Sweden turns the page and Scandinavian noir explains why | City A.M.
EVERYONE knows that Sweden is a social-democratic paradise, where taxes are high, the welfare state is big and everyone enjoys the benefits. That doesn’t mean it’s true. In recent years, research like that compiled in Richard Wilkinson’s and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level has painted Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbours as political role models. The reality, as always, is more complicated. Thanks to a new publication from the Institute of Economic Affairs, the other side of the story is harder than ever to ignore.
The Surprising Ingredients of Swedish Success, written by Nima Sanandaji, dissects the beneficial impact of Sweden’s recent free market reforms, such as its system of school vouchers, still, tragically, a step too far for the UK. It also traces back Sweden’s cultural strengths – its strong work ethic and high levels of interpersonal trust – to before its welfarist heyday.
Indeed, Sanandaji finds that those decades of the twentieth century when Sweden aggressively expanded the size of its state – the late 1960s and 1970s – were followed by economic decline. In 1975, Sweden was the fourth richest industrialised nation measured on GDP per capita. By 1993, it had fallen to 14th.
Perhaps commentators would find this less surprising if they had paid more attention to the undercurrents in the country’s recent cultural output. Swedish authors like Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson have become household names in the UK, but few stop to consider the context of their stories: a universally corrupt social underbelly, where crooked officials abuse their power and structures built with visions of centrally-managed harmony act only to conceal monstrous cruelty.
In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander is raped by her state-appointed guardian. John Ajvide Lindqvist’s vampire novel Let The Right One In turns a state-planned housing estate into a concrete maze of horrors. Mankell’s Kurt Wallander investigates crimes only to uncover ragged holes in the social fabric.
These books are fiction, and they exaggerate Sweden’s shadows for effect. But they also reflect real concerns, and to the attentive reader offer their own counterpoint to the idea of Sweden as a paradise of paternalism. The first book of Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, which in Swedish is literally titled “Men Who Hate Women”, is peppered with statistics on the rate of violent crime against women in Sweden. Sweden’s failure to integrate its immigrant population haunts Mankell’s first Wallander book, Faceless Killers.
Ironically, despite peering into the darkness, many of these authors would resist the very solutions and explanations that the IEA’s new research report advocates. Seeing the Swedish dream in decay, it is tempting to try to shore up its failing timbers, rather than to confront, for example, the connection between a rigid labour market and the difficulty of integrating recent immigrants, or the contrast to Sweden’s more successful integration record in the first half of the twentieth century. Easier to demonise the corruption in an ageing family business than to consider how punitive taxation has prevented new entrants to the marketplace from shining light on the darkness for half a century.
The Victorian art critic John Ruskin once wrote that the only trustworthy autobiography of a great nation is its art. Sweden’s novelists show there is far more to its recent history than the triumph of the big state, just as its politicians are now demonstrating the power of free market reforms. Hopefully Sweden’s next chapter can uphold market liberalism without losing the bleak brilliance of its fiction.


0% of this provider’s 1,263 patients who are 65 and older filled at least one prescription for an antipsychotic drug, compared to an average of 0%.
30% of this provider’s 1,316 patients filled at least one prescription for an antibiotic drug, compared to an average of 24%.
$70 was the average price of a prescription from this provider, compared to $93 among peers.
This provider's address and specialty information was last updated on Feb. 12, 2010.


Guidelines aimed at keeping out frivolous bidders for privately financed and operated projects, key to fixing India’s poor infrastructure, could be keeping newer and younger upstarts from gaining ground in the sector.
The guidelines, which were issued by the finance ministry and ratified by the Prime Minister’s committee on infrastructure in May, are applicable to the so-called PPPs, or public private partnership projects. They favour bidders who have executed large projects and cap the number of bidders at six, with the exception of power projects.
The idea was to streamline the bidding process and remove ambiguity as well as to keep out “non-serious" bidders who could resort to litigation after losing a bid.
“Earlier, each sector followed different bidding norms," says a Planning Commission official who didn’t want to be named. “Now, we have restricted it to one way."
