difficult to rapidly expand and dependent upon regional conditions. This means that the percent of wind power provided substantially more electricity, but grew at a slow rate of less than 6.4 percent, while solar produced far less electricity, but grew at a much faster rate of 50 percent. If both wind and solar power continue growing at their present rates, they will only provide 6.41 and 4.56 percent of America’s electricity by the 2020 deadline. That’s only one-fifth of the electricity called for by the proposed Democratic platform, even if the extremely high growth rates of wind and solar continue. Even if hydropower, biofuels and geothermal,which are either growing at much slower rates or cannot be expanded, are added in, that would still only account for less than 20 percent of American electricity by 2020. Claiming that America will get 50 percent of its electricity from “clean” power by 2020 is therefore exceedingly unrealistic, even with generous subsidies. Green energy generation is concentrated in only a handful of states, making the situation much worse. The EIA doesn’t break down wind power use by the state level, but its does for solar in 2014 , and the results show that there may be no good way of encouraging solar power to grow more rapidly. Data From US Energy Information Administration Mapped By The DCNF Out of the 50 US states, only Hawaii, California, Arizona and Florida got more than 1 percent of energy from solar power. Each one of these states has noticeably favorable weather environments for solar power. Only California had a notably high number of pro-solar power state policies and a majority of US states got less than 0.1 percent of their energy from solar power in 2014. Statistical regressions run by The DCNF found no statistically significant correlation between the number of policies and the percentage of solar power obtained by the state. The DCNF mapped and displayed the data to demonstrate this clear lack of correlation. Data From Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency, Mapped By The DCNF Objectively, Hawaii gets a higher portion of its electricity from solar than any other state, getting 3.66 percent of its energy from solar. However, Hawaii only has 29 policies supporting green energy, which is far fewer than the national average of 51 policies. Minnesota gets a mere 0.031 percent of its energy from solar, even though it has 141 pro-green energy policies, making it the second most pro-solar regulatory environment in the nation. Other states like Colorado, Oregon, Texas, New York and Washington all had at least 90 pro-green energy policies, but all get less of their electricity from solar than the national average. Alaska, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming got so little energy from solar power that the EIA found that the amount was legally indistinguishable from zero. A 2014 study by the left-leaning Brookings Institution found wind power is twice as expensive as the conventional power it replaces and that solar is three times as expensive. Solar power gets 326 times more in subsidies than coal, oil, and natural gas per amount of energy generated, according to 2013 Department of Energy data collected by Forbes . Solar power by itself receives more federal subsidies than all fossil fuel sources combined, according to the EIA. Green energy in the U. S. got $13 billion in subsidies during 2013, compared to $3.4 billion in subsidies for conventional sources and $1.7 billion for nuclear, according to EIA data. Solar companies simply cannot maintain their current high levels of growth without government support , but even more support likely won’t speed up that growth enough to meet the Democrat’s goals. . Most solar subsidies go to residential installations and include a 30 percent federal tax credit , while wind is usually industrial scale and is thus somewhat more efficient per dollar spent. Solar-leasing companies install rooftop systems, which cost a minimum of $10,000 , at no upfront cost to the consumer. Companies do this because the state and federal subsidies are so massive that such behavior is actually profitable. The DCNF previously used statistical analysis to show that the more pro- green energy policies a state has, the less likely it was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Daily Caller intern Josh Delk contributed to this report. Follow Andrew on Twitter Send tips to andrew@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org . Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 Energy Environmental dailycaller.com

50 Newspaper headlines: Andy Murray's triumph and May's pledges Murray is also pictured on the front page of the Daily Telegraph. The paper's lead story concerns Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom, who has made a personal apology to Theresa May - her rival for the party's top job - after appearing to suggest being a mother made her better placed to be prime minister. In an interview with the paper, Mrs Leadsom says she contacted the home secretary, who has no children, to say she was sorry for any hurt caused.

2016-07-11 02:17 By Rob www.bbc.co.uk

51 National Living Wage has not led to job losses Employers have responded to the new National Living Wage (NLW) by raising prices or reducing profits rather than cutting jobs, according to a new survey from the Resolution Foundation. The wage, which requires employers to pay staff aged 25 and over at least £7.20 an hour, was introduced in April. This report is the first snapshot of how firms have reacted to the NLW. It comes after the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted it would lead to 60,000 job losses by 2020. Five hundred companies, covering a range of UK businesses, were questioned just before the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. Some 36% of those affected by the NLW said they had put up their prices to compensate for the higher wage cost, while 29% said they had reduced their profits. Despite reports of some employers cutting back on staff terms and conditions, the survey found that only 8% had cut paid breaks, overtime or bank holiday pay. Separately, the not-for-profit Resolution Foundation think tank warned the UK's decision to leave the EU could affect the government's new wage policy. It said the so-called Brexit would likely reshape the landscape in which many low pay sectors operate, creating huge uncertainty about the outlook for earnings over the coming years. Weaker wage growth, it said, could reduce the current projected real terms value of the NLW by up to 40 pence an hour by 2020. The policy was announced in last summer's Budget by Chancellor George Osborne, in what he said was a move to create a higher-wage, lower- welfare economy. Workers aged 21 to 24 continue to be paid the National Minimum Wage of £6.70 an hour. The DIY chain B&Q, supermarket Tesco, coffee chain Caffe Nero and the John Lewis Partnership have all this year reduced some staff payments or perks, but most have said the moves were unrelated to the 50p-an-hour increase in the National Living Wage (NLW).

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

52 Andrea Leadsom apologises to Theresa May over 'motherhood' remark Andrea Leadsom has apologised to Theresa May after she was accused of suggesting being a mother made her a better candidate for prime minister. The energy minister told the Daily Telegraph: "I've already said to Theresa how very sorry I am for any hurt I have caused. " The row broke out after Mrs Leadsom said having children meant she had "a very real stake" in Britain's future. She later said having children had "no bearing on the ability to be PM". Mrs Leadsom made her original comments during an interview in the Times, in which she discussed her bid to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, and therefore the UK's next prime minister. The article quoted Mrs Leadsom as saying Mrs May, the home secretary who is her opponent in the leadership race, "possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people. "But I have children who are going to have children who will directly be part of what happens next". As part of her apology, Mrs Leadsom has said motherhood should not play a part in the Tory leadership campaign and adds that she deeply regrets "that anyone has got the impression that I think otherwise". She went on to say the Times article "said completely the opposite of what I said and believe" and that the criticism she faced since left her feeling "under attack, under enormous pressure - it has been shattering". "I was pressed to say how my children had formed my views. I didn't want it to be used as an issue," she also said. Among those criticising Mrs Leadsom were business minister Anna Soubry, who said her comments meant she was "not PM material" while Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said there was a "gulf in class" between the two candidates. Senior MP Sir Alan Duncan said the energy minister's remarks were "vile". However, Mrs Leadsom's key supporter Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, has said she is facing a "black-ops" campaign by MPs who want to "denigrate her reputation".

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

53 Angela Eagle launches leader bid 'to heal Labour' Angela Eagle has said her Labour leadership challenge is a bid to "heal the party", as leader Jeremy Corbyn urged her to "think again". "This isn't about splitting, this is about reuniting our party," she said. Mr Corbyn, who was elected by Labour members but is now opposed by many of his own MPs, said he was "disappointed" but would fight the challenge. Labour's ruling National Executive Committee will decide whether he must seek MPs' nominations to run again. Owen Smith: Corbyn 'prepared to see Labour split' Labour leadership election rules Who's in and who's out of the shadow cabinet? Mr Corbyn has faced dozens of resignations from his front bench in the weeks since the EU referendum. He had been accused of failing to win over Labour voters to the Remain side and many of his MPs feel he would not lead the party to victory, should there be a snap general election following David Cameron's decision to resign as prime minister. After losing a no confidence motion among Labour MPs by 172 votes to 40, it is thought he may struggle to get the backing of 20% of Labour MEPs and MPs - 51 names - needed to get on the ballot paper in a leadership contest. If the NEC - the governing body and administrative authority of the party - rules he has to get 51 nominations to defend his leadership and he fails to do so, his name would not go forward to a vote of the wider membership. But Mr Corbyn told the BBC he was "expecting to be on the ballot paper because the rules of the party indicate that the existing leader, if, challenged, should be on the ballot paper anyway". Asked if he would go to court should the NEC rule against him, Mr Corbyn said: "I will challenge that, if that is the view they take. " Union leader Len McCluskey has warned of "a lasting division" in the party if Mr Corbyn's name does not appear. Ms Eagle told the BBC's Sunday Politics it was "not clear from the Labour Party rules", but added: "Anyone who aspires to lead who cannot get 51 members... is not going to be able to do the job properly. " By BBC political correspondent Chris Mason Here is the row for Labour over the next few days: The rules for leadership elections. And here is the row for Labour after that: What does its future look like? Crucially, one could determine the other, but there are no easy answers whatever happens. If Jeremy Corbyn wins again, what do the 80% of Labour MPs who think he is a loser do? If Mr Corbyn is beaten, or not able to stand, tens if not hundreds of thousands of Labour supporters will feel cheated, even robbed. That is why there is now open talk of Labour splitting in two: A party whose history can be traced back to the dawn of the 20th Century, ceasing to exist as we have long known it to. The former shadow business secretary, who is to officially launch her leadership challenge on Monday , told BBC Radio 5 live's Pienaar's Politics: "I think we need someone who can heal the party. " She said deputy leader Tom Watson, chief whip Rosie Winterton and Parliamentary Labour Party chairman John Cryer had been trying to get him to recognise he had to quit, but added: "Jeremy's just not listening. You can't lead stuck in your office refusing to listen to the people who are meant to be your colleagues. " Mr Corbyn told the BBC he was "disappointed" Ms Eagle had chosen to run against him and would fight any bid to keep him off the ballot paper. He said: "I would ask her to think for a moment - this is the opportunity of the party to unite against what the Tories are doing to put forward an agenda that is different from the austerity agenda put forward by the Tories and gain a lot of ground. " Mr Corbyn, who was backed by more than 250,000 Labour members in last year's leadership election, and won with almost 60% of the vote on the first ballot, added: "I would be irresponsible if I walked away from a mandate that I was given and a responsibility that I was given. " Mr McCluskey, head of the Unite union which is Labour's biggest donor, said: "I must warn that any attempts to keep Jeremy Corbyn, elected just 10 months ago with an enormous mandate, off the ballot paper by legal means risks a lasting division in the party. " But senior Labour MP Margaret Hodge attacked Mr Corbyn: "I'm beginning to think he's actually a devious man who is more concerned with destroying the Labour Party than he is with creating a force that can win an election at such difficult times and can unite the party. " And Labour's Owen Smith, who is also thought to be considering a leadership bid, claimed Mr Corbyn was prepared to see the party split - something denied by Mr Corbyn himself.

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

54 FGM: 'More community funding needed' to maintain progress Community groups involved in an initiative to tackle female genital mutilation in England and Wales have warned that future progress could be threatened by a lack of local funding. Over six years, the Tackling FGM Initiative has given £2.8m of funding to community-based prevention schemes. It said in a report that the funding had helped spark a necessary debate about FGM. But it added that maintaining momentum would be difficult without more money. The initiative was set up by five charitable trusts, including Comic Relief, to discourage the cutting of girls' sexual organs. As well as funding the work of dozens of community groups, the money also paid for the training of more than 6,000 teachers and healthcare staff in how to spot and respond to the illegal act of female genital mutilation. Under the scheme, people were encouraged to work within their own communities. For example, a Somali elder in Bolton recruited other men in his community to emphasise the need to protect their daughters. But the Tackling FGM Initiative's report said there was still a lack of clarity over who should be funding future FGM prevention work. It said local authorities, health and wellbeing boards, and public health or clinical commissioning groups all had a part to play. The report says it is difficult to measure the success of preventing FGM because of the lack of data about an illegal procedure, but, using surveys, it found attitudes to FGM had changed. It concludes that awareness of FGM has increased, particularly among women, and there has been a strong focus on educating young people from a wide range of communities. But the report warns that funding is still the major barrier to ending mutilation and the authors say, in the current financial climate, it will be difficult to maintain progress. It said: "There is good evidence that the community-based approach has worked with a range of audiences within communities affected by FGM and has started to create a critical mass of people who are opposed to the practice. "

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

55 In the line of duty: How often are US police killed? The US is reeling after a week of shootings, ending with a deadly ambush on police that left five officers dead and seven others injured in Texas. The attack, which took place at a Dallas protest over recent police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, is considered the deadliest day for US police in the country since the 9/11 attacks, according to records published by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The gunman, 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, told negotiators he was upset about police killings of black people and wanted to kill white officers. But as the nation continues a conversation on racism and police relations, Thursday's attack highlights the dangers that officers face in the line of duty. So far in 2016, 56 US law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty, 26 of whom were killed by gunfire, according to data from the Officer Down Memorial Page. However, experts say annual totals can be misleading. David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, says we cannot predict how many police killings will take place through the remainder of 2016, which makes it difficult to determine if police killings are on the rise. "Trends are up and down year to year," he says. For example, 2015 marked a record low with 16 officers killed by gunfire during this period, which makes 2016 look particularly high in comparison, says Seth Stoughton, a former policeman and University of South Carolina law professor. However, over the last 10 years, an average of 27 officers were killed by gunfire that was not accidental during the same period, according to Mr Stoughton, citing the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted data. "You have to look at longer term trends," Mr Stoughton says. "At best, comparing two years of information is useless and at worst, it's misleading. " The number of police fatalities in the US is a lot higher than the UK, where the average number killed annually since World War Two is between three and four. While police officer deaths have been more frequent in recent years, they still are increasingly rare, Mr Stoughton adds. FBI data shows that the average number of officers killed feloniously (not accidental or due to a medical emergency) is on an overall downward trend. The decrease can be attributed to several factors, including better police training, equipment and medical care. However, there is a perception that the US has seen more ambush-style attacks on officers such as the incident in Dallas, Stoughton says. For example, two of the deadliest days in law enforcement history took place in 2009. Four members of the Lakewood Police Department in Washington state were shot and killed in an ambush attack by a lone gunman in November 2009. In March of the same year, four members of the Oakland Police Department in California were shot and killed by the same gunman in two related incidents. "The type of violence against police is viewed as changing," Mr Stoughton says, adding that the US often focuses on high-profile police deaths. Though the number of officer deaths is decreasing, the rise and fall of totals each year make the number look more dramatic than it actually may be. There is no universal standard for police equipment, however, a vast majority of officers are equipped with a firearm. The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) allows officers to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the US, regardless of state or local laws, with certain exceptions. Some police departments also use bullet proof vests, pepper spray, Tasers and other conductive electricity weapons as well as bean bag shot guns. While experts say police officers are prepared to handle situations like the gunman in Dallas, there is some training many police departments neglect to offer. "Some officers are not adequately prepared to understand that building good relationships with the communities they serve is an officer safety issue," Mr Stoughton says. The long term relationship between police and community is essential to officer safety, he says. Too often an officer is trained to treat every situation as if it's a deadly encounter. "The problem is there is so much preparation about the possible presence of deadly dangers that every encounter becomes confused with the idea that it can turn deadly in a heartbeat," Mr Harris adds. "The first rule in law enforcement is to make it home at the end of your shift," Mr Stoughton, a former officer says. "That doesn't make me want to go out and build long-term relationships with people. " Reporting by Courtney Subramanian

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

56 56 Your pictures: Handmade Doris Enders: "Handmade floats on a fishing net. " Philip Field: "Marion Walker, a ceramicist based in the Berkshire Downs, uses her hands to start crafting a pot on a spinning wheel. " Ruth Humphreys: "Homemade breakfast, set against the wooden backdrop of a wooden handmade table, my eldest son made with his grandfather. " Jennifer Mishra: "I wanted a bit of colour on my patio. This sign is made up of scrap wood, brightly painted with some of my favourite places... and how far away they are from my patio. " Phil Mills: "Handmade floating artwork works its way down Regent Street in London at the London Lumiere event. " Reyhana Khan: "Each one handmade individually with a lot of love to celebrate Eid this week and marking the end of Ramadan. Tuck in, everyone! " George Olney: "These beautiful Corn Husk dolls are handmade in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Several artisan groups try to keep the tradition alive. " Mihika Kulkarni: "My mother and grandmother have always been extremely proficient at embroidery, crochet and other needlework. My school vacations always involved some project or another. As an adult I love to keep in touch with my artsy-craftsy side and this is my first embroidery project since moving to the USA. " Mh Zhou: "The two women are concentrating on hand-making lace. Their works on display are so delicate and exquisite. I took the photo at the street in Dubrovnik, Croatia. " Phillippa Davies: "In celebration of Wales’s outstanding football sporting success so far I have designed and handmade the Welsh dragon's wings neckpiece in solid silver. " Mike Finn: "We watched as perfect handmade special puffy rolls were pulled from the blazing pizza oven in Beuzec-Cap-Sizun - Fete des Bruyeres, in Brittany. " And, finally, a picture by of bracelets made by Andrew Oliver. The next theme is "Posters" and the deadline for your entries is 12 July. If you would like to enter, send your pictures to [email protected]. Further details and terms can be found by following the link to "We set the theme; you take the pictures" at the bottom of the page.

2016-07-11 02:17 www.bbc.co.uk

57 Analysis: Something positive at last The visit here of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry during these troubled times in the Middle East is encouraging, the third significant step taking by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toward thawing the cold peace. The first was returning an Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv six months ago, and the second was his speech in May, in which he declared his desire to assist Israel and the PA in reaching a peace agreement. Visits by Egyptian foreign ministers to Israel are few and far between. In the past, a succession of Israeli foreign ministers and indeed Israeli heads of state made the trip to Cairo for consultations with their Egyptian counterparts. But Shoukry’s visit also speaks to the improved security cooperation between the two countries, especially in the field of intelligence. Sisi would like to extend that cooperation to sectors which sorely need it, such as economy, science, hi-tech and agriculture. However he is proceeding cautiously in order not to stir the anger of the old elites of his country – essentially the Islamic establishment on one hand, and the nationalist circles still faithful to Nasserist pan-Arab ideology – who after 37 years of peace have not forgotten their hatred of the Jewish State. In order to develop relations with Israel, the Egyptian president is taking a circuitous route by tackling the Palestinian issue. After all, Sadat and Mubarak had already invested considerable efforts in the matter. There is no doubt that by sending his foreign affairs minister, Sisi is flexing his muscle and showing that he is fully in charge after two years in power. The visit is intended to show the world – and especially the Arab world – that Egypt is reclaiming its leading position in the Middle East. The country is now relatively stable: economic growth in 2015 was 4.2 percent, and similar numbers are expected for the current year. This economic progress is not enough for a country of 91 million inhabitants, where too many live under the poverty line, and where the economy suffered for five catastrophic years followed the fall of Mubarak. Sisi can also boast of his relative success in fighting Islamic terrorism in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. More than 1,000 terrorists have been killed, but the battle is not yet over. Shoukry has stated that it is both imperative and possible to achieve a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and that it would be a game changer for the region – something that world and local leaders are apt to say on various occasions. Unfortunately, they are all well aware that such an agreement would not deflect Jihadi organizations from their goal, which is to impose a caliphate first on the Middle East and then on the rest of the world. Nevertheless, the fact that a country of the stature of Egypt is ready to throw its weight behind finding a solution cannot be ignored by Israel and the Palestinians. Can the abyss between their respective positions be bridged? That would require serious work. Shoukry was at pains to underline that he was not bringing a specific proposal, and he mentioned the French initiative which Israel rejects. His visit also testifies to the resurgence of the pragmatic alliance comprised of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Jordan to fight Islamic terrorism and Iranian subversive attempts. Turkey is also changing tack, and is seeking to make peace with Israel and with Russia. Can Jerusalem help Ankara to restore good relations with Cairo? It is doubtful. Can Cairo’s efforts bring Israelis and Palestinians closer? Time will tell. But Shoukry’s visit is a hopeful sign. It the cold peace thaws further, it will be a significant achievement.

2016-07-11 02:36 ZVI MAZEL www.jpost.com

58 Germany Votes To Abandon Most Green Energy Subsidies Germany’s legislature voted Friday to sharply cut back on subsidies and other financial incentives supporting green energy due to the strain wind and solar power placed on the country’s electricity grid. Germany’s government plans to replace most of the subsidies for local green energy with a system of competitive auctions where the cheapest electricity wins. The average German pays 39 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity due to intense fiscal support for green energy. The average American only spends 10.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. Germany’s wind and solar power systems have provided too much power at unpredictable times, which damaged the power grid and made the system vulnerable to blackouts. Grid operators paid companies $548 million to shutter turbines to fix the problem, according to a survey by Wirtschaftswoche of Germany’s largest power companies. The German government plans to cap the total amount of wind energy at 40 to 45 percent of national capacity, according to a report published earlier this month by the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung. Germany will get rid of 6,000 megawatts of wind power by 2019. Despite the cut backs to wind power, the German government estimates that it will spend over $1.1 trillion financially supporting wind power, even though building wind turbines hasn’t achieved the government’s goal of actually reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to slow global warming. The amount of money flowing into European green energy from governments and the private sector collapsed from $132 billion in 2011 to $58 billion last year, according to a May report by a British auditing firm. Green energy’s failure to meet reliability and cost goals were the primary reasons for declining investment. Europe has poured $1.2 trillion into the green energy industry to fight global warming, but its CO2 emissions and power bills just keep rising . Small green energy operations will likely be the ones hardest hit by the policy changes. “In future, only the big corporations will be able to build wind farms,” Wilfried Roos, the mayor of the German town of Saerbeck, told The Financial Times Sunday . “For everyone else, the economic risks will be too high.” Even major German companies might not be able to build green energy for much longer as the government’s plans have done enormous damage to utilities, destroying their main sources of profit and increasing the price of electricity throughout Germany . The enormous German utility Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk (RWE) was forced by the government to shut down many of its profitable nuclear reactors and build expensive wind and solar power. The government’s mandate to replace nuclear reactors with wind or solar power cost over $1.1 trillion. The company has a 46 percent chance of going bankrupt within the next two years , according to investment groups. The massive amount of money Germany poured into green energy is a direct result of the government’s decision to abandon nuclear energy after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan galvanized political opposition. Nuclear power made up 29.5 percent of Germany’s energy in 2000. The share dropped down to 17 percent in 2015, and by 2022 the country intends to have every one of its nuclear plants shutdown. This shift caused Germany’s CO2 emissions to actually rise by 28 million tons each year after Germany’s nuclear policy changed. Nuclear power’s decline has created an opening for coal power, according to a Voice of America article published in November. Coal now provides 44 percent of German electricity. Follow Andrew on Twitter Send tips to andrew@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org . Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 Energy Environmental dailycaller.com

59 Possible Trump VP Takes Pro-Abortion Stance Former lieutenant general and potential Republican pick for vice president, Michael Flynn, told ABC News Sunday he supports abortion. “Women should be able to choose,” Flynn began. “Women are so important in that decision making process. They are the ones to make that decision, because they are the ones who are going to decide to bring up that child or not.” Donald Trump has changed his views on abortion from an initial pro-life stance throughout most of his business career, to a careful approach more in step with the conservative base of the Republican Party. “Planned Parenthood should absolutely be defunded. I mean, if you look at what’s going on with that, it’s terrible. And many of the things should be defunded and many things should be cut,” Trump told Fox News in October of 2015, very early in the primary process. “As far as Planned Parenthood is concerned, I’m pro-life. I’m totally against abortion, having to do with Planned Parenthood. But millions and millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood,” Trump added during a debate in February. Trump even previously mentioned the punishment of women who obtain abortions. “Well, people in certain parts of the Republican Party and conservative Republicans would say, ‘yes, they should be punished,’” Trump said after MSNBC host Chris Matthews pushed the issue. Trump revised his stance in April by announcing he wants to change the official party platform to allow for abortions in cases of rape or incest, a common refrain among Republican policitians. Flynn is one of a large number of names suggested for vice president. Gov. Mike Pence is one of the top contenders, along with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Flynn is the only potential VP pick to exhibit such a liberal stance on abortion. Follow Phillip On Twitter Have a Tip? Let us Know Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

60 60 Saudis Screw OPEC And Embrace Low Oil Prices Saudi Arabia’s energy minister announced Sunday his country will continue keeping the price of oil low. The statement is further evidence the country won’t cut oil production to raise the global price. Oil is cheap today by historical standards, selling for a mere $45.20 per barrel. That’s less than half the price it was a mere two years ago. “The Kingdom secures the flow of oil supplies as it retains a spare production capacity,” Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi energy minister, said in a statement. Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince announced Saturday plans to spend $4 trillion to transition the country’s economy away from oil while modernizing the its society. Saudi Arabia has been keeping the price of oil relatively low to the detriment of the rest of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) since last year. Saudi Arabia’s oil policies are apparently intended to hurt Iran, the country’s regional rival. Saudi Arabia banned ships carrying Iranian crude oil from entering the country’s waters in April , and has been escalating the economic conflict between the two countries since then. Diplomatic tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have expanded into the economic sphere, with both countries battling for oil market share. Saudi Arabia and three other Sunni nations cut diplomatic ties with Iran in January and have been trying to prevent Iranian oil from reaching the global market. The Saudis have been threatening to lower oil prices further by increasing production by up to a million barrels a day , which would lower the price of oil to the detriment of Iran. Without Saudi cooperation, OPEC can’t cut oil production enough to cause the price of oil to increase. Iran isn’t producing much oil right now, as the country has been unable to seriously invest in its oil sector for years due to sanctions. Simply restoring previous oil production levels is estimated to require a minimum $150 billion of new investment , and could cost Iran up to $500 billion over the next five years, according to reports by the country’s state- run news agency. Iran desperately needs quick cash, and the Saudis are intentionally keeping the price of oil low to preventing that from happening. The new Saudi policy of cheap oil has been devastating for Russia as well. Today’s historically low oil prices caused the Russian economy to contract by 3.7 percent in 2015. Russia’s economy will keep shrinking unless oil prices recover to at least $80 per barrel, according to the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Other major OPEC nations have also been devastated by cheap oil; Venezuela has been forced to import oil from America and faces total economic and social collapse. Saudi Arabia can likely handle cheap oil better than other OPEC countries, but even it is expecting a budget deficit of $140 billion — roughly 20 percent of the Saudi economy. When compared to 2013’s surplus of $48 billion , the fiscal outlook looks so dire the International Monetary Fund warned it could go through its fiscal reserves within five years. Saudi oil export revenues dropped 46 percent in just the last year and the country is selling bonds for the first time since 2007. Cheap oil is generally good news for America and other net oil importers, especially for the poorest members of society who spend a larger proportion of their income buying oil products. Follow Andrew on Twitter Send tips to andrew@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org . Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 Energy Environmental dailycaller.com

61 Miami Is Sinking, Sea Level Isn't Rising Grist.com ran an article Friday claiming the streets of Miami flood with every high tide, but The Daily Caller News Foundation has spoken to an official from Miami Beach that claims that is not true. “It’s hard to ignore climate change in South Florida, what with the city streets that flood at high tide,” said Grist Friday. Miami Public Relations Manager Melissa Berthier told TheDCNF that “flooding only happens during ‘king tides,'” which take place around April and October. King tides happen when the Sun and Moon align on the same side of the Earth, and their resulting combined gravitational pull produces tides much higher than normal. When asked if flooding is a regular occurrence at normal high tides during the rest of the year, Berthier said “no.” She said king tides bring flooding twice a year, with the fall tide being “more severe” than the spring. Witness King Tides says on its website that “[King tides] aren’t part of climate change; they are a natural part of tidal cycles.” President Barack Obama even claimed that fish routinely swim in the streets of Miami during high tides. “You know, you go down to Miami and when it’s flooding at high tide on a sunny day and fish are swimming through the middle of the streets,” Obama said a press conference at a climate summit in Paris in 2015 . Berthier told TheDCNF the claims of fish swimming in the streets are untrue. However, she does note that during high tides, if enough rain falls, certain lower elevations of Miami can see light flooding, but reiterated floods do not happen as a normal occurrence during Miami’s high tides. For reference, Miami receives just under 62 inches of rain a year, according to U. S. climate data . Miami has a massive pumping system meant to keep the streets from flooding, and Miami has even gone as far as elevating some roads to keep any flooding at bay, Berthier said. When asked if subsidence — the gradual caving in or sinking of an area of land — had any role in the flooding, Berthier told The DCNF that is not so. According to a study done by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), subsidence is indeed occurring in southern Florida. “The long-term average rate of subsidence is generally considered to have been between 1 and 1.2 inches per year,” the USGS report notes. The city of Miami is roughly five feet above sea level and has a population of 441,003, according to census.gov data. What’s more, according to The Miami Herald , southern Florida recently passed six million residents. The Miami Herald also notes that both Broward County and Miami-Dade County have seen populations increase by 8.5 and 7.8 percent, respectively. As populations increase, the need for industry does as well. That means more water is drawn from the ground for industrial purposes. Add the weight of an increasing population and you have a recipe for subsidence. Water that once filled areas underground is now gone, and the land settles into these new hollow spaces. Others claim rising ocean temperatures are responsible for coastal flooding, as the water heats and expands. While it is true surface sea temperatures are rising , Dr. Robert E. Stevenson — former research scientist for NASA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography — notes from a 2000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report (Levitus, et al. 2000) that human activity may not be the cause. Stevenson says that from 1920-1940, the oceans were warming as well, long before carbon dioxide (CO2) was brought to light as an issue. In 1920, for instance, the saturation of CO2 in the atmosphere was under 300 parts per million (ppm). Today, the saturation level is just over 400 ppm. It is worth noting that New Orleans, another Gulf city, has also been sinking. According to NASA , New Orleans is averaging about one and a half inches of subsidence per year. “Before humans intervened, natural subsidence was offset by a combination of sediments deposited during Mississippi River floods and organic soil produced from the decay of wetland vegetation,” NASA said in the May report. “Construction of flood control levees to protect the Gulf Coast economy and local populations interrupted the sediment supply, leading to a net increase in land subsidence.” Follow Craig Boudreau on Twitter . Send tips to craig@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org . Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

62 Women In Law Enforcement More Likely To Commit Suicide A person’s job and gender may determine how likely they are to commit suicide, according to a report from the Center for Disease Control. Women in law enforcement, for instance, commit suicide at a higher rate than women in any other occupation. The CDC analyzed data from 2o12 and found women in protective services, like police officers and firefighters, commit suicide at a higher rate than women in other professional groups. For every 100,000 women in protective services, 14.1 committed suicide in 2012. The CDC says “higher suicide rates among police are related to stressors including exposure to traumatic, violent, and lethal situations; work overload; shift work; and access to lethal means.” While trauma and exposure to violence is a factor in suicides, the study did compare suicide rates among military personnel to civilians. It was too difficult to separate active duty from reservist and retired military personnel, the authors said. The authors suggest gender also plays a role as in the high rate of suicides among female law enforcement officers. “Females in protective service occupations might also experience additional stressors in these traditionally male-dominated occupations,” the study says. For women, legal fields have the second highest suicide rate at 13.9 per 100,000. The third highest rate is among healthcare and other technical fields at 13.3 per 100,000. Overall, men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women. Of the suicides studied by the CDC, 77 percent were men, 23 percent were women. Suicide rates are increasing — about 40,ooo Americans committed suicide in 2012, which is 21 percent more than in 2000. Farming has the highest suicide rate for men. The lead researcher for the CDC study says that’s because farmers often work alone. “People working in certain occupations are at greater risk for suicide due to job isolation, a stressful work environment, trouble at work and home, lower income and education, and less access to mental health services,” lead researcher Wendy LiKamWa McIntosh told WebMD . “Overall, the lowest rate of suicide (7.5 [per 100,000]) was found in the education, training, and library occupational group,” the study says. Follow Thomas Phippen on Twitter Send tips to [email protected] . Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

63 Bin Laden's Son Wants Revenge On US The son of Al-Qaida founder Osama Bin Laden wants revenge on the U. S. for killing his father in 2011. Hamza Bin Laden promised to carry on Al-Qaida’s fight against the U. S. and its allies in an audio recording titled “We Are All Osama.” The message was posted online, according to extremism watchdog organization SITE Intelligence group. “We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression,” Hamza Bin Laden said in the 21-minute message. “It is not revenge for Osama the person but it is revenge for those who defended Islam.” Documents obtained from the hideout in Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden was killed indicate the Al Qaida leader tried to re-connect with his son, who was under house arrest in Iran at the time. Hamza, who is now in his mid- 20s, has since taken a leadership role within the organization. “Hamza provides a new face for al Qaeda , one that directly connects to the group’s founder. He is an articulate and dangerous enemy,” said Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution, according to Reuters. Follow Jacob on Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

64 Sanders Gets His Way On The $15 Minimum Wage Sen. Bernie Sanders declared victory Saturday after the Democratic party platform committee announced support for the $15 minimum wage. Sanders introduced a bill in July 2015 aimed to pass the increase on the federal level and has held numerous rallies in support of the policy. The Democratic National Platform Committee included language in its drafted party platform proposal Friday supporting the increase as well. “Increasing the minimum wage would directly benefit 62 million workers who currently make less than $15 an hour, including over half of African- American workers and close to 60 percent of Latino workers,” the Sanders campaign stated in a press release. “If the minimum wage had kept up with productivity and inflation since 1968, it would be more than $26 an hour today.” The committee is merely responsible for proposing an official party platform. Democratic party delegates will vote on the suggested platform during the convention held in Philadelphia between July 25 and 28. Democrats tend to support the $15 minimum wage but it has not yet been an official party position. “We should raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over time and index it, give all Americans the ability to join a union regardless of where they work,” the proposed party platform states. “And create new ways for workers to have power in the economy so every worker can earn at least $15 an hour.” The Fight for $15 movement also pushed the committee to support the $15 minimum wage throughout its drafting process, and helped lead the policy push on the national and local level since it started in 2012. The movement confronted committee members June 8 in Washington, D. C. to demand the policy become an official party position. Economists and other experts have found both positive and negative results when studying the $15 minimum wage but generally agree job loss is a risk. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found any increase in the minimum wage could result in at least some job loss. The University of California, Berkeley found the losses are marginal compared to the potential benefit. Other experts argue the impact will be much worse. The National Bureau of Economic Research and The Heritage Foundation determined the impact of a higher minimum wage is especially bad for young and low-skilled workers. The White House Council of Economic Advisers warned in a report Feb. 22 that low-skilled workers are the most at risk of being replaced by computers. The committee also decided to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this week as well. President Barack Obama finalized the deal Oct. 5 but it has remained a major wedge between him and many within his own party. The trade deal could have a significant impact on global trade at roughly 39 percent of global GDP. It is the largest regional trade deal in history. Follow Connor on Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

65 ‘Dark streaks’ on Mars give NASA a hint that Red Planet may have water — RT America The agency posted a series of photographs obtained from the Valles Marineris region near Mars' equator which depict numerous dark lines found around the planet’s canyons. According to the scientists, the mysterious streaks might be indications of the presence of either frozen or liquid water, or vapor. “There are so many of them, it's hard to keep track," said Matthew Chojnacki of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Tucson, and lead author of the new report in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. The study looked at thousands of lines known as recurring slope lineae, or RSL – a special term adopted by NASA scientists given that the do not yet know how the lines form. "Collectively, results provide additional support for the notion that significant amounts of near-surface water can be found on Mars today and suggest that a widespread mechanism, possibly related to the atmosphere, is recharging RSL sources," the scientists wrote in the press release. According to NASA, the streaks are much more “widespread than previously recognized”. “…if they are indeed associated with contemporary aqueous activity, that makes this canyon system an even more interesting area than it is just from the spectacular geology alone," the scientists pointed out. Although the scientists did write in the press-release that the “dark streaks” “might be signs of liquid water”, they are not sure how they appeared. One of the theories is that the streaks formed due to an underground layer of water. At the same time the scientists say it is unlikely the water from an underground layer reached the surface of canyon ridges and isolated peaks where most of the streaks appear. While liquid water might be the reason for their formation, the researchers have not ruled out other hypotheses. One of them involves the interaction between salts and water vapor. According to scientists, salts might have pulled water vapor from the Martian atmosphere creating “liquid brine” on the ground surface. The streaks might be left-overs of the salt which is left on the surface after the brine evaporates. "There are problems with the mechanism of pulling water from the atmosphere, too," Chojnacki said admitting that questions about the streaks formation still remain. If the theory is correct and the streaks did appear due to the salts’ pulling of vapor than as many as 10 to 40 Olympic- size swimming pools would be required for the dark features to form, scientists explain. Although the whole Valles Marineris region seems to have a lot more water vapor than that, the scientists struggle to state a mechanism which would extract water from the atmosphere. "There do seem to be more ways atmosphere and surface interact in the canyons than in blander topography, such as clouds trailing out of the canyons and low-lying haze in the canyons. " he said. "Perhaps the atmosphere-surface interactions in this region are associated with the high abundance of recurring slope lineae. We can't rule that out, but a mechanism to make the connection is far from clear. " The scientists also do not rule out the fact that the streaks could have formed due to ice which could be present near Mars’ surface. Last month NASA announced it was eager to use the Curiosity Rover to investigate dark streaks and take close-up images of the sites of their abundance.