But, opinion within government itself is divided over the merits of this policy and smaller companies say they are concerned.
“It is clearly an entry barrier," said Ankineedu Maganti, a director with Soma Enterprise Ltd, which posted revenues of Rs710 crore in 2005-06. “But there are pros and cons (to the guidelines). You don’t want smaller companies to get the project by quoting very small prices when they are not capable of executing it. My opinion itself is divided at this point, We are waiting and watching. We may have to partner with a large international company."
Soma currently has four road projects in the build-operate-transfer mode, where the concessionaire has the right to operate the project for a specific period of time.
The new bidding requirements have come at a time when the Indian infrastructure sector is seeing many small regional civil engineering subcontractors wanting to do such PPP projects. The Planning Commission estimates that to maintain current growth, India’s infrastructure spending needs to increase from about 5% of gross domestic product, or GDP, to 9%. The commission has projected total investments at $475 billion (about Rs19 trillion) over the next five years and proposed a PPP model to make up for resource shortfall in the public sector.
A board member at the National Highways Authority of India, or NHAI, the country’s highway regulator, who did not wish to be identified, said: “When they (the guidelines) were issued we opposed it, saying it will lead to undesirable consequences. But, we were overruled, so we have to implement it."
The new bid process is being implemented by NHAI in all future road projects, including the five large road stretches costing an estimated Rs3,000 crore and for which currently bids are being processed.
“I don’t think this is the right thing to do. If you are preventing competition, then you have to pay a very high price later," the NHAI official said. Prior to the guidelines, the official said, NHAI would invite everybody who qualified the basic criteria to put in bids.
“Sometimes, there would be 10-15 bidders for the project," he said.
Officials at the Competition Commission, the government organization that regulates anti-competitive activities, declined to comment, saying they were unaware of the guidelines.
“I don’t think it is wise to tie-down the number of bidders," says Partha Mukhopadhyay, senior research fellow at Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank. “Earlier, they would fix the number of (pre-qualified) bidders on a project-by-project basis. But, setting a common limit across all kinds of projects seems a little silly because what works for ports, will not work for roads, and what works for the Mumbai port, may not work for the Cochin port."
The guidelines give greater weightage to experience of bidders in sectoral projects and reduce it proportionately for their construction experience. The guidelines also retain minimum net worth norms, which require companies to have a net worth of at least 25% of the estimated capital cost of the project. In the case of projects costing at least Rs1,000 crore, the net worth criterion can be relaxed to 15%.
What some industry representatives and government insiders fear is that by doing so, the guidelines may actually reduce the chances of companies primarily engaged in construction graduating to owning and operating infrastructure projects.
They would, however, be able to participate by being a member of a consortium with one larger company.
“If there are some 10 projects and only five or six compete for all of them, this could lead to cartelization. You are needlessly preventing competition, you are needlessly encouraging cartelization. It is a retrograde step," says a senior executive of a large infrastructure company who didn’t want to be identified. “Their argument could be that too many bids could make it a fish market, but more bids would mean better price discovery for the government."
A finance ministry official, who did not wish to be identified and was not part of the drafting process, said the guidelines could potentially stymie competition. “Who is to say that five is the right number and not seven or eight or 10," he says.


At last Washington has reached a deal that raises the debt limit and averts a default that would have been a national embarrassment and an economic and geopolitical catastrophe. The forces shaping the deal are multifaceted and so are reactions. Mine has a number of elements.
Relief. There will be no default; no economy-damaging short-run austerity; no attack on the nation’s core social protection programs or universal health care; and no repeat, for at least 15 months, of the recent shabby spectacle. All of this was in doubt just a few days ago. It is no small thing for the administration to have reached an agreement that does no immediate harm. And it may well be that no better agreement was achievable given the political dynamics in Congress.
Cynicism. Objective observers would forecast larger U.S. budget deficits in the out-years than would have been predicted a few months ago. The economic forecast has deteriorated, and it is reasonable to estimate that even a half-a-percent reduction in growth averaged over 10 years adds more than a trillion dollars to the national debt in 2021.
Despite claims of spending reductions in the range of $1 trillion, the agreements reached so far are likely to have little impact on actual spending over the next decade. The deal confirms the very low levels of spending already negotiated for 2011 and 2012 and caps 2013 spending about where most would have expected this Congress to end up. Beyond that, outcomes are anyone’s guess — Congress votes on discretionary spending annually, and the current Congress cannot effectively constrain future actions. True, there are caps and sequester threats in the debt deal, but these are virtually certain to be reformulated in 2013; in other words, the fact remains that discretionary spending going forward will largely reflect the will of future Congresses.
Remarkably for a matter so consequential, the deal calls for a “super-committee” that will seek to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion but lacks agreement on the baseline from which the $1.2 trillion is to be subtracted. Is it a baseline that includes or excludes the Bush tax cuts? Includes or excludes tax extenders and the annual fix for the alternative minimum tax?
Baseline arguments are mind-numbing but highly consequential. If a baseline assuming phaseout of the Bush tax cuts is adopted, there will be no motivation to ensure repeal of the high-income tax cuts because it will not count toward the goal. Or, to make deficit reduction easier, a baseline following current policy could be adopted. This would treat the non-extension of the Bush high-income tax cuts as a $1 trillion tax increase — but this is an unlikely outcome given the likely composition of the 12-member super-committee.
Economic anxiety. The issues pressing the United States today are much more about jobs and a growth deficit than an excessive budget deficit. Consider that a single bad economic statistic — the manufacturing purchasing managers survey — more than wiped out all the stock market gains from the avoidance of default and that bond yields reached new lows at the moment of maximum apparent danger on the debt limit.
On the current policy path, it would be surprising if growth were rapid enough to reduce unemployment even to 8.5 percent by the end of 2012. A substantial withdrawal of fiscal stimulus will occur when the payroll tax cuts expire at the end of the year. With growth at less than 1 percent in the first half of this year, the economy is effectively at a stall and facing the prospects of shocks from a European financial crisis that is decidedly not under control, spikes in oil prices and declines in business and household confidence. The indicators suggest that the economy has at least a 1-in-3 chance of falling back into recession if nothing new is done to raise demand and spur growth.
Soon, relief will give way to alarm about the United States’ economic future. Among all the machinations ahead, two issues stand out: First, the single largest and easiest method of deficit reduction available is the non-extension of the Bush tax cuts for upper incomes. President Obama should make clear that he will not accept their extension on any terms. Clarity on that trillion-dollar point, along with very modest entitlement reform, will be sufficient to hit current targets for deficit reduction. Second, it is essential that the payroll tax cut be extended and that further measures, such as infrastructure maintenance and extension of unemployment insurance, be taken to spur demand. There is still time to confirm Churchill’s maxim that the United States always does the right thing after exhausting all the alternatives.
The writer, a professor and past president at Harvard, was Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and economic adviser to President Obama from 2009 through 2010.


SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Marquee performers, flashing neon lights. Cirque du Soleil and Celine. David Copperfield’s magic. Elvis and the Jersey Boys. Mirage and Circus-Circus. Cha-ching, cha-ching. Welcome to the world’s biggest casino!
Vegas? No, the mutual fund industry.
The world’s biggest casino? Not Las Vegas, but mutual funds.
Still, the Vegas imagery captures my imagination every time, reminding me of Vanguard founder Jack Bogle’s analysis of America’s mutual fund industry, repeated often in so many memorable talks, in InvestmentNews and others since the 1970s. So let’s update Bogle’s fabulous “croupier” analogy of the fund industry; it makes us feel the red hot excitement of Vegas casinos! Cha-ching, cha-ching!!
Bogle begins by hammering home a key fact: “Investors earn a net return, after all of the costs of our system of financial intermediation.” Forget the published statistics that have historically favored industry insiders, not investors. In fact, the fund industry is allowed to skim lots off the top, says Bogle, leaving investors with a lot less than the government-sanctioned numbers barely reveal.