2016-07-11 02:18 www.rt.com

66 S. Sudan Independence Day gun battles in capital claim over 100 — RT News Gunfire in the capital erupted outside the presidential palace at around 4:20pm on Friday as President Salva Kiir had been holding a meeting to discuss a previous clash in which five government soldiers were killed the day before. What caused the violence to erupt still remains unclear, but a spokesman for Machar's military faction, said the fighting started next to the state house and in the army barracks. By the end of the gun battle, at least 115 people had been killed. "In the morning we collected and counted 35 (dead) from the SPLM-IO (Machar's faction) and 80 people from the government forces," William Gatjiath Deng told Reuters. The number of casualties has yet to be officially announced. Sudan Tribute sources said that they counted 180 dead bodies outside the presidential compound. The official number has not been announced, but inflow of the victims of the shooting grew so large that a nearby military hospital ran out of beds. "We did not sleep the whole of yesterday [Friday] night. We received more [than] 58 soldiers with gunshot wounds by around 8:00pm yesterday evening and received 30 others this morning. We have now run out of beds,” one of the military medical officers at the SPLA military hospital told Sudan Tribune on Saturday. Due to the shortage the rest of the wounded were taken to Juba Teaching Hospital which according to another source of the newspaper received 42 victims. "The number of casualties is over 150 killed," said Roman Nyarji, a spokesman for rebel leader turned Vice President Riek Machar. "We are expecting a bigger number of casualties because the two units of the presidential guard were all engaged yesterday," he added referring to bodyguard units of Machar and his rival President Salva Kiir. The violence in South Sudan comes just months after President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebel leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, formed a new power-sharing transitional government, under a deal to end two years' of civil war. South Sudan spiraled into civil war at the end of 2013 after President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy Riek Machar. Thousands have been killed and millions driven from their homes during the conflict that began barely two years after the oil-rich state’s independence from neighboring Sudan in 2011. On Saturday the UN Security Council “voiced concern” over the recent clashes, stating that the warring parties are not “being serious” about observing the truce. According to TASS, the UNSC urged the parties "to resolve differences in a spirit of cooperation" to avoid further bloodshed. Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement that it was "deeply alarmed” by the violence. "Children and their families in South Sudan have suffered enough from violence, displacement and killings in this brutal conflict. It is time that peace becomes more than agreements on paper, but a reality for those who are most vulnerable," said the UNICEF regional director for eastern and southern Africa, Leila Pakkala.

2016-07-11 02:18 www.rt.com

67 Kurdish militants deny death of senior commander in Syria — RT News On Saturday Turkish media reported that one of the commanders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was killed along with eight others in a bomb attack on his car. Fehman Huseyin, also known as Bahoz Erdal, was said to have been killed on Friday when the car he was traveling came under attack from a rebel group. The Tel Khamis Brigades group had been tracking him for some time, its spokesman told Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency. "We dedicate this operation... to the Syrian people," Khasakewi was quoted as saying, indicating his group had carried out the attack. Another eight people were allegedly killed in the incident as the vehicle headed towards the northeastern city of Al Qamishli from Hime town in Syria. Huseyin is in the “red” category of the Turkish Interior Ministry's most wanted terrorists’ list. Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organization and cracks down on its supporters bot at home and in neighboring Iraq and Syria. Forty-seven-year-old Huseyin is a Syrian national, and Ankara says he was instrumental in organizing the YPG militia, the military arm of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD). The YPG has links to the PKK, an organization considered terrorist in Turkey. The PKK has led an insurgency against Turkey for over three decades, with more than 40,000 lives lost by both sides in the conflict. Later on Saturday, YPG member Rezan Heddo denied reports of the Huseyin death to Sputnik saying that there were no PKK militants present in Syria, as he called the media reports “devoid of truth.” The veracity of either Huseyin’s death report or the YPG denial could not be immediately verified by an independent source. READ MORE: Syrians ‘suffer greatly, flee stray shells’ in Turkey’s trans- border crackdown on Kurds Turkey’s military campaign against PKK fighters restarted in mid-2015 after Ankara ended a two-year ceasefire agreement. An ongoing military operation in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern parts of the country, according to Ankara, has resulted in 5,000 deaths of PKK fighters. Observers say the crackdown has taken a heavy toll on the Kurdish civilian population and accuse Turkey of using collective punishment against the minority. Ankara has also been targeting Kurdish militias in Iraq and Syria, provoking tension with its NATO ally Washington. In both countries Kurdish forces YPG were instrumental in fighting against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), a terrorist organization which is internationally considered as one of the biggest global threats.

2016-07-11 02:18 www.rt.com

68 BLM Asks For Donations To Pay Bail Black Lives Matter Minneapolis is requesting donations to pay bail and legal fees for dozens of activists who were arrested during protests Saturday night. Authorities say the crowd threw rocks, bottles, bricks, rebar and fireworks at Minnesota police. Protesters outraged over the deaths of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana took to the streets in cities across the country, prompting hundreds of arrests, including over 100 in St. Paul Saturday night. Now, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis is asking for help. The activist group sent out a mass text message Sunday to its supporters requesting donations. “Over 49 arrested last night, please make a donation to our legal defense and bail fund through Paypal at [email protected] ,” reads a text message obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Folks are being charged with gross misdemeanor and felony charges, they will need our help for upcoming legal battles.” A viral video of Castile’s death shows him in the driver’s seat of a car bleeding and clearly injured as a police officer points a gun at him. Castile’s girlfriend, who is filming with a cell phone, claims Castile told the officer he had a concealed carry. She says the officer asked for his license and registration, and when Castile reached for it, the cop fatally shot him. The group also took to Facebook to request money. “We know that people are being charged with felony and gross misdemeanor charges,” Black Lives Matter Minneapolis posted on Facebook. “The state is escalating on protesters to shut us down. The only way we keep going is to fight back, and these legal battles can take years. We just wrapped up the last case in the first MOA protest in 2014. Please help and share widely.” The protests come after five Dallas cops were killed during a Black Lives Matter protest Thursday. Please share widely!!!! pic.twitter.com/x98fZdTPyQ — Black Lives MPLS (@BlackLivesMpls) July 10, 2016 Send tips to [email protected]. Follow Casey on Twitter and like him on Facebook. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

2016-07-11 02:18 dailycaller.com

69 The Cops Are the Real Stars It’s a total utter lie that police shootings are a major cause of black deaths. The data is that maybe 1/10 of one per cent of black violent deaths are caused by the police. And almost none of those were of UNARMED black men. Of the roughly 30,000 gun deaths per year… two-thirds are suicides. The huge majority of the rest are black-on-black gang and drug related shootings. The Obama clique makes no effort at all to rein in these gangs. The gangs kill and no one proposes any laws about it at all. The idea that the police are a major cause of black mortality is nonsense. The police extend. black lifespans by protecting black neighborhoods from blacks. There is a giant super crisis among blacks: Violence. Drugs. The collapse of the family. Pitiful education. Low participation in the labor force. None of this is caused by the police. The police are the heroes of the black community. Black and white and Hispanic and Asian they take their lives in their hands every day to take the killers off the streets. The cops are the real stars.

2016-07-11 02:17 Ben Stein spectator.org

70 Jaycee Dugard: 18 Years Spent in Captivity Photos Jaycee Dugard sits down with ABC's Diane Sawyer for an exclusive television interview to air on July 8, 2016. Dugard was just 11 years old when she was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido in 1991 near her home in Lake Tahoe, California. She was held captive for 18 years and gave birth to two daughters while she was a prisoner. Dugard and her girls were rescued in 2009 and reunited with her mother, Terry Probyn. Watch the full interview with Dugard and Diane Sawyer on ABC News' "20/20" on Friday, July 8 at 10 p.m. ET. 2016-07-11 02:16 ABC News abcnews.go.com

71 Rock Hill man receives bond in animal cruelty case On Thursday, Rock Hill Municipal Court Judge Kesha Simpkins set bond at $9,000 for Rock Hill's DeAngelo Roseboro, 21, who is charged with three counts of ill treatment of animals. Each charge carries a sentence of up two years. Police say DeAngelo tortured three dogs by throwing dozens of lit fireworks at the animals that were chained. Roseboro is one of four men charged as an accessory in the 2014 murder of Chester City Council member Odell Williams. A handful of business owners, including some from Indian Land, submitted a 1,410-page petition Wednesday asking for off-site beer and wine sales on Sundays. A circuit court judge ruled Wednesday that probable cause exists to prosecute former Northwestern High School assistant principal Kenneth Andrew Williams, who is accused of criminal sexual conduct with a minor. Defense attorney Twana Burris-Alcide questioned Rock Hill detective Phil Tripp about evidence involving text messages and social media posts. Prosecutors said Williams coerced the victim into having a relationship and keeping it quiet. The York Police Department delivered 20 fans to the York Senior Center on Tuesday, just as temperatures soared in the high 90s. The department has donated the fans for four years and the center will give them to area senior adults. Swimmers, boaters and campers headed to Ebenezer Park in Rock Hill Saturday for an afternoon in the sun. The state park on Lake Wylie boasts a swimming area, playground, picnic shelter, tables and a dock to launch boats. Boats sped across the lake Saturday as swimmers cooled off in the water and warmed up in the sun. Aydan Ellis, 4, is back at his Rock Hill home after waiting nearly four months for a heart transplant at Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte. The boy received a new heart on June 11, the same day his mother had planned a fundraiser for Aydan's medical expenses and an organ donor awareness event. The final phase of the Fort Mill Parkway southern bypass has been completed and the new route opened to traffic June 30. The $27 million project took 13 years to complete. A jury on Thursday found Chris Moore guilty in the 2014 murder of Chester city councilman Odell Williams. A judge sentenced Moore to life in prison without the possibility of parole. A handful of teachers from Indian Land work part of the summer at Red Rocket Fireworks in Fort Mill. Red Rocket seasonal manager Kim Pyles recruited the teachers at Indian Land High School and say the summer work helps the educators earn extra money. Area recreational, occupational and physical therapists, tennis coaches and wheelchair tennis athletes learned from the pros at a clinic at the Rock Hill Tennis Center on Tuesday.

2016-07-11 02:15 www.heraldonline.com

72 Trump, Saddam, and American Hubris This week punishment came to one presidential candidate telling a truth and reward came to another telling a lie. Such perverse incentives regarding honesty created the bizarro political world we inhabit. “He was a bad guy — really bad guy,” Donald Trump said of Saddam Hussein. “But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism.” Earlier this week, terrorists murdered 150 or so people in a Baghdad bombing. A war justified to roll back international terrorism instead unleashed it. Harvard of terrorism, indeed. The outrage over Trump’s comments stems only in part from the candidate’s impolitic praise for a man deserving condemnation. The larger part of the indignation comes from Trump representing a challenge to both parties’ foreign policy shibboleths, which themselves represent a challenge to common sense. The Republican nominee did not misjudge “bad guy” Saddam Hussein — at least the current Republican nominee didn’t. Like George W. Bush, his successor rarely thinks about consequences. Whereas Bush neglected to anticipate what might fill the void in Iraq, Barack Obama initially chose ISIS over Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood over Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and jihadists over Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Neither the president nor his predecessor grasped the difference between regional bullies and deluded Islamists aiming for world domination, garden-variety evil dictators found in every corner of the globe and fanatics endemic to the Islamic world, and secular strongmen and sectarian true believers. Like so many moves on the real-life “Risk” board, the invasion of Iraq unwittingly sided with worse over bad. But it’s the current GOP presidential nominee, pundits insist with a straight face, who made a terrible strategic error regarding Iraq. More than a decade ago, the fledgling blogosphere pushed the heady theory of “Iraq the model,” which posited that a nation-building exercise in Mesopotamia would unleash a chain reaction of democracies in the Middle East. “I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators,” Vice President Dick Cheney misjudged. Ken Adelman wrote in the Washington Post, “I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” Bizarre conspiracy theories touting Saddam Hussein’s links to everything from the initial World Trade Center attack to the Oklahoma City Bombing to 9/11 (through a meeting that didn’t happen in Prague with Muhammad Atta) arose in publications whose editors should have known better. The Bush Administration relied on a conman codenamed Curveball as the basis for its false contentions about a secret biological weapons program, on forged documents for its claims that Hussein attempted to procure uranium from Niger to make nukes, and on New York Times reports on weapons of mass destruction that used the discredited Ahmed Chalabi as a source. Few of the allegations or predictions turned out correct. Errors of fact and judgment plagued the whole operation. But it’s Donald Trump who got Iraq wrong? Like most people who talk too much, Trump appears gaffe prone. His varying positions on guns, abortion, and socialized medicine over the years also reveal a candidate without a solid grounding in conservatism. But his instincts on foreign policy more greatly resemble conservative thought than those who doubt the federal government’s ability to deliver a letter but believe that its armies can somehow transform desert-dwelling Muhammadans into Vermont-style town meeting members. Edmund Burke, the Irishman serving in the British Parliament who became the philosophical godfather of American conservatism, warned in Reflections on the Revolution in France against overthrowing the existing order without forethought. He noted that “a sober legislator would carefully compare the possessor whom he was recommended to expel, with the stranger who was proposed to fill his place” before embarking upon violent upheaval. A few years later, George Washington asked in his Farewell Address, “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?” More than a half century ago, Young Americans for Freedom posited, “American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?” But of late many conservatives look not to such writings for foreign policy guidance but to D. C. and Marvel. Trump rejects this conception of America as a superhero savior-state. Whether his brain knows Sharon Statement from Sharon Osbourne, his gut gets that attempting to remake Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and points beyond does little to make America great again.

2016-07-11 02:17 Daniel J spectator.org

73 Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton’s Remarks About Philando Castile Are Unhelpful Minnesota’s Democrat Governor Mark Dayton claims that if Philando Castile, the man killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in a Twin Cities suburb on Wednesday night, were white that he would be alive. Dayton stated, “Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver were white? I don’t think it would have.” He and other lawmakers have called for the Department of Justice to conduct a federal probe into the shooting. The problem is that Dayton’s comments prejudice the outcome of that probe or any other investigation. We don’t know if the facts support Dayton’s assertion. Just because a police officer shoots a black man doesn’t automatically mean it was racially motivated. Now that the officer has been identified as Jeronimo Yanez how long will it be before we hear the term “white Hispanic” yet again? Castile’s girlfriend indicated in her Facebook post immediately following the shooting that he had told the officers he had a gun and a concealed carry permit. It is quite possible that as soon as Officer Yanez heard the word gun he went into overdrive with tragic results. Governor Dayton’s insistence that the shooting was motivated by race is simply unhelpful and will deter investigators from getting at the truth of the matter.

2016-07-11 02:17 Aaron Goldstein spectator.org

74 Resisting the Orwellian Attorney Generals Over the past four years, climate change activists have been working to find ways to prosecute individuals, organizations, and companies that are their ideological foes. They’ve developed a strategy to use RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) against those who speak out in disagreement with the Obama administration’s war on fossil fuels. More recently, the activists have coordinated with Attorneys General (AG) culminating with a March 29 press conference where the newly formed AGs for Clean Power was announced. Though their specific plans are “vague,” 17 AGs have, as the Huffington Post reported, “committed to pursuing an all-levers approach” to “hold to account those commercial interests that have been, according to the best available evidence, deceiving the American people, communicating in a fraudulent way.” ExxonMobil has been the first and most obvious target. While the RICO Act is federal legislation passed in 1970, more than two dozen states have “Baby RICO” laws — which are, according to InsideClimateNews.org, “broader than the federal version.” Four different investigations claiming that Exxon conspired to cover up its understanding of climate science have been launched. New York AG Eric Schneiderman was the first. Last November, he issued a subpoena demanding “that ExxonMobil Corporation give investigators documents spanning four decades of research findings and communications about climate change.” In January, California AG Kamala Harris announced her investigation into whether Exxon repeatedly lied to the public and its shareholders about the risk to its business from climate change, and in April, Massachusetts AG Maura Healey also opened one. Just days after the March 29 press conference, Virgin Islands’ AG Claude Walker, in his demand for records, became the first to cite the racketeering law to “probe Exxon over its longtime denial of climate change and its products’ role in it.” Additionally, he listed roughly 100 academic institutions and free market think tanks in his subpoena. Separately, Walker also subpoenaed records from the respected Washington, D. C. think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Schneiderman and Healey have also requested records from research and advocacy groups. Many legal scholars are skeptical of the legal theory behind these moves. One is Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at the Vermont Law School, who is quoted by InsideClimateNews.org: “Hopefully there is something more than unsubstantiated suspicion to support this.” Parenteau explains: “The most serious question is whether the attorney general [Walker] has any basis to suspect that Exxon has engaged in activities that violate the statutes about obtaining money by false pretense and fraud.” Then there are the opponents. The Wall Street Journal points out: “Both sides see this as a pivotal moment in a growing campaign by environmentalists to deploy a legal strategy used against tobacco companies in the 1990s by arguing that oil companies have long hidden what they know about climate change.” Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for the Reason Foundation — one of the groups named in Walker’s subpoena — said, according to the Washington Times: “These subpoenas are a huge step in using courts to silence people who hold views that differ from those of powerful government officials.” I know this to be true as my organization, though not featured on Walker’s list, is still a victim. We had some essential funding in place that would have allowed us to continue for months without extreme financial stress. However, the D. C. policy shop that was to provide the support for our efforts pulled it as a result of the AG’s campaign. I was told that the funding was approved, but that when I wrote my April 25 column on the film Climate Hustle — which questions the science behind the politically correct narrative of manmade catastrophic climate change — the board got cold feet because they, too, are one of the organizations on the list. At first, I wanted to quit, as without the funding I couldn’t continue. But then, I got mad. I realized that if I stopped doing what I do, these AGs would win — which is their goal. Indirectly, they attempted to silence me. I am grateful for individuals and companies who believe in my work and who have stepped up to fill the funding gap — at least for a few months. Exxon and CEI have filed lawsuits against the accusers. Exxon claimed that the subpoenas “violated constitutional amendments on free speech, unreasonable search and seizure and equal protection.” As a result, last week, Walker withdrew his subpoenas and Healey, reports the Daily Caller, has “agreed to an abeyance of the subpoena, meaning her office won’t enforce the subpoena until all legal appeals are exhausted, which may take a couple of years.” In a big victory for free speech, The Hill states: “The withdrawal closes a major chapter in the drive by liberals and environmentalists to punish Exxon over allegations that it knew decades ago that fossil fuels were causing climate change but denied it publically.” The Heartland Institute, for which I serve as an “expert” on energy issues, is also on the “list.” Its president, Joe Bast, told me: “Because there is a lively debate over the causes and consequences of climate change, this litigation has First Amendment implications.” Where these attacks on free speech go next remains to be seen. But Americans remain hopeful that free speech will reign and scientific inquiry will prevail. True science welcomes a challenge because it can stand up to it — while political correctness must silence challenge.

2016-07-11 02:17 Marita Noon spectator.org

75 The Problem With Loretta Lynch’s “Hard Look” at Wrongdoers Getting Their Hands on Weapons During her speech on last night’s massacre of Dallas police officers, Attorney General Loretta Lynch pushed the Obama Administration gun control line when she said, “We must take a hard look at the ease with which wrongdoers can get their hands on deadly weapons and the frequency with which they use them.” But until Micah Xavier Johnson began shooting last night, how could anyone have determined he was a wrongdoer? Johnson had no criminal record. What background check would he have failed? Is Lynch recommending the FBI monitor the Facebook activity of prospective gun purchasers? One of Johnson’s Facebook likes was the African American Defense League (AADL), an organization which calls for the murder of police officer. Of course, should the federal government adopt this criteria who can say they wouldn’t deny a permit to a Tea Party member while looking the other way if it’s an AADL aficionado so they don’t get called racist? Of course, if Lynch was honest (and by extension the Obama Administration) she would simply tell us the federal government wanted to abolish private ownership of guns. I’d rather they tell me that than carry on insincerely with this expanded background check nonsense. Now if this measure came to pass it wouldn’t stop the flow of guns either. How has that War on Drugs worked out? The War on Guns would make the War on Drugs look like a Sunday picnic. Unfortunately, for all of America’s virtues, we are a violent society and no piece of legislation or executive order is going to change that fact. The only thing that can change that fact is our culture and those kind of changes happen in baby steps, not in giant leaps and bounds. Loretta Lynch’s hard look is yet another easy answer.

2016-07-11 02:17 Aaron Goldstein spectator.org

76 But Why Aren’t People Buying Electric Cars? Trump is ascendant not because he’s a freedom jouster but because the people are exasperated with a clueless (and contemptuous of them) party apparat that for years has been trotting out one inbred Bush after the next, with Bush-like things in between such as Mittens and Ted. This is not a cheer for Trump. It’s a jeer at the elites. The auto industry is just as clueless — and contemptuous — of the people who are its customers. Witness the hilarious article in Automotive News last week bemoaning the fact that electric vehicles are a hard sell. The article was headlined: “Automakers’ Anxiety: Why Can’t We Sell EVs?” The story went on to quote various auto industry crack pipe smokers such as Britta Gross, a speaker at the recent Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition in Montreal. Gross is director of Advanced Vehicle Commercialization Policy at General Motors. “Consumers (an awful word, isn’t it?) adore these vehicles,” she says. “People love the quietness, the smoothness, the seamless drive.” They’re just reluctant — for reasons apparently inscrutable to Gross — to part with cash. Despite huge subsidies and other forms of jump-starting, sales of electric cars are not just flat, they’re down by about 5 percent. Total sales amount to a literal fraction of the market — a few thousand of them (combined, every make and model) out of 1.4 million sales of IC-engined cars per month. “Why don’t consumers flock to these vehicles,” Gross wonders? “What do we have to do?” How about lowering the price? The problem with electric cars isn’t that they’re not “quiet and smooth.” They are. So is a Mercedes S-Class. The problem is that electric cars cost too much. $30,000 to start for the “affordable” ones like the VW eGolf. Most (like the egregious economic make-work project Tesla) cost much more. Even the Chevy Volt (which I think is ok, see here) costs about as much as an entry- level Lexus or BMW. Axiom: The more an electric car costs to buy, the less it makes economic sense — regardless of its quietness and smoothness. A Mercedes S-Class is of course also expensive. But the difference is it’s supposed to be. Economic sense doesn’t enter into it. The Benz is a high-end luxury car. People buy them as an indulgence and to a great extent because they are expensive. Which makes them exclusive. You have something most people don’t and (if you can afford it) are willing to pay extra for the privilege. It’s exactly the reverse. The more they cost, the less they appeal. Gross and Elon Musk and the other denizens of the automotive opium den have been designing electric cars that for the most part only affluent people can afford and then they wonder why people who can barely afford a six- year loan for a Camry or Civic steer clear. I “adore” the Mercedes S-Class. It is a magnificent car. But I can’t afford one, so I don’t own one. The same applies to electric cars — only much more so. Because unlike an S-Class, an electric car’s primary draw is not that it is “smooth” and “quiet” but that it — hopefully — gets you where you need to go for less than an IC- engined car. This includes the cost to buy the thing — which can’t be too high or it negates any savings achieved by not having to fuel the thing. If it doesn’t make economic sense — if the electric drive’s primary virtues are that it’s “smooth” and “quiet” and (as in the case of the Tesla) quick, then prospective buyers are not going to buy it on account of its fuel-saving virtues. They are going to compare the car to price-comparable IC-engined cars, using a different set of criteria, among them range and convenience. And while strides have been made in both areas, electric cars still can’t go nearly as far as an IC car and take forever (or so it will feel) to recharge when the battery wilts. These issues worsen in less-than-optimum environments such as the heat of summer and the cold of winter. People who spend luxury car money tend to not be too willing to put up with hassles of any kind. They are paying top dollar to avoid hassles. You don’t find port-a-potty toilets at Trump Tower — or AC that gets automatically turned off for the sake of “saving energy” at certain times of the day — for just this reason. And if you did find them, probably you’d change reservations. So it is with electric cars. People looking to save money — not just on fuel, but also on the car itself — would probably be willing to put up with some hassles — including the need to arrange one’s travel to accommodate the recharge times — provided the car makes economic sense. If it reduces their cost of getting around. This obviousness was ignored by the author of the article and an entire roster of car industry PR and marketing short bus occupants whose grasp of the situation is truly Forrest Gumpian. But the truth is, they’ve had to sex up the electric car. Because the technology is still too expensive and too functionally impaired to be a threat to the dominance of the practicality and economic sanity of the IC-engined car. It is probably not possible — without doubling-down on the subsidies that prop up the existence of electric cars as other than curiosities at car shows — to offer one for sale at a price that’s price-competitive (cost to buy and cost to drive) with Camrys and Civics and other A to B commuter car/family car appliances. So, they’ve given up on that — and shifted over to trying to sell them at a price that puts them in the same segment as luxury-performance cars. Only they don’t (and can’t, absent a technological breakthrough that — like Peak Oil — never seems to arrive) perform as well as expensive luxury cars. Which is why most people refrain from buying them. This eludes Gross and the editorial staff of Automotive News. And they ask me why I drink….

2016-07-11 02:17 Eric Peters spectator.org

77 America’s Outlaw Heroes of World War II When Tigers Ruled the Sky: The Flying Tigers: American Outlaw Pilots over China in World War II By Bill Yenne (Berkley Caliber, 360 pages, $27) Bill Yenne’s latest nonfiction work on World War II tells the dramatic and inspiring story of the Flying Tigers, the swash-buckling group of American fighter pilots, known officially and more mundanely as the American Volunteer Group, who took it to air and ground forces of Japan in China during the early days of World War II (early days for America at least — the Japanese had been messing with China since 1931). No less than Winston Churchill compared the Tigers to the RAF fighter pilots who saved the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain, which took place just a year or so before the Tigers went into action and pounded lumps on much larger and better supplied Japanese air forces. These civilian warriors, trained in the U. S. Army, Navy, or Marines before resigning their commissions to go to China, were members neither of the American nor Chinese air force, making them outlaw pilots. Outlaw or no, they seriously slowed the ongoing annexation of China by military forces of Japan, and provided some of the few things Americans could cheer about in the early days of the Pacific war. They also produced some aces (five or more air combat victories) and heroes, not least being top Tiger Claire Chennault, who carried the honorary title of “Colonel” while creating and leading the AVG (the Tigers didn’t use military ranks) and who became a real general after the AVG was folded into the U. S. Army Air Forces in the summer of 1942. The story of the Tigers — by the way, no one seems to know where the name came from, and those were shark’s teeth, not tiger teeth, painted on the front of the AVG’s P-40s — was even more dramatic than the 1942 John Wayne movie of the same name (not one of the Duke’s best). In roughly 50 major aerial battles, the Tigers accounted for more than 200 confirmed Japanese planes shot down. With likely victories, the number could have been twice this. They also destroyed countless Japanese aircraft on the ground in strafing missions. This remarkable total was attained while the Tigers lost only ten planes in combat, even though outnumbered by four to one or more in most engagements. Yenne accounts for the lopsided score by Chennault’s strict training in the fighter tactics he developed and his insistence on strict discipline in the air. Chennault also devised a sophisticated early warning system, combing radar and human spotters, so his pilots almost always knew when the Japanese were on their way. The P-40 was faster straight and level and when diving than the Japanese fighters they were up against, but much less nimble than the lighter Japanese planes. So the Tigers never engaged in dog fights, which would have been suicide as the Japanese fighters could outturn them. The Tigers attacked from above, and dove away when the Japanese fighters tried to engage. They would then climb out and attack the Japanese again from above. The P-40 also had self-sealing gas tanks and armor plating around the pilot and critical engine parts, so it could take lots of hits and keep on flying. The Japanese fighters, by comparison, usually burst into flames when the first.50-caliber slugs hit them. The Tigers, with the help of President Roosevelt and those around him, got into business in 1941 when Chennault, through a series of interlocking Chinese shell companies set up for the purpose, was able to purchase 100 American P-40 fighters, and hire the pilots and ground crews to fly them and keep them in the air. Thus a kind foreign legion of American fighter pilots was born. Bounty hunters, if you will, as they were paid a monthly salary (well above what they were used to in the American military) and a bonus for each Japanese plane destroyed. Roosevelt did not wish to see Japan take over more of China’s cities, or for the Imperial Japanese Army to visit further cruelty on the Chinese population, as it had done in Nanking in 1937, where an estimated quarter of a million Chinese civilians were murdered by rampaging Japanese troops. Japan by 1941 had become a clear threat not just to China and most of the rest of Asia, but to the United States as well, though there was yet no public desire in America to take them on. Roosevelt, the leader of a neutral country, did what leaders of nations do when international law runs crosswise to their nation’s vital security interests. He ignored international law. Once in business, Chennault’s soldiers of fortune did not have it easy. Conditions were crude at the bases they operated from in places like Kunming, as well as others that won’t ring a bell even with folks who know a good deal about WWII. And with Japanese forces to the south of them and the Himalayas to the north and west, it was difficult to supply the AVG with basics like food, fuel, ammunition, and much needed parts for the P-40s that were constantly subjected to the roughest kind of combat flying. For this reason, the AVG was rarely able to put more than a dozen P-40s into the air at one time. It’s a testimony to the AVG’s fierceness and combat success that the Japanese estimated their number at about 300. Once America was in the war at the end of 1941, it was only a matter of time before the AVG and its warriors would be brought into the Army Air Forces. This was accomplished in the summer of 1942, satisfactorily if not smoothly or to the satisfaction of everyone involved. Yenne tells this story, and that of the complex politics, military and civilian, that surrounded the entire enterprise. Readers will encounter players such as Chiang Kai-shek, and the likely brains behind his operation, Madame Chiang. And, always lurking just out of sight, Mao Zedong, whose communist insurgents would win the power struggle to control China in 1949. There was the scratchy general in charge of the China Theater, Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, as well as other American officers and Chinese officials, competent, trustworthy, and otherwise. When Tigers Ruled the Sky is a well-told story at all levels — military, personal, and political — of probably the least known of the WWII theaters, of a group of American flyers who it would be a slight to refer to as anything less than heroes, and of an inspirational leader named Claire Chennault.

2016-07-11 02:17 Larry Thornberry spectator.org

78 Dead Dallas Gunman Identified as a Black Panther; Wanted to Kill White Cops The gunman killed by Dallas PD following the deaths of five police officers and the wounding of a dozen others has been identified as Micah X. Johnson. Johnson, a 25-year old former Army reservist who served in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, told hostage negotiators that he wanted to avenge the deaths of black men by killing white police officers. While it is unclear if Johnson was active with Black Lives Matter, it has been indicated that he was involved with several different Black Panther organizations. It is believed that Johnson was not the only shooter. Dallas PD have three yet to be identified people (other than they are 2 men and one woman) in custody in connection with the attack. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see if they are also involved with the Black Panthers or are active with Black Lives Matter. While there are people who have been unjustly killed by police, it is equally unjust to murder police officers much less paint them all with the same brush which asserts they are out to wantonly kill African-Americans as was suggested by Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile who was killed by a police officer in Minnesota on Wednesday night. Prior to the Dallas massacre, Reynolds spoke at a protest outside the mansion of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. Reynolds told the crowd she live streamed the events following the shooting “so the world would know these police are not here to protect and serve us. They are here to assassinate us. They are here to kill us. Because we are Black.” Notwithstanding her overwhelming grief and the notwithstanding the very strong possibility that her boyfriend was unjustly killed, this is simply unjust and wrong on the part of Reynolds. It’s the sort of thinking that got five police officers killed in Dallas last night. 2016-07-11 02:17 Aaron Goldstein spectator.org

79 Comey’s Carelessness With Common Sense As I watch FBI Director James Comey respond to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, even as I attempt to correct for my fear and loathing of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the “nothing to see here” approach of the Democratic members of the committee is shocking. Or at least it would be shocking if it were not for the fact that the woman they are compelled to defend is a corrupt self-dealing mendacious reprobate who makes each of them look competent, trustworthy, and sagacious by comparison. In nearly every case where a Republican asked Director Comey whether Hillary Clinton violated a statute regarding the care and handling of classified information, the answer was yes. When asked whether Clinton’s private e-mail server violated State Department policy, the answer was yes (based on Comey’s reading of State’s IG report, not his own investigation). When asked whether someone in her position should have known better, the answer was yes. It is clear that approximately every public statement Clinton made about her use of a private email server was a lie (but Comey confined his legal conclusions to Hillary’s private statements made to the FBI last weekend). Director Comey, formerly the Deputy Attorney General of the United States in the George W. Bush administration, reiterated that a government employee who treated classified information the way that Clinton did would likely face disciplinary actions such as loss of security clearance and termination of employment. Indeed, late on Thursday the State Department announced that it is reopening the investigation into the mishandling of classified information by Clinton and her closest aides. Those aides, particularly Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, though no longer government employees, may face sanctions and their ability to get security clearances in a potential Clinton administration is now very much in doubt. It is also worth noting that during the hearing committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) told Comey to expect a Congressional referral requesting that he investigate whether Clinton lied to Congress while under oath. This followed Comey’s saying he had never looked into it because he had never received such a referral. No doubt the Democratic response, in an explosion of irony, will be squawks about wasting taxpayers’ money. The “fact pattern” of the Clinton email fiasco, as laid out by Comey in his remarkable Tuesday press conference and reiterated in hours of testimony on Thursday, justifies a criminal referral by the FBI to the Justice Department. But Comey, both Tuesday and Thursday, argued that there had never been a prosecution under the two relevant statutes without additional aggravating factors such as intentional obstruction of an investigation (such as the lies told to the FBI by General Petraeus; again Comey did not consider lies told by Clinton to the public or to Congress), exposure of large quantities of classified information, or disloyalty to the United States. That may be true although the military has punished its members harshly for crimes that seem less egregious, especially given Hillary’s level of responsibility and her specific instructions to underlings not to use private email accounts because of security concerns. But Comey’s more fundamental argument that Clinton did not demonstrate intent to violate the law ignores the plain language of the statute which requires only gross negligence — synonymous in this case with the recklessness and carelessness that Comey had already found her culpable of — to be guilty of a crime. As former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy points out, this law is not unique in not requiring criminal intent; it is possible to be found guilty of manslaughter without having intended to kill anyone — gross negligence is enough. Comey’s is the same form of argument which has some comparing his rationalization to that of Chief Justice John Roberts, who tortured logic and rewrote the law in order to find Obamacare constitutional; perhaps each did not want to be responsible for a much larger political crisis. In Comey’s case: Should he be responsible for removing from contention the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party? Comey’s tremendous error was not his refusal to send a criminal referral of Hillary Clinton to the Department of Justice; it was his statement that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges given the facts of the case. That simply cannot be true. When it was any Democrat’s opportunity to waste five minutes of Comey’s time, the questions and comments were very similar to each other. Paraphrasing: “How long have you been FBI director?” “Thank you for being so non-partisan.” “Is it still correct that you did not coordinate the investigation with any part of the administration?” And, believe it or not, “Do you think that white supremacist groups are increasing their recruiting abilities because of Donald Trump’s retweets?” Democrats frequently described the hearing as “political theater,” a maddening characterization when discussing the illegal behavior of a woman who makes a habit of lying to the public about her actions — even when those actions lead to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi — yet who has the gall to believe she should lead this nation. But such are the low standards of our politics these days, particularly among Democrats. None of this is as new as it may seem to younger voters. Do you remember Marion Barry? Barry was the mayor of Washington, D. C. He was arrested by the FBI after being videotaped smoking crack cocaine (but at least it was with a prostitute). He served six months in prison and was at the next opportunity re-elected mayor. Yes, D. C. was a bastion of what is these days euphemistically called an “urban environment,” white-liberal-speak for a city with a large low-income and minority population and therefore, inexplicably, held to a lower standard of political propriety. (Perhaps that is why urban places which persistently elect Democrats like Kwame Kilpatrick and Chaka Fattah remain so “urban.”) But Barry’s bad behavior was a warm-up act for this generation of Democrats. As I noted last week, Bill Clinton was known to be unable to keep it in his pants and Barack Obama was known to associate with terrorists and haters of America and cheerleaders for Joseph Stalin. And those are just the winners. Among the losers, Al Gore used his connections to scam for himself and his friends tens of millions of dollars of government subsidies under the guise of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a self-serving lie successful on a scale that must have inspired the Clintons. And do I need to say anything at all about John “cheat on my wife while she’s dying of cancer” Edwards? Yet Democrats keep nominating these people — people whom you would never hire to work in your own business — and too few Republicans and independents stand up against raising these degenerates to our high, higher, and highest offices. The depressing part is that I don’t hold out hope for Democrats holding their own to any standard beyond “she’s not a Republican.” Perhaps more depressing is that when it comes to Donald Trump, Republicans seem to have no better argument either. Republican candidates in recent presidential elections have disappointed as well, but they weren’t liars and socialists and scoundrels. Trump is the worst yet, with his public appearances since Comey’s Tuesday bombshell demonstrating an utter inability to prosecute the case against Hillary Clinton, instead rambling on about the upside of Saddam Hussein and why his campaign staff shouldn’t have deleted a tweet containing a six-pointed star that liberals ridiculously tried to use as evidence of anti-Semitism from a man whose daughter recently converted to Judaism. Can’t you please just focus, Donald?!? Other Republicans will need to make the case since Trump’s narcissism and inexperience prevent him from making it effectively. So it was good to see Speaker of the House Paul Ryan playing hardball with a Democratic candidate who should be disqualified from holding any elected (or appointed) office: On Thursday, Ryan asked James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, to “refrain from providing classified information to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the duration of her candidacy for president.” It’s a transparent, even if bold, non-starter, but if Ryan’s goal is to prevent Mrs. Clinton from again sullying the White House with her presence — and to allow his members to maintain a House majority — he has few options available to him. This is an election that will be solely about driving up the opposition’s negatives since neither major party’s nominee has positives or qualifications worth mentioning and since Trump, surprisingly given his success at blowing Republicans out of the water, is getting much less traction against Hillary. Perhaps that’s because despite Mrs. Clinton’s obvious self-serving corruption, voters view Trump as little better. And hey, at least she can stick to a plan. Ryan’s request, which was immediately rebuffed by the Obama administration, gets to the heart of the thing: Hillary Clinton is both incompetent and untrustworthy. Hillary and her henchmen were complicit in a well-thought-out scheme to deny the public access to the work product that we are entitled to see. Just ask the guy who took the Fifth more than a hundred times when questioned about setting up her server; or don’t bother asking. As Congressman Trey Gowdy noted, it’s not so much that Hillary was careless with her private server; it’s that she was very careful to make sure she disobeyed both law and policy in order to hide… well, wouldn’t you like to know just what she’s hiding? But the sad question is whether enough Americans care, or whether a combination of party loyalty, justifiable skepticism about Mr. Trump, and utter exhaustion and numbness from decades of gutter politics and hyper- partisanship will allow millions of our fellow citizens to throw up their hands and say, “Is she really that much worse than any other politician?” As surely as Hillary lied to us about her email, about “the video” causing the Benghazi attack, about sniper fire in Bosnia, about why Goldman Sachs is willing to pay her nearly $800,000 for three speeches, the answer is “Hell, yes, she’s that much worse.” The only remaining question is whether Donald Trump can show the American people that he is better enough to deserve our votes. On that question, without James Comey to protect him from Americans’ common sense, the jury is still out.

2016-07-11 02:17 Ross Kaminsky spectator.org

80 Tony Blair’s Comeuppance The Chilcot report into Britain’s part in the 2003 Iraq war, which was finally published on Wednesday, is three times the size of the Bible. The executive summary alone runs to 150 pages. It took seven years to write, comprises 2.6 million words, comes in 12 volumes, and costs more than £750 to buy. And buried deep inside it is one particularly damming line. It’s clause 589, and it reads: “The explanation for military action put forward by Mr Blair in October 2004 was not the one given before the conflict.” Just think about that. After Britain had joined the U. S. in a conflict that would cost half a million lives, Tony Blair changed his mind about why he had done it. Back in early 2003, before the war, Blair was clear: we were going to war because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which, in the post 9/11 world, were a direct threat to Britain. Yet by 2004 it was obvious that Iraq had no WMD. The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Saddam had destroyed them 10 years earlier. At that stage, an honorable man in Blair’s position, realizing that he had made a decision on the basis of intelligence that had been proved wrong, and that, as a consequence, so many lives had been lost, might have done the decent thing and resigned. Instead, Blair merely changed the reason for going to war. We had done it, we were now told, because Saddam had the potential for manufacturing and using WMD. Actually, it is unlikely that either the 2003 or 2004 reasons were genuine. Saddam Hussein had no involvement in 9/11, so it was a big leap for Blair to claim that he was more of a threat to Britain and its allies after that terrible day than before. Certainly, Blair has never come up with a convincing connection between 9/11 and the need to topple Saddam. Even now, having had 15 years to think about it, the best that he can give us is this curious and confusing explanation: “…after 9/11 the calculus of risk had changed fundamentally. We believed we had to change policy on nations developing such weapons in order to eliminate the possibility of WMD and terrorism coming together.” Even if Blair was convinced in 2003 that WMDs Saddam possessed could somehow get into the hands of Al-Qaeda, he was cavalier in examining the evidence presented to him about whether Saddam actually had any. Chilcot points out, for example, that the intelligence reports Tony Blair received before the war “were not challenged and they should have been.” Or at least they weren’t challenged by Blair. But others were deeply skeptical. Blair’s former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, still at that point one of his most senior ministers, resigned over the matter, declaring: “Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term.” Meanwhile, UN weapons inspectors, led by Hans Blix, were carrying out 700 inspections in Iraq, and in no case found WMD. Why didn’t Blair challenge these intelligence reports, even though Cook had considered them misleading enough to warrant his resignation, and the UN inspectors were drawing a blank? Why didn’t he demand greater proof, knowing that he was about to send British soldiers into a bloody conflict based on what the intelligence reports were telling him? The conclusion that many people will draw is that the intelligence reports purporting to show Saddam’s WMD were merely a convenient excuse, and that Blair’s real reason for war was entirely different. We can be fairly sure what that real reason was: he considered it to be in Britain’s strategic interests to offer the U. S. unequivocal support for whatever action it chose to take. And if America, for reasons of its own, chose to remove Saddam by force, then Britain would help it do so. In fact, the very first words of the memo Blair sent to George Bush about Iraq on July 28, 2002, a full nine months before the war, were: “I will be with you, whatever.” And over the last 15 years Blair has always said that preserving Britain’s alliance with America was a fundamentally important part of his foreign policy – he was determined to be by America’s side, shoulder to shoulder. As he said on Wednesday, in response to Chilcot: “I believe there are two essential pillars to British foreign policy, our alliance with the United States and our partnership in Europe, and we should keep both strong as a vital national interest.” Most British people would agree that a strong relationship with America is essential. Yet, as Blair knew, most would also consider that alone too flimsy a pretext for going to war. Hence the need to insist that Saddam had WMD that threatened us, and to make that the case for war. So when Blair told the BBC on Thursday morning, in response to Chilcot’s report: “I took it [the decision to go to war] in good faith because I think it was the right thing to do,” we can believe him. Of course he thought it was the right thing to do. But we must also suspect that he concealed his real reason for doing it. That’s why the British people can be justified in believing that Tony Blair misled them. And it’s why Blair’s reputation should never recover.

2016-07-11 02:17 Robert Taylor spectator.org

81 The refugee who fled civil war and became a multi-millionaire Daniele Henkel decided she had to flee Algeria because she felt her children were no longer safe. "Islamists were starting to attack girls in the street," she says. "I had to think about my daughters, so I decided to move to Canada. " This was back in 1990, and Algeria was about to descend into more than a decade of civil war between a secular government and various Islamist groups. Morocco-born Daniele was 34 at the time, and she and her Algerian husband lived a comfortable life with their four children. She worked as a political and economic adviser for the US consulate in the coastal city of Oran, while he was engineer. But they gave up everything, almost overnight, to seek asylum in Canada. The family arrived penniless in the city of Montreal in the middle of a bitterly cold Canadian winter, a snowstorm in full swing. "Before moving, the immigration department of Canada had told us that my husband and I would easily find work," says Daniele. "In reality, things turned out to be very different. " While her husband Ahmad couldn't secure any work in his field, Daniele spent seven years scraping a living earning 75% less than she had done in Algeria. She did everything from working as a secretary, to selling lunchboxes, to trying her hand with an estate agents firm. Daniele says she felt "rejected and worthless", but her life was to transform again for the better in 1997 when she decided to start her own business selling health and beauty products. She says she wanted to be her own boss because she was "tired of being exploited". Her eponymous company has gone on to make her a multi-millionaire, and, today the 60-year-old is one of the best-known business leaders in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. Born to a Moroccan mother and a German father whom she never met, Daniele was raised in Algeria. At the age of 18 her mother forced her to have an arranged marriage with the best friend of her older brother. "When my mother told me I had to marry Ahmad I screamed and cried. I was furious," says Daniele. "I didn't want to get married, but I wanted to stay close to my family, so I eventually agreed. I was married within two weeks. " Although she hadn't wanted the relationship, Daniele says she soon learned to love her husband. "He was the perfect man. He was generous, smart and very loving. " While he was a successful engineer, she quickly rose through the ranks at the US consulate after initially getting a low-grade job allocating visas. So the couple built a happy life together in Algeria, until they were forced to flee the country. In Canada, however, the marriage came under strain, which Daniele says was caused by Ahmad being unable to find work as an engineer. Ultimately they divorced, which she says made her feel "very guilty". With four children to feed this put extra pressure on Daniele for her business to succeed. Her idea was to create an exfoliating glove inspired by those used in Algerian and Moroccan bathhouses. Made of plant fibres (eucalyptus and spruce), the user would rub the glove over his or her wet skin to remove dead cells, and generally improve skin condition. Daniele thought it would be popular, but it took a bit of explaining in 1990s Canada. "There was nothing like it in Quebec [at the time]," she says. "When I would present my project, people would tell me: 'In Quebec we wear winter gloves, not exfoliating gloves.'" Undeterred, Daniele found a manufacturer, and started visiting beauty salons in Montreal to persuade them to try the glove, which she called "Renaissance". She says that she wouldn't stop for the day until she had sold at least 250 Canadian dollars worth ($190; £150). The popularity of the glove (which today costs C$26) quickly grew, with sales to both salons and members of the public. "People liked my glove so much they started asking me for more products," says Daniele. "That is how I realised I had a clientele. " Almost two decades later, Daniele's business has sold millions of the gloves, and expanded to a health and beauty empire that includes a range of cosmetics, treatments for cellulite, burns, excess fat and acne, and a laboratory that develops tests to detect food intolerances. Daniele has also become a celebrity in Quebec after appearing in the first five series of In The Eye Of The Dragon, Quebec's French language version of entrepreneurship TV show Dragons' Den. The four other judges were always all men, and she says she sometimes felt they "were not always interested" in her views. However, Daniele made herself heard, winning her a lot of female fans. "The experience made me realise how much business is a boys' club," she says. "I was kind of the black sheep... but I took my rightful place. " Canadian businessman Mitch Garber, who appeared with Daniele on the show, says she is a trailblazer. Mr Garber, who is the chief executive of casino and online gaming group Caesars Interactive Entertainment, says: "Daniele Henkel has done as much for the advancement of women entrepreneurs as anyone in Quebec, and for that she is credited and widely respected. " Looking back on her often unconventional life so far, Daniele says it has taught her that you "always have a choice". "Even when things that you can't control happen, you can always choose how you react to them," she says.

2016-07-11 02:16 By Andreane www.bbc.co.uk

82 The Chilean fighting in a foreign conflict in Colombia Jose Roberto Carrasco Pizarro's nom de guerre is Santiago. The Chilean with the stubble, black shirt and black cap first came to the public's attention in August 2015 when Colombian media reported that the security forces had found two passports and an ID belonging to a Chilean citizen in a Farc camp they had attacked in central Colombia. In an exclusive interview with the BBC in the jungle of western Colombia, Santiago remembers how when he first joined the Farc, he went by a different alias. "They first called me Agustin, but it reminded me of Augusto Pinochet [the right-wing general who ruled Chile between 1974 and 1990] so I changed it to Santiago, like the Chilean capital. " Santiago is 33 and from the Chilean port town of Valparaiso. He studied to become a publicist in Vina del Mar and continued his training in the Spanish city of Barcelona. It is a career choice he now regrets: "The publicist is a sort of Devil's advocate, because he sells products that are not needed. " His rhetoric is anti-capitalist through and through, but what made this young Chilean from a middle-class family join a rural guerrilla group thousands of miles from his home country? "I like the Farc because they have always been on the side of the poor," he says. "Big business doesn't respect borders, why shouldn't we revolutionaries join forces to defend ourselves? " "Borders only belong on maps," he explains. Most Colombians do not share his view of the Farc as a force for good. They point to the massacres and bomb attacks carried out by the guerrilla which have landed the Farc on the list of terrorist organisations of both the European Union and the United States. Santiago joined the Farc a couple of months before the start of formal peace talks between the government and the guerrilla group in November 2012. He recalls that it was not easy to track his future comrades down, even though he would head to areas where guerrilla action had been reported. It was only after eight months spent in rural areas of central Tolima province that Santiago was finally able to make contact with the Farc. After some initial mistrust, with the Farc suspecting him of being a spy, Santiago was finally allowed to join their ranks. He was trained to be a nurse and was deployed in two combat situations. Among his worst memories are the time when a guerrilla camp he was in was bombed by the security forces. Three rebels died in the attack, two of them when the bombs fell straight on them. Santiago says there was nothing left of them. The third died in his arms. Santiago says he survived the bombing because he had a habit of sleeping next to a big tree. The trunk protected him from the blast. Fear and alertness have now become part of his life. "When I hear a dog barking, I wake up even from the deepest sleep and reach out for my rifle," he says. While Santiago is in a relationship with a 30-year-old fellow Farc rebel, he has no relatives in Colombia. Being close to his family is something he misses, even though he professes himself to be happy with his life in the guerrilla. "I miss everything about Chile: my family, the places. I grew up in a very close family. " Santiago says his family does not share his views. While his sister is involved in politics - she is the mayor of the town of El Quisco, 40km south of Valparaiso - she belongs to the centrist Democracia Cristiana party. Santiago is not the only foreigner to have joined the ranks of the Farc. Dutchwoman Tanja Nijmeijer is probably the most famous foreign recruit. She is part of the Farc delegation negotiating a peace deal in the Cuban capital, Havana. But there are others, including a French woman and, according to Santiago, a Venezuelan and an Argentine. Santiago says the prospect of a peace deal between the government and the Farc does not inspire him with much confidence. In June, the two sides agreed on a bilateral ceasefire after more than five decades of conflict. But Santiago says government forces are not the only enemy of the Farc he worries about. "The government is holding out its hand to us there [in Havana], but here we have the paramilitaries," he says referring to the right-wing groups created to fight the Farc. The government argues that the paramilitary groups demobilised a decade ago and no longer pose a threat, even if some individual members may have joined armed criminal gangs. But Santiago says they are still a danger to the Farc, especially once the guerrillas lay down their arms. "I think they will kill many comrades," he says. "I will not sleep peacefully. "

2016-07-11 02:16 By Natalio www.bbc.co.uk

83 A Californian town laid low by cheap oil It used to be tough to get a table for breakfast at Zingo's Cafe in Bakersfield. Truckers and young "roughnecks" from the oil fields packed the diner, which is known for its biscuits and gravy and massive portions. But business is down 40% "since the oil went to hell" over the last 18 months, says Gil Edmondson, who owns Zingo's with his wife. "If there's nothing going on at the oil fields, then there's not much going on here," says Edmondson. "That's our customers. " Black gold is the lifeblood of this blue-collar, conservative county - the heart of California's billion-dollar oil industry. This is the home of country music legends Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, who sang of the working man's blues. Thousands of "nodding donkey" oil pumps dot the flat, blistering hot landscape. It's a place where young men could earn a decent middle-class living in the oil fields without a university education; where the many orange, almond and grape fields have provided work for transients since Dust Bowl migrants came here for refuge in the 1930s. It's also a place where Donald Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again" resonates. "We need to bring companies back to America," says Dwain Cowell over breakfast at Zingo's. Regular customers nod in agreement as Cowell rails against the loss of the US iron industry to Vietnam, China and Japan. Sporting a Zingo's baseball cap, Cowell holds court in one of the booths at the cafe - his booming voice rousing other customers as they bemoan the rise in crime over the last two years because of unemployment. At 81, Cowell has done well running a refrigeration business for buses and trucks, and his children and grandchildren have gone to college. But he fears for the younger generation in Kern County, where more oil is produced than in any other county in the United States. He believes the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton are pushing a global agenda and a global economy when "we should be putting America first" and protecting industry. A retired oil man at the next table couldn't agree more. "We can't all be computer geeks," he shouts. The restaurant's tables are decorated with ads from local businesses - oil companies as well as the local mom and pop operations which service the industry: trucking, air conditioning, construction. "My old man was laid off from the oil fields," a waitress named Crystal says. A customer says he was forced into early retirement. Another customer found work driving a truck for a fraction of the pay he was earning in the oil fields. "Women are the only ones still working around here," another waitress says. "And our business is way down. " As other Americans embrace lower oil and gas prices with road trips, in Kern County every sector of the economy is suffering the effects of low oil prices and mass lay-offs in the industry. A barrel of oil cost $100 in June 2014. US oil prices crashed to $27 a barrel in January - the lowest level since 2003. With prices now hovering at around $50 a barrel, oil producers are still holding off from rehiring many of the laid off workers. Employment in Kern County's oil and gas extraction and well drilling is down 17.6% compared with a year ago, according to state figures released in June. The overall unemployment rate in Kern County was 9.7% in May, more than double California's 4.7% rate and 4.5% for the US. Not everyone in Bakersfield is a Republican, but it's hard to find Democrats at the local bars and diners. Local radio is dominated by conservative talk shows - Rush Limbaugh and local hosts who have many nicknames for the political elite: Killary, Crooked Hillary, Lyin' Ted. President Obama is still "accidentally" called "Osama" and dismissed as a Muslim and a foreigner doing irreparable damage to America's standing in the world. Many here feel excluded from the positive economic data being touted in Washington. Kern County weathered the 2007-08 financial crisis better than most: at a time of high oil prices many were getting into the oil industry while it was booming. And the oil industry pays well. At the peak of his career as an oil consultant, Patrick McGonigal earned nearly $300,000 a year. He lived the high life, owning a Corvette, a custom Harley and homes in Bakersfield, North Dakota and San Diego. Now he's effectively homeless - couch surfing with family and friends. The Corvette, hog and homes long gone since oil prices tanked over the last 18 months - the worst drop in oil prices in a generation. "We're all struggling," he says. If the price of oil doesn't dramatically rise, he says, many here don't know how they'll survive. The downturn has hit every generation of McGonigal's family. His stepfather is also an oil man and was forced into early retirement. Several other family members are unemployed and living off their savings. Many here feel like the government is leading the country into decline, by not protecting the oil and gas industry or doing more to support American manufacturing and farming. A five-year long drought hasn't helped - agriculture is the other major industry here and it is suffering as farmers grapple with the cost of water. This is also Steinbeck country - where the fictional Joad family came in The Grapes of Wrath after fleeing Oklahoma in search of a better life. Instead of finding paradise, the desperate "Okie" migrants of the 1930s were treated with suspicion in Bakersfield, much the way Mexican farm workers are treated today. Instead of a promised land of plenty, they struggled to find even low-paying, backbreaking jobs on farms and many starved to death. Donald Trump's promise to build a wall between the US and Mexico is a popular prospect here. Unemployed carpenter and oil field worker Derrick Nichols, 29, says it's difficult to get a job if you don't speak Spanish, which he doesn't. In the middle of a hot day, he sits at the bar of the Long Branch Saloon in Oildale - a rough neighbourhood a few miles north of Bakersfield where gangs and drugs have created opportunity for some who have lost out in the oil economy. He talks of the good old days in Oildale when he was a kid. There used to be a dairy just down the road and the river was clean and kids used to ride their bikes freely throughout the neighbourhood. "Now we can't let our kids out of our sight. There's too many tweakers out there," he says of the drugs, which have destroyed so many lives here.

2016-07-11 02:16 By Regan www.bbc.co.uk

84 Cambodian activist Kem Ley shot dead in Phnom Penh Kem Ley, a prominent Cambodian political activist and government critic, has been shot dead in the capital Phnom Penh. He was killed at a petrol station in what police said was a dispute over money. A man has been arrested. As word of his death spread, thousands of his supporters accompanied a car carrying his body to a local pagoda. It comes at a time of rising tension between the government and opposition ahead of elections expected next year. Kem Ley was involved in grassroots activist groups, criticising the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Cambodia became a multi-party democracy in 1993, but opponents accuse the prime minister of running a violent and authoritarian system. Hun Sen, who heads the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), has led the country for decades. The CPP won disputed general elections in 2013, taking 68 seats compared with 55 for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). The CNRP initially boycotted its parliamentary seats but later reached an agreement with the CPP. In July 2014, protests erupted over a government decision to close Freedom Park, leading to violent clashes, and tear gas and batons being deployed.

2016-07-11 02:16 www.bbc.co.uk

85 Guyana's blind cricketers are in it to win it It is a drizzly Sunday morning in Guyana, and at the National Stadium a game of cricket is in full swing. As in much of the West Indies, cricket here is a much-loved national sport. But something's a little different about this match. Instead of pitching the ball, the batsman rolls it across the grass to the waiting batsman, who is kneeling on the ground - primed for action. Bat meets ball with a satisfying whack and a cheer erupts from the small group. Welcome to a training session of the Guyana Blind Cricket Association. "It's not that different from sighted cricket," says top player and board member Ganesh Singh, who has been blind since he lost his sight at the age of 17. "In sighted cricket it's all about eye and hand co-ordination, here it's ear and hand co-ordination. "Once you're a keen listener, you pick up the line of the ball and then you can bowl, field and bat effectively. It's very instinctive. " Instead of the traditional leather-and-cork model, blind cricket uses a hollow plastic ball filled with iron beads that rattle as the ball moves, alerting players to its location. "It's a very vocal game," explains Singh. "For example, if the bowler is totally blind, the keeper will make some kind of noise behind the stumps so that the bowler can get his direction and know where to bowl the ball. There's a lot of chatter and noise. " Today the chatter is particular loud, as the team excitedly wait to hear who has been picked to play at the Regional Blind Cricket T20 championship in Trinidad. Schemona Trinidad, who has travelled two hours from Berbice to get to the stadium - located just outside the capital, Georgetown - is not certain she will make the cut. "I'm not absolutely sure. But I hope so! " she says. The 21-year-old joined the team in the B2 (or partially sighted) category but a deterioration in her vision means she's moved to B1, the category for blind players. "When I started, I could see the ball a little bit, now it's a bit more challenging," she says. But the friendly, banter-filled atmosphere makes playing less daunting. "When you're out there, you have to have confidence in yourself. "Some totally blind people that have just started to play are afraid to run around without a guide, but the coach and other team members are like 'Go for it! Chase the ball!' so that helps. " One of four female players on the team, Trinidad is determined to reach the top. "I've heard that they're going to have a female [blind cricket] West Indies team from next year," she says excitedly. Given that the West Indies recently won its first Women's World Twenty20 in April, the timing could not be better. Trinidad is not the only one to wax lyrical about the game and its off-pitch benefits. "Blind cricket basically helped me to transform my life from being someone who was isolated from society, lacked self-esteem and confidence, to someone that is fully empowered," enthuses Singh. In 2006, he and two other Guyanese cricketers, Oliver Kerr and Patrick Dillon, were part of the first West Indies team to participate in the Blind Cricket World Cup, held in Pakistan. Though perhaps Singh's success is no surprise, given that the village where he hails from, Unity, also produced Shivnarine Chanderpaul, former captain of the West Indies cricket team, and women's cricketer Indomatie Goordyal. With another Blind Cricket World Cup set to take place in India in January 2017, the team are hoping to do well at this weekend's regional T20 championships. Coach Bharat Mangru is confident. "This is the first season that we've had a full compliment of B3 players [those with better vision]. They're young, energetic and that feeds the other players. "Over the years we went out there to compete. But I think this year our message is: Win. " One potential roadblock to success is the lack of stable financial support. "Prior to a tournament or any time we need funding, we start writing letters soliciting funding from private sector and government agencies. But it's not reliable," says Singh. For the forthcoming trip to Trinidad, they are about $1,500 (£1,150) short. "But we're hoping that we can get it. We're always optimistic," says Singh. Yet just as they refuse to let a little rain get in the way of their practice, the team are determined to play on. Coach Mangru is not surprised. "In sighted cricket, the first thing some of the guys would have said is, 'Ah Coach, man! It's raining. We got to come to the ground?' But these guys called me at home from the stadium. "That's the kind of commitment there is. "

2016-07-11 02:16 By Carinya www.bbc.co.uk

86 Why this Indian state screams for ice cream Black pepper in ice cream, anyone? What about making a ball of rich, nut- flecked ice cream and then wrapping a laddu - a popular sugary Indian sweet - around it? If that doesn't make you either crave or cringe, what about spiced ice cream tightly wrapped in a betel leaf - a digestive usually taken after meals - with a cherry on top and a silver foil as a frill? Or putting some fresh ginger or cardamom in your frozen treat? "Anywhere else in the world, these may sound outrageous," says food writer Marryam H Reshii. "But in Gujarat, these are the many eye-popping ingredients in ice creams that the state is famous for. " Gujarat is India's ice cream country. The state accounts for more than 12% of the country's $1.3bn (£1bn) ice cream sales. Business is brisk for some 50 large and small ice cream makers. Some of India's oldest ice cream factories are based here. Vadilal, one of the biggest factories with revenues of 8,000 million rupees ($120m), began delivering homemade ice creams in imported flasks to consumers in 1907. Havmor, the other prominent player in the ice cream game, was set up by an enterprising Punjabi refugee who opened a parlour in Pakistan in 1944, fled to India after the bloody partition, and started making ice creams in Gujarat with some fellow refugees. This is the tenth article in a BBC series India on a plate, on the diversity and vibrancy of Indian food. Other stories in the series: The street food that silences even the most heated debate How home chefs are helping uncover India's food secrets Amma canteen: Where a meal costs only seven cents Inside India's 'dying' Irani cafes What Indians have done to world cuisine It helps that Gujaratis love eating sweets and innovating with food, that the summers in the state are long and hot, the milk is top quality (Gujarat is a dairy hub) and electricity is plentiful (aiding uninterrupted refrigeration for retailers). Some like Rajesh Gandhi, chief of Vadilal, say that since alcohol is prohibited by law here, people reach out for ice creams and milk shakes instead. Ice cream - unlike other traditional Indian sweets - is also the default dessert after a wholesome Gujarati meal. "Ice cream is one of the state's overriding obsessions," says Ms Reshii. "It occupies mind space in Gujarat that you won't encounter elsewhere in India. " In Ahmedabad, Gujarat's main city, Ms Reshii discovered an astonishing variety of frozen delights: lychee ice cream with large chunks of fruit; rajbhog (a Bengali sweet) ice cream, a happy fusion of two desserts; and the "curiously named" dry fruit katri studded with industrial quantities of almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts. While Jamaica offers ice cream flavoured with with vodka and Japan can surprise you with seafood flavoured ice cream, predominantly vegetarian Gujarat is not far behind: you can get ice cream with grated cheese, peanuts, capsicum and green tea leaves here. Ice creams are spiced up with cardamom and chilli flakes or flavour. Ginger is put in popsicles; and red chilli flakes in a vanilla mix. Ice creams are packed with imported nuts and chocolates. They also put the sweet preserve of rose petals in ice cream. Another popular variant of the dessert is a silver foil topped ice cream made out of a traditional milk-based confectionary called barfi by stuffing it with a mouth- watering mix of choicest mango pulp, ice cream and sweet condensed milk. Legend at Havmor has it that former US president Bill Clinton loved their mango barfi ice cream when he came visiting years ago. For children there are lollies made of chocolate-based health drinks. In a state with a long history of prohibition, they have even tried to sell a whiskey- flavoured ice cream. Some recipes work, others flop - the whiskey flavoured ice cream was a famous failure- but ice cream makers are undeterred. "Nothing stops us from experimenting all the time," says Ankit Chona, managing director of Havmor, which churns out 200,000 litres of ice cream in 160 flavours every day. Consumers are so demanding that his company offers out three new flavours every quarter. Such is the craze that ice cream makers even hold flavour contests. Last year Havmor was swamped by more than 10,000 recipe suggestions when it tied up with a radio station and held a contest. They included some truly bizarre ones like pav bhaji - a thick vegetable curry usually prepared in butter and served with bread rolls - and chickpea- flavoured ice cream. The company picked up five of the more palatable recipes and sold them as new flavours. "Ice cream is part of the Gujarati culture," says food writer Anil Mulchandani. "There's always ice cream in the refrigerator, and it is a part of every family gathering and festival. " No wonder then that ice cream making is a veritable cottage industry in Gujarat. There are more than 100 parlours in the main city of Ahmedabad, and some home-made ice creams are a rage. Nearly three decades ago, homemaker Neruben Desai, began making ice creams out of her home after her husband lost his job. Today, the ageing couple sell some 80 litres of their hugely popular - "fresh and smooth", says a customer - ice cream in 24 flavours every day from three freezers of a small porch in front of her nondescript home in a shaded lane. Their home churned ice creams come in eclectic flavours - poppy seed and fennel, date and rose - and customers are offered free samples. When they open their home in the evening, the porch fills up in no time. "Both of us love ice creams. Our reputation has spread by word of mouth," says Ms Desai. Not to be outdone, her sister-in-law, who lives next door, also sells her ice cream. Or take Shankar Samnani, a school dropout who began with selling ice lollies on a cart in 1956 and graduated to making ice creams at home. Today, his son, Arun and a bunch of workers make 20 delicious flavours out of a cramped 1,800 sq ft shed in the city, and sell them through party orders and home deliveries: Shankar's "premium" ice cream has delivered to home parties hosted by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani and a host of Bollywood stars. The brand's only retail presence: a single vending cart in a crowded food bazaar in the city. At parties Mr Samnani and his son, Bhagyesh, set up colourful dessert counters for guests, offering smoke spewing liquid nitrogen and fresh cold stone ice creams. Workers are given English classes to deal with clients. "People here want new kinds of ice creams all the time," says Mr Samnani. "They are crazy about it. " There is little doubt about it. Visit the food bazaar in Law Garden in Ahmedabad around midnight and people are still milling around, looking for their favourite food or snack. Rows of plastic chairs under gaudy awnings wait for clients. At the end of their meal, most people will flock to the ice cream shops. Then they will sit in the plastic chairs devouring their favourite flavours. "My days and nights are incomplete without ice cream," says stock broker Tapan Patel. Not far away, a woman is feeding her pet Spitz vanilla ice cream. Life is good. Pictures by Kannagi Khanna

2016-07-11 02:16 By Soutik www.bbc.co.uk

87 Dallas shootings: Killer 'prepared larger attack' The man who shot dead five police officers in Dallas and wounded seven more was planning an even larger attack, the city's police chief says. Micah Johnson, 25, was angry with the recent killings of black men by police and wanted to kill white officers, police say. Police chief David Brown said he was "convinced" Johnson had wider plans. He told CNN that Johnson, a military veteran, appeared to have practised detonating explosives. Mr Brown also said police were trying to find the significance of the letters 'RB' that Johnson had written in his own blood, near where he was killed by a remote detonation by police. Officers were also reading a journal found in Johnson's house that Mr Brown said was proving "hard to decipher". Johnson launched his attack in Dallas as a protest was taking place against the deaths of black men at the hands of police. The deaths of Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last week led to more protests across US cities on Saturday. Read more: 'Legendary' photo gains praise Hundreds of people were arrested in the demonstrations nationwide. While most passed peacefully, fireworks, bottles and rocks were thrown at police in St Paul in clashes along a main interstate highway. Close to 100 people were arrested there as 21 police officers were injured. In Baton Rouge, several hundred protesters gathered outside the police department shouting "No justice! No peace! " and also at the convenience store where Alton Sterling was shot. There was also tension as armed members of the New Black Panther Party stood face to face with officers in riot gear. Louisiana law allows weapons to be carried openly. Among the 100 people held was DeRay Mckesson, who has become a national voice for the Black Lives Matter movement, and three journalists. Mr Mckesson was freed on bond on Sunday. In contrast to protesters in other parts of the country, the people of Dallas are uniting behind their police officers. A makeshift shrine in memory of the five officers gunned down on Thursday night sprang up outside police headquarters in the Cedars district of the city within hours of the attack, and it is now a mass of flowers, balloons, stuffed toys and messages of sympathy. Throughout the day, a constant stream of visitors have come here - black, white, Hispanic; young couples, elderly folk, little girls in sun dresses - to pay their respects, say a prayer or simply shed a tear. An impromptu prayer session on the steps of police headquarters ended with hugs and a police officer breaking down in tears. Earlier, a mother was overheard telling her son it was up to his generation to make things better: "This generation tried, but soon it will be up to you," she said. "The police in Baton Rouge have been truly awful tonight," Mr Mckesson said in a livestreamed Periscope video on Saturday night. "They have provoked people. They chase people just for kicks. The police have been violent tonight. The protesters have not.'' Other protests took place in Nashville, Indianapolis and Washington DC. Demonstrations have continued despite an effort by President Barack Obama to soothe the tension. On a visit to Spain on Sunday, he demanded an end to anti-police violence. "Whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause," he said. Also on Sunday, the White House said Mr Obama would travel to Dallas on Tuesday. He will speak at an interfaith memorial service.

2016-07-11 02:16 www.bbc.co.uk

88 Israel and Palestinians: Egypt FM urges two- state solution in rare visit Egypt's foreign minister has paid a rare visit to Israel, offering his country's help to revive peace talks with the Palestinians. Sameh Shoukry called for a two-state solution, but said conditions for achieving it were deteriorating. His trip is seen as a sign of strengthened ties between two countries sharing deep concerns over regional unrest. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has said he welcomes Egypt's efforts. The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians came to an end amid acrimony in April 2014. The Palestinians accused Israel of reneging on a deal to free prisoners, while Israel said it would not continue negotiations after the Palestinians decided to bring the militant Islamist Hamas movement into a unity government. Mr Shoukry, the first Egyptian foreign minister to visit Israel in nine years, said the current state of affairs was "neither stable nor sustainable". He added that the vision of two states living side by side was "not far- fetched" and called for confidence-building measures that could lead to renewed peace talks. "It is no longer acceptable to claim that the status quo is the most that we can achieve of the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples," he said, alongside Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Mr Shoukry met the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank on 29 June. Co-operation between Israel and Egypt has intensified under Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. Egypt faces Islamist militants in the Sinai region south of Israel, and both countries are wary of Gaza's Hamas Islamist rulers. In May, Mr Sisi urged both sides to seize the opportunity to make a peace deal, offering the Arab peace initiative of 2002 as a potential way ahead. Mr Netanyahu said he would be willing to discuss the plan, but that changes would have to be made. He repeated his call for Palestinians to resume direct negotiations with Israel. Violence has escalated recently, and 35 Israelis have been killed in a wave of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks since October. More than 200 Palestinians - mostly attackers, Israel says - have also been killed in that period. Earlier this month, the so-called Middle East Quartet said ongoing violence, Israeli settlement-building and Palestinian splits were undermining peace hopes. And it warned of "perpetual occupation and conflict" between both sides.

2016-07-11 02:16 www.bbc.co.uk

89 Photographing the things homeless people in California own Huang Qingjun spent nearly a decade travelling to remote parts of China photographing families outside their homes with all their household possessions. Now he has done the same for homeless people in California. "In 2010, the first time I stepped on American soil, I saw lots of homeless people on the streets of New York, but didn't dare approach them, because I'd been told many of them were linked to drugs, robbery and violence," says Huang Qingjun. During a visit to the Los Angeles in 2015 with a film crew, he saw dozens of tents erected on the roads near the crew's offices - a homeless encampment. "I had previously photographed 53 families with all their worldly belongings, and I wanted to see what sort of belongings these homeless families would have. " Although Huang doesn't speak English, it didn't discourage him from trying to take portraits. "I thought a smile would be the best language, and that pictures don't need words," he says. "I didn't bring my Nikon camera, I thought this would make me less approachable, so I brought my iPhone instead. " He went to the encampment the next morning and saw two people talking. "I approached them, and let them see the photos I'd taken in China on my phone, and indicated I wished to photograph them," he says. "I didn't think they'd start yelling at me. I couldn't tell what they were saying, but from their expressions it was obvious they didn't agree. So my first attempt failed. " But shortly after, Huang met a homeless man named Scott. Huang helped move his tent and bought him coffee. When Scott was settled, he agreed to be photographed. "The brief version of my story: I started using drugs when I was 12, and I'm 41 now. I'm homeless and jobless. I'm kind of strung on heroin and speed, but I still got my brains. I don't have much actual education at schools, I am self-taught. "I can do a lot of different types of art, I'm trying to be an artist. " Huang returned to the US in February 2016, travelling to San Jose, California. "One day during my walk I found two areas where homeless people stayed, one by the river and one by a railway, and that gave me the idea of photographing their belongings again," Huang says. He chose the railway site and brought his professional camera. "I saw Charles Nelson sitting there in the sun," he says. "I showed him my previous works, and indicated I wanted to photograph his belongings. " Huang says. Through Nelson's help, Huang interviewed and photographed 10 other people. Huang says he used translation software to communicate with his interviewees on the spot - and also recorded audio which his friends translated when he got back to China. See more of his photographs and the people he met below. "I lost my job and I lost my apartment. A friend of mine was already staying out here. "So I asked him - is there a spot for me? He said yes. I had a tent, put it up, and started staying with him and helped him out a little bit because he was sick. About four months later he passed away. By then my situation here had improved, so I kept living here. " Melissa Streich , 37 "I got in with a bad crowd and became homeless as a result. "I couldn't live like this very long. I'm working right now and I'm going to get my apartment really soon. " Michael T Oliver , 47 "I became divorced, homeless and jobless in one week. This is the only way I can live right now. I sometimes get some food donations from the government, but I don't go to church groups or other organisations. " "What do I need most? A car. I used to drive for a living, but I don't drive anymore. This is what is right now. I don't know. I don't have much of a choice. " John Reyes , 57 "I'm living this sort of life because I was hit by a driver. I used to be a machinist for about 22 years. After being hit, I ended up in hospital for three months. I don't have lots of memory any more because a portion of my brain is damaged. "Now I'm mad at everything. I choose to not to live with my wife because I don't want to be mad at her. We were married for, like, 20 years and after the hospital I barely knew who she was. "I hate the driver for making me like this. The right thing for that man to do was to stop. I can't use Social Security or any pension because I can't prove that he was wrong. " Johan Marshall , 50 "I can't find a job anymore. Nobody hires an old cellphone engineer. I chose this way of living because it's comfortable. There are hard times, nothing to do. "I don't receive any subsidies from the government, or from a church or other organisations. Sometimes I fix laptops. We need heat the most, generators would be wonderful to heat up the tent. " Anthony Williams , 49 "I'm from East Palo Alto. I chose this way of living really because a girl I was with when I was first here, she was out here homeless. We were both working. "I don't get government assistance. I do get help from churches. There are other people who come here to help two or three times a week. I need a job the most. "Two years ago, my good friend Rodalfo Hernandez was murdered. He was the first person I met out here - 60-something years old, would give anyone the shirt off his back. Doesn't seem like the police are doing anything about his murder. I want to find out who killed him. " "We're brothers, we also have two brothers who are a little younger, who live with our parents. We've been homeless for four years now. "We didn't choose to live like this, we had no other choice. We've become used to it, but we still think this isn't a good way of life, and our goal is to leave as soon as possible. " Teone : "I came here about three or four years ago when I was on vacation with some friends. I pretty much never turned back around. The weather is great and people are nice. It's expensive to live here, but we have to work hard and become self-reliant. " Lynette : "I have been living in California for 33 years, on and off. I like the weather here too. "I've been homeless for eight years. We have a one-year-old daughter together. She is with family right now. I have five other kids besides her. " "I was born in San Francisco, California. I have family that emigrated here from Italy. I am Catholic, that's my faith. I lived here in this area since I was born. I haven't been to Italy yet, but I would like to go. " "This is different from what I'm used to, living here. I guess most people would say homeless. It has everything to do with my faith, our Father. That's why I'm here. "I'm fine with it, it's been adjustment, it's not been easy, but I'm fine with it. I know it's not going to be forever... my life has always been moving and changing. " Translations by Helier Cheung More from Huang Qingjun - The things Chinese families owns

2016-07-11 02:16 www.bbc.co.uk

90 Modi tour: Seven things about Africa and India India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on an African charm offensive, visiting four nations where he hopes to tie up energy and trade deals and remind the continent of their cultural bond. Historic ties stretch back to British and Portuguese colonial rule, when a large number of Indians migrated to Africa. But how do things stand now? Indians may have spiced up food in Africa - introducing samosas and ⁠biryani - but now it is India that is looking to the continent to keep plates full - and at an affordable price, by growing lentils. Known as "daal" in India, these pulses are the staple diet for millions of Indians but prices have doubled in the past 18 months because of two successive drought years. So Mr Modi has signed a deal with Mozambique to produce 100,000 tonnes of pulses over the next year, which it aims to double in four years at a fixed price. And to avoid any complaints from fussy eaters, India will advise on their cultivation so that the taste is correct, India's information minister has said. Indians consume nearly 22 million tonnes of pulses annually, so this may seem like a piddling deal, however it is indicative of the opportunities the Asian country sees in Africa where large tracts of land go uncultivated. Investing in African agriculture has been top of India's agenda for several years- though land, and who farms it, is a contentious issue. It has led some Indian farmers who tried their luck in Africa to reportedly give up. To this end the option of contract or co-operative farming instead of leasing land, as with the Mozambique model, is being explored. "For me personally, this visit is an opportunity to pay homage to two of the greatest human souls to have ever walked this Earth - Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela," Mr Modi said on his arrival in South Africa. Indeed the fight against racial discrimination is what most unifies the two nations. Over the weekend, the Indian prime minister took a train journey to Pietermaritzburg Station, where a Mahatma Gandhi was thrown off a train in 1893 because the young lawyer refused to leave his first class compartment, reserved for white passengers. This spurred him to take up his lifelong fight for equal rights that changed the history of both South Africa and India. Xenophobia is now the demon South Africa needs to tackle - and many Indian traders, who are seen as exploitative, have faced attack there. But it is the racism in India that has been centre stage more recently - with a spate of attacks on Africans, many of whom go to study at Indian universities. As Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper put it , it's "time for India to explain its promise to protect Africans on its soil". Mr Modi has been pushing for diaspora Indians to register as a Non- Resident Indian (NRI) to get an Indian passport and pay tax. However, while many Indians in Africa look to their motherland for their cultural fix, most feel patriotic to the home of their birth and the feel Africa offers them greater opportunities. Thousands of patients from Africa travel to India every year to seek specialised treatment. In 2015 more than 10,000 Kenyans did so, spending $98m (£76m), according to government in Kenya, which is Mr Modi's last stop. Specialist treatment for diseases like cancer is becoming increasingly expensive in Kenya. Few private hospitals are equipped to provide treatment, and those that are charge high rates. Many middle class Kenyans believe it is cheaper to get an air ticket, visa, accommodation and pay for treatment in India than it is to go to a private hospital in the capital, Nairobi, for treatment. The public hospitals are cheaper but overstretched and not adequately equipped to handle the number of cases. Cancer patients can wait as long as a year to get a cheap radiotherapy appointment at a public hospital. This is why many Kenyans end up opting to fundraise or sell property to seek a faster or cheaper cure in India. But among a raft of African aid and investment promises India made last year, $10m was to an India-Africa Health Fund. Providing affordable drugs will be key to this initiative - many HIV patients in Africa are dependent on cheaper generic Indian ARVs. And according to Kenya's Daily Nation, a deal will be signed for India to help set up a cancer hospital in Kenya and supply it with a telecobalt machine. The most in-your-face example of the strong trade links between India and Africa is the hair on women's head - with upmarket hairdressers doing a roaring trade in Indian hair weaves, which makes millions for India annually. At street level, there are Indian wheeler dealers and Tata cars, on screens there are Bollywood movies. People will flock to fill up cinemas in Tanzania - which is the third country on Mr Modi's tour - even if a film isn't dubbed or have subtitles. China's annual trade with Africa stands at $200bn, compared to India's $72bn - but India's influence seems more visible - perhaps not surprising given the large Indian communities, especially in former British colonies, where they were brought in as indentured labour to work on sugar plantations and build railways. And, according to the South African presidency , despite the dominance of China, India is South Africa's largest trade partner. It said trade in 2015 was almost $6.7bn. Arguably the most controversial arrival from India to Africa in recent years is the Gupta family, who, through their investment company Oakbay investments, have interests in computers, mining, air travel, energy, technology and the media and employ about 10,000 people. Originally from India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, they came to South Africa in 1993. Their infamy lies in their close relationship to President Jacob Zuma and allegations of their influence on government - which came to a head last year over the appointment of a finance minister. The country's corruption watchdog is now set to investigate them. Their TV channel has been the only one to give prominence to Mr Modi's state visit to South Africa. But he may be wondering why, given the pressure the family has been under in South Africa, the Guptas have chosen Dubai as a second base and not their motherland. All four countries on Mr Modi's tour are on the Indian Ocean coast, which has been a piracy hotspot in recent years. With warships patrolling along the Somali coast, the pirates have operated further away and even staged some attacks closer to India than Somalia. The Indian Navy has played a significant role in these patrols off the East African coast to protect trade routes. So maritime security has been touted as one of the major objectives of the Indian prime minister's trip. "It is an ocean of many economic opportunities," he is quoted as saying. Co-operation on training and the supply of equipment for securing the coastline is on the cards. Indian soldiers are often deployed on UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, and now Mr Modi is keen to explore defence manufacturing projects in South Africa. "Our companies can also pool their capacities to jointly develop or manufacture defence equipments and platforms. And, not just to meet our defence needs, but also to respond to regional and global demand," he said. The populations of India and Africa combined account for a third of the world's population - and for years they have been lobbying for reform of the UN Security Council. South Africa and India support each other's bids for a permanent seat - India backing South Africa over Nigeria - the other big powerhouse of Africa. This is hardly surprising given that India was the first country to put the issue of apartheid on the agenda at the UN General Assembly in 1946. Plus they are both members of the Brics group of emerging economies. While in South Africa, Mr Modi has been bolstered by assurances that the country endorsed India's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), set up to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons by controlling access to sensitive technology. Joining the group, set up in response to India's first nuclear test in 1974, is a major foreign policy ambition - and suffered a setback recently when reportedly blocked by China.

2016-07-11 02:16 www.bbc.co.uk

91 Double suicide raises questions on gun licenses for security guards When the head of Ma’aleh Adumim’s security killed himself with his pistol last Thursday – hours following his son’s suicide immediately after procuring a gun license to work as a security guard himself – concerns emerged about the efficacy of the country’s reputedly stringent gun policies. Last October, the Ministry of Public Security eased restrictions on gun permits when terrorist attacks spiked across the country. “In recent weeks, many citizens have helped the Israel Police subdue terrorists,” Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said at the time. “Citizens trained to use weapons are a multiplying force in our battle against terrorism. Therefore, I have worked to ease conditions for obtaining firearms.” However, one former security guard, who took the ministry’s standardized series of psychological tests for a gun license last September, claimed that emotionally disturbed candidates can “easily” pass the exam if they familiarize themselves with the most acceptable answers. “You have to answer 500 yes or no questions – with some answers rated on a scale of 1 to 5, depending on severity – on a computerized psychological evaluation,” he said on Sunday. “It’s the same test that taxi drivers take to get a drivers’ license.” The former guard, who requested anonymity, said sample questions included: “Are you sad most of the time?,” “Are you having trouble sleeping?,” “Do you love your family,?” “Do you love your friends?,” “Are you having trouble eating?,” and “Do you feel depressed most of the time?” “It’s a valid test, but they don’t ask any penetrating questions, and it’s easy to give the ‘right answer,’” he said, noting that he was never asked any telling questions such as “Do you want to harm yourself or others?” The computerized exam is timed, taking between one and three hours to complete. “If you come psychologically prepared, and know what to expect, you will get a normal score,” he said. Immediately after passing the exam, he said, applicants are sent to meet with a psychologist for no more than five minutes for a final evaluation. “That’s the real problem,” he said. “She sat with me for less than five minutes and asked some shallow and superficial questions that didn’t seem to have a relationship to your psychological state. For example, she asked: ‘Do you have something in your life that you regret?,’ and I said ‘Yes, sure, everyone does.’ Then she asked if I cared to elaborate, and I told her ‘No, I’d prefer to keep it to myself,’ and she said ‘alright, thank you,’ and that was it. I passed. “Other questions included: ‘How would you describe yourself in general?’ Just very vague and weird. After that you can go to the office and get a 9mm. gun and two magazines in like 10 minutes.” He said that he was allowed to maintain possession of the firearm 24 hours a day from that point on. Based on his experiences, the former guard said he was not surprised that Ron Ben-Hur, 31, took his own life with the pistol issued by the ministry shortly after getting his license – on the same day he was supposed to start training. “It’s pretty obvious that he had intent to kill himself, because on the same day that he got the gun he killed himself,” he said. “He obviously thought, ‘I need a gun to kill myself. How can I get a gun? I’ll work at a security agency and they’ll probably give me a gun, and then I can do whatever I want.’” In addition to the two psychological evaluations, he said all applicants are required to take nine hours of firearm training, where a gun is provided by instructors employed by the ministry. “The official name is ‘nine-hour training,’ but it’s actually it’s just two hours of training that’s stretched for nine hours,” he explained. “You take lunch and two hour breaks in the middle. The people who give the training have no psychological experience to know who may not be right in their mind. They just give general instructions about how to use the gun; they don’t view you through a psychological perspective.” He said that while security guards have to undergo more extensive training than civilians, it is more difficult for a regular citizen to get a license. “There’s more of a bureaucratic procedure for them than for security guards,” he said. “For example, civilians have to answer more questions and give the ministry a receipt proving he bought the gun with his own money and with his ID. Security guards don’t.” While conceding that last week’s double suicide was tragic, an official from the Ministry of Public Security, who requested anonymity, described it as an anomaly, and stood by the present psychological licensing requirements for both security guards and civilians. “This was an unusual case,” the official said, adding the matter is being investigated. He would not confirm if stricter guidelines will be imposed.

2016-07-11 02:19 DANIEL K www.jpost.com

92 National ceremony commemorates Operation Entebbe – 40 years later Israel is constantly involved in operations near and far to protect its security, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday night at the Jerusalem Theater as the country officially marked the 40th anniversary of the raid on Entebbe. “Israel’s long arm reaches every place necessary to remove us from danger. It was there then, and it is there now. And, if necessary, it will be there tomorrow,” he told the hundreds who gathered for the ceremony, including President Reuven Rivlin, former president Shimon Peres and survivors of the rescue that took place in Uganda four decades ago. “Not everything is known, not everything is publicized, but bold actions for the country’s security are taken all the time – some thousands of kilometers from home,” the prime minister continued. In July 1976, an Israeli commando squad was sent to Entebbe rescue more than 100 hostages who were held captive after a French Airliner was hijacked in Athens on a flight from Israel to France. The evening was especially symbolic for Netanyahu whose older brother Yonatan “Yoni” was killed while leading the Entebbe raid. “It’s been 40 years since this great accomplishment at Entebbe, but the price to five families was terrible,” the prime minister said. “Our sole consolation is that we have heroes such as those at Entebbe and heroes in Israeli operations who are prepared to throw themselves time after time in the face of death, who believe in the justice of our ways and are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice so that we, their brothers, to live in this beautiful land,” he continued. Last week, the prime minister visited the site of his brother’s death while on a historic visit to Africa. Also addressing the crowd, President Reuven Rivlin said the operation “was and still is the flame that lights our way – still, today, we have the strength and spirit.”

2016-07-11 02:11 Kayla Rosen www.jpost.com

93 93 New job 'helped me heal my broken heart' The death of a much-loved pet inspired Angela Laws, who turns 70 this year, to find her dream job. She now works as a social media manager with internet start-up TrustedHousesitters. Follow business reporter Dougal Shaw and BBC Business on Twitter.

2016-07-11 02:02 www.bbc.co.uk

94 Leila seeks immediate probe SEN. LEILA de Lima said she would immediately file— either today or tomorrow—a resolution calling for an inquiry into the killing of drug suspects, as she called President Duterte to remind the police to do their job without breaking the law. In a radio interview yesterday, De Lima said she would speed up the inquiry in aid of legislation amid the rising body count of drug suspects reportedly taken from their homes without warrants and killed by policemen while allegedly “resisting arrest” or “trying to snatch a gun.” De Lima, who will head the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said the inquiry aims to come up with operational guidelines for law enforcement agencies that would include imposing stricter sanctions on erring law enforcers. The former justice secretary said there was nothing wrong with the President motivating the police to do their job but noted that the President’s statements on the matter tended to be “uncertain” to the extent that they seemed to encourage policemen to condone summary executions. She urged President Duterte to balance his statements with a reminder for policemen “not to forget what the law is saying.” “Killing (a suspect) should be the last resort,” De Lima said. “That’s why we have to balance everything. It cannot be that you enforce the law but you engage in summary executions or extrajudicial killings. You are breaking the law,” De Lima said in the radio interview. She said reports on the almost daily killing of drug suspects by policemen was even “worse” than the two separate incidents of police brutality on two African-Americans that had triggered widespread protests in Minnesota and Louisiana in the United States. But De Lima noted there was no similar public outrage here except from human rights activists and defenders. Many of the suspects are poor and unknown. The other day, the Commission on Human Rights called for an investigation into the killing of a young drug suspect and his father inside a Pasay City police station. The wife of the young suspect said 28-year-old Jaybee Bertes was picked up from his home without a warrant by the Pasay police. His father, Renato, 48, insisted on accompanying his son to the station.

2016-07-11 01:59 Christine O newsinfo.inquirer.net

95 Iglesia film wins awards in Madrid “WALANG Take Two” (No Second Take), a Philippine independent film produced by the Iglesia Ni Cristo, was named Best Film and given the Best Cinematography in a Foreign Language Film award in the 2016 Madrid International Film Festival. The awarding ceremonies on Saturday night capped the Madrid film fest, which ran from July 2 to 9 in the Spanish capital. “Walang Take Two,” written and directed by first-time filmmaker Carlo Ortega Cuevas, was released in Philippine cinemas in September 2015. Produced by the church’s INCinema production, the film was created by neophyte filmmakers and had first-time actors and actresses as cast members. Cinematographer Giancarlo Escamillas was cited during the awards ceremony. Cuevas was also nominated for Best Director in a Foreign Language Feature Film, along with another Filpino director, Joel Lamangan. Back-to-back win Last year, another Filipino film, “Mana” (Inheritance) won Best Film in the same film fest, as well as Best Lead Actress in a Foreign Language Film for Cherie Gil. INC Minister Pepito Acuesta, the INC minister-overseer for Europe, accepted the awards on behalf of Cuevas and Escamillas. “Walang Take Two” revolves around Hapi, a young and ambitious but poor Filipino filmmaker who wants to make it big as an independent director. Hapi always hears the line “walang take two” (there are no second takes) from his father, Mang Julian, a retired videographer. In his search for ways to produce his indie film, he painfully learns that he has to be careful in his decisions because there are actions he might take that he may never be able to undo. Earlier, the film won two major awards from the World Film Awards in Jakarta —the Platinum World Award and the World Newcomer Filmmaker of the Year awards for director Cuevas. It was also nominated in the Best Picture category. Cuevas himself also bagged the London International Film Festival Award for Best Director in a Foreign Film early this year. Donna Cueto-Ybañez, Contributor

2016-07-11 01:57 Philippine Daily newsinfo.inquirer.net

96 Likud MK calls to ‘eliminate inciters’ Palestinian inciters against Jews should be executed, said MK Amir Ohana [Likud], as he spoke at a small rally of some 500 people in the Otniel settlement on Sunday night. “We must declare war on terrorism. Three steps must immediately be taken. Eliminating the inciters” is the first step, he said. There are those Palestinians who are whipping their own youth into such a frenzy that they are picking up knives and stabbing Jews. “Those people [the inciters] must be killed,” Ohana said. Marchers on Route 60. (Credit: Jack Brook) He also called for the demolition of the homes of Palestinian terrorists and for settlement building. “Settlement building is not a stumbling bloc to peace. Peace will only come from such building,” he said and added, “from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] River, the land of Israel will be free.” His speech was greeted by applause and the chanting of his name. Ohana was one of a number right-wing politicians who spoke against the creation of a Palestinian state and of the need for increased security to prevent terror attacks such as the ones that killed Otniel resident Rabbi Michael ‘Miki’ Mark on July 1 as he drove on Route 60 in the South Hebron Hills. They stood on the back of a flat-bed truck and spoke into a temporary loudspeaker system that carried their voices into the night air. Earlier some 500 settlers and activists carrying Israeli flags marched some six kilometers along Route 60, which was closed to traffic. They marchers, mostly teens, burst into song when they arrived at the settlement. Some of them carried Israeli flags and others wore them on their backs. In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to discuss reviving a peace process with the aim of creating a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But in Otniel, settlers and members of Likud Netanyahu’s party, said that the only state they wanted to see in the West Bank, was an Israeli one, as they called to annex the area. There is talk of the French Initiative and the Saudi Initiative, said MK Oren Hazen. “There should only be the Jewish Initiative, that says the Land of Israel is for the people of Israel and not the people of Ishmael,” said Hazen. To help make that happen, there must be one million people living in Judea and Samaria, Hazen said. Settlers, Likud politians at Otniel rally on Sunday night. (Credit: Tovah Lazaroff) He criticized Netanyahu for not building settler homes and charged that the Left wing governments had a better record on that score than he did. “I am not afraid of you [Netanyahu] harming me in the next primaries,” he said. “I’m tired of hearing you talk,” he added. MK Miki Zohar said, “this is the place to say to the whole world without apologies, there won’t be a Palestinian state here.” He called for the end to the 1993 Oslo Accords, which he charged was responsible for over two-decades of terror attacks. The international dialogue about this area must change so that Israeli sovereignty is recognized in Judea and Samaria, he said. South Hebron Hills Regional Council head Yochai Damri said that terror attacks had not frightened the residents of Otniel. “Are you afraid?,” he asked the crowd. “No!,” they yelled back. Since Mark’s attack, he said, three new families have moved into the settlement, which is getting ready to build more houses. Among those who spoke were two of Mark’s ten children, Shlomi and Shira. Renana Meir, whose mother Dafna, was stabbed to death in Otniel in January when a Palestinian teenager broke into their home.

2016-07-11 01:57 TOVAH LAZAROFF www.jpost.com

97 Reaching out to descendants of conversos There are tens of millions of people reaching out or knocking on the door of the Jewish world – and most Jews are not aware of this phenomenon,” Ashley Perry, president of Reconectar recently told The Jerusalem Post. Reconectar (reconnect in Spanish and Portuguese) is an organization which reconnects the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews compelled to become Roman Catholic more than 500 years ago – known as bnai anusim in Hebrew or conversos in Spanish – with the Jewish people today. Perry estimated that there are more than 100 million descendants of these Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and that tens of millions today want to reconnect and learn about their Jewish roots. “Every day I receive tens or hundreds of emails from people around the world who know or have discovered that they have Jewish ancestry,” he said. “And they are seeking solutions to reconnect to the Jewish people.” Perry, who has worked for many years as a senior government adviser, serves as the director-general of the Knesset Caucus for the Reconnection with the Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Communities headed by MK Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu. The issue is of personal importance to London-born Perry, whose family name was originally Perez. Himself a descendant of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish exiles, his family fled the Iberian Peninsula and made their way to Holland and then to the UK. “There is a total lack of awareness of these descendants,” he said. “We want to bring this issue into the national and international agenda.” Last week, the issue was thrust to the spotlight as Education Minister Naftali Bennett was presented with the recommendations of the Biton Committee, tasked with empowering Sephardic Jewish cultural studies within the general education curriculum. The committee, headed by Israel Prize laureate Erez Biton, provided recommendations on integrating the heritage of Mizrahi Jews from Arab or Muslim countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya into the curriculum as well as the heritage of Spanish Jewry. One of the recommendations of the committee was for students to take annual school trips to Balkan states, Spain and Morocco as part of a heritage tour to learn about Jewish roots in those countries. “Unfortunately for too long, Jewish history, cultural and tradition has been narrowly defined through a certain prism and we welcome the widening of the prism – not just for the formative Sephardi and Mizrahi world but also for all the Sephardi Jews who were disconnected from us throughout our history,” Perry said. He explained that this renewed interest in reconnecting with the Jewish world was made possible due to technological advances such as genealogy and DNA testing, and even simple Google searches. “Many people knew they were Jewish and kept a strong Jewish identity. There were others who kept certain traditions thinking they were quirky family traditions and only now are realizing they come from Judaism,” he explained. According to data gathered by Reconectar over the course of nearly a decade, some 10 to 20 million of these descendants already self-identify as Jewish. When asked about the status of these descendants under Jewish law, Perry said there is a debate among rabbis about what process they would have to undergo, but it is a “halachic obligation to welcome them back as Jews.” “What we need to understand is that almost every Jew around the world today is a descendant of converted Jews,” he explained. “Almost every Jew throughout history has been forcibly converted and rabbis throughout history – including Rambam and Rashi - have had to deal with the issue. He added that because there have been few forcible conversions in recent history, the issue has “dropped off the map.” “We are trying to put it back on the map,” he said. Through Reconectar and the Knesset Caucus’s activities, Perry said there are hundreds of thousands of people who have already reconnected in some capacity to Judaism. The issue of Jews forced to abandon their faith is the subject of Steven Spielberg’s next film The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara, set to be released in 2017. The movie, an adaptation of the 1997 book by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Kertzer, recounts a notorious kidnapping that took place in Bologna, Italy in 1858 in which a young Jewish boy was seized from his family by the Papal States; he was then raised Catholic under the protection of Pope Pius IX, under claims he had been given an emergency baptism when he fell ill as an infant. “This is going to be a generational project, it will be the challenge and the opportunity for the Jewish world in the 21st century, Perry said. “We’ve never had the opportunity to grow and thrive in such a way. Jewry has been shrinking and here we have millions of people who are knocking on our door who are part of our history and hopefully will be a part of our future.”

2016-07-11 01:34 LIDAR GRAVÉ www.jpost.com

98 Togo president to visit Israel in August Togo President Faure Gnassingbe is expected to arrive for a visit in early August, The Jerusalem Post has learned, with Jerusalem keen on keeping alive the momentum of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Africa. Togo is one of Israel’s strongest friends in western Africa, as evidenced last September when it joined Rwanda, Kenya and Burundi as the other African states in supporting Israel at a key vote at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Gnassingbe was last here in 2012. Togo has already given the visit its okay, with a final confirmation expected soon from Jerusalem. A senior diplomatic official said Netanyahu would like to convene a summit in West Africa in the near future, similar to the one he held last week in east Africa with leaders from Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia Tanzania, South Sudan and Zambia Among the natural candidates to attend such a summit would be Togo, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Gabon and Cameroon. Nigeria, whose relations with Israel have soured to a certain degree since the ouster of former president Goodluck Jonathan last year, is – according to officials – placing obstacles in the way of arranging such a summit. Netanyahu briefed the cabinet Sunday on his four-day, four-country trip last week to Africa, highlighting the summit with the seven east African countries, which together have some 260 million people. These leaders, he said declared a willingness to strengthen Israel’s links with other African countries, and to work to get Israel reinstated as an observer country at the African Union. “Even though this is a process that will take time, there is no doubt that this is the start of a long journey toward dealing with the automatic majority against Israel in international forums, an automatic majority that rests, first and foremost, on a bloc of African countries.” Netanyahu said. “This will not be achieved immediately. It will take a lot of time, but we have begun the process.” Netanyahu said that both during, and in the two days since his Africa trip, Israel received call from various countries in Africa – “some of which we do not have relations with” – who are interested in enhancing ties. Israel does not have relations with nine Sub-Saharan African states: Mali, Chad, Niger, Guinea, Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti and Comoros. According to the prime minister, these countries “see Israel and its technological capabilities as a major force, first of all, that could assist them in the war against radical Islam that is inundating all of Africa. They want to be close to us; they want our help.” In addition, he said, they view Israel’s technological and entrepreneurial abilities as something that can help in the development of their countries in a variety of different spheres.

2016-07-11 01:28 HERB KEINON www.jpost.com

99 Texas governor burned in accident; could miss GOP convention DALLAS (AP) — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sustained "extensive second- and third- degree burns" on both legs below the knees and both feet — and may miss next week's Republican National Convention as a result, his office said Sunday. Spokesman Matt Hirsch said Abbott was with his family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday when he was scalded in an accident involving hot water. He declined to provide further details. The governor was treated for several hours at nearby St. John's Medical Center. As he was being released, a top aide called from Texas to say a gunman had opened fire in downtown Dallas — an attack that killed five police officers and wounded seven others. "His first words to us were, 'I've got to come back,'" Hirsch said. Abbott held a press conference in Dallas on Friday, but didn't disclose being burned. Hirsch said that his legs were wrapped at the time, but that wasn't evident since they were covered by his pants. The only hint anything was wrong, Hirsch said, was that the governor was wearing orthopedic shoes that his staff purchased that morning — rather than the dress shoes or boots he usually dons in public. Hirsch said surgery won't be required immediately, but that Abbott was heading to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio on Monday afternoon to see specialists. He continues to get his legs wrapped daily and should be required to do so for two or three weeks, Hirsch said. The governor's communications team had been working on a statement detailing the burning Thursday, but abandoned it in the aftermath of the mass shooting, Hirsh said. Instead, Abbott released statements about the attack late Thursday night and early Friday morning, as well as an open letter to Texans, urging unity in the face of tragedy. "For him it was important not to distract from what was happening in Dallas," Hirsh said. The accident wasn't reported until late Sunday. Word first appeared in The Austin American Statesman. Abbott has used a wheelchair since a tree fell on him while jogging in 1984, paralyzing him from the waist down. Hirsch said the governor still has functioning nerve receptors in his legs and feet, however, and that he has felt pain as they react to the shock of being burned. The governor is chairman of Texas' delegation to the Republican convention in Cleveland, which begins July 18. But Hirsch said he may now not make the trip, calling a decision about Abbott's attendance "day-to-day. " Abbott endorsed the presidential bid of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, but says he supports presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

2016-07-11 00:25 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk

100 Alex Noren grabs early birthday gift with Scottish Open victory Sweden's Alex Noren gave himself the perfect early birthday present by holding his nerve to claim a fifth European Tour title in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open. Noren, who turns 34 on Tuesday, carded a closing 70 at Castle Stuart to finish 14 under par and a shot ahead of England's Tyrrell Hatton, who birdied the last to complete a 69 and secure second place. Belgium's Nicolas Colsaerts, Italy's Matteo Manassero and New Zealand's Danny Lee shared third on 12 under, with Scotland's Richie Ramsay and England's Andy Sullivan a shot further back. Hatton, Colsaerts, Manassero and Ramsay also secured the four qualifying places on offer in next week's Open Championship for players not otherwise exempt who finished inside the top 12. Noren, who won the Nordea Masters in his native Sweden in 2011 and 2015, said: "This is by far the biggest win. The amount of players that are here, and on a course like this in Scotland, it's only what I dreamt of growing up. "It feels really good. I've had trouble with the driver a little bit and the guys at Callaway changed it this week. I got a driver that doesn't go too much right and with some more fairway hits, it's easier to play links golf especially. "Now I'm just so happy it's over because it was a tough, tough leaderboard. There were a lot of guys at 11, 12, 13 under and it was just not a cruising win at all. Thinking about it this morning, how much it would mean, it feels like miles away. And now when it happens, it just feels unbelievable. " After extending his two-shot overnight lead with a birdie on the second, Noren failed to make the most of several other good opportunities before just his fourth bogey of the week on the eighth allowed Lee to draw level thanks to his third birdie of the day on the 10th. An eagle followed by three birdies in succession had lifted Colsaerts to within a shot of the lead alongside Hatton and Manassero, but Noren edged back in front with a two- putt birdie from long range on the par-five 12th and produced a superb approach on the 15th to set up another, which proved to be decisive. Hatton, who had struggled to a closing 75 when in the final group in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in May, said: " I'm really happy with that result. "Part of me is slightly disappointed in a way, finishing one short. But I played well. Tried to stay as patient as I can and I find that one of the difficult aspects. But I'm just quite happy I guess. "Earlier on in the year, after the start I had where I missed a few chances, there was a good chance my head would have gone down. But my caddie was trying to keep me upbeat and trying to stay positive. "Luckily a couple of shots dropped on the back nine and second outright equals my best finish on the European Tour. A spot in the Open next week, as well as securing the US PGA Championship in a few weeks' time, as well. Overall, it's been a really good week. " Manassero's share of third place represented a welcome return to form for the 23-year-old, who won four times on the European Tour by the age of 20 but had slumped to 596th before the start of the week after changing his technique to try to add distance to his game. "I'm really happy of course, to play well in such a big event for me," Manassero said. "Right now it's a great relief from a lot of things and I'm glad that I handled myself really well in this week, which was not easy at all. "It's a while since I've been in this position and I'm very happy. A ll these struggles and hard work and stuff are obviously paying off and hopefully next time I'll be holding a trophy. " Ramsay was delighted to secure his sixth appearance in the Open and a first for baby daughter Olivia, who was born in February. "It's huge," Ramsay said after a closing 67. "I've played it a few times before and I don't think I've done myself justice, but this time we have our little daughter to take along. I think she'll enjoy her first major. It's more of a treat for her. "T he great thing was I played to win today, which is a great feeling when you're in that position in front of a home crowd on a great golf course. "

2016-07-11 00:23 Press Association www.dailymail.co.uk Total 100 articles. Created at 2016-07-11 06:00