Why is this so crucial? Because this is Bogle’s secret system for beating the mutual fund casino. We first covered the Lazy Portfolios 10 years ago in early 2002. Bogle was the inspiration. That led to our “Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing” and ultimately became the 8 Lazy Portfolios that are now updated daily on MarketWatch. See why Lazy Portfolios are five-year and ten-year pretax winners with no active trading.
Yes, buying any mutual fund other than index funds is pure gambling. Research proves Bogle’s point. Every year roughly 70%-80% of funds fail to beat their benchmark, and the ones that do rarely repeat. And yet their managers still make hundreds of thousands in annual compensation.
I recently asked Bogle for an update. Looks worse today.
Bogle’s reputation was built on low-cost index funds. His first was back in 1976 and it’s still popular, managing $26 billion in assets. Active fund managers hate index funds because there’s not enough for their croupiers to skim off with index funds.
For example, when we first compared the cost of owning Vanguard’s S&P500 Index Fund VFINX, +0.16% it took in about $180 million in operating expenses. And Vanguard’s 10.7% returns beat Fidelity Magellan’s FMAGX, +0.48% 7.5% returns that year while Magellan paid itself over twice as much in fees, roughly $400 million in fees on less than half the assets. Why? Because of all the extra expenses, index funds are able to pass on to their investors a much bigger share of the total returns.
Things aren’t much better today: Magellan’s total expense ratio is 0.54% with an average annual five-year return of minus 3.6% versus expenses of just 0.17% for Vanguard’s index fund, which has had positive annual return averaging 0.48% the past five years.
Why? Another big part of the reason is that active managers are “churning” their portfolios, adding trading costs. For example, Magellan turns over the portfolio 99% annually versus a mere 4% at Vanguard. The two have similar portfolios of big-ticket blue chips.
People go to Vegas for the entertainment, expecting to lose. You’ve got to have some fun in that world of magic, color, fun, bright light — even love — hearing the cha-ching, cha-ching of money going into the casinos’ coffers.
“The mutual fund croupiers rake huge sums off the stock market table,” says Bogle. Here’s his current estimate: Management fees average 0.8%. Other expenses are 0.6%. So the average expense ratio for the industry is well over 1%, often five to seven times the ratio for comparable index funds.
As a result, the total costs for you, if you’re an investor in an actively managed fund, is 3%, leaving you with just 4% on a 7% return. Yes, the casino’s operators are skimming off almost a third of your mutual fund to pay themselves some handsome salaries.
But it’s even worse on an after-tax basis: “Because of the shocking tax inefficiency” the fund casino’s average turnover is often greater than 100% for an actively managed stock fund portfolio. So you deduct another 2%, says Bogle. When you compare index funds with managed funds “the real annual return drops to 8.9% for the index fund and to 5.1% for the equity fund,” almost half as much. Cha-ching, cha-ching!!
Bogle went even further in his research, comparing the results of compounding the two alternatives over a 20-year period: “The cumulative profit of each $1 initially invested in the managed fund came to just $1.70 in real terms, after taxes and costs, only 38% of the real profit of $4.50 in the index fund.” In short, indexing is substantially more profitable.
But few fund casino insiders will admit any of this openly. Why? Because for decades the fund casino has heavily financed a special interest lobby that’s protected by Congress and the SEC, both of whom let the fund casinos hide behind the false front of misleading pretax returns in their ads and sales pitches.
Of course most investors fail to analyze real after-tax returns and just stick with highly publicized actively managed mutual funds in spite of the higher costs and lower average returns. As a result, they are losing money year after year.
Bottom line: Stop betting in the fund casino’s “loser’s game.” Check out the Lazy Portfolios, see how in the longer run, over five and 10 years, indexing wins.


DUP leader Arlene Foster MLA has met with Prime Minister Theresa May in Westminster to discuss the way forward on Brexit.
Arlene Foster MLA and Nigel Dodds MP meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May in Westminster.
The talks took place the day after Mrs May’s Brexit deal was emphatically rejected by MPs in the House of Commons, and just hours before MPs were due to vote on a motion of no confidence in the Government.
Speaking after the meeting, Mrs Foster said: “We have had a useful discussion with the Prime Minister. These are critical times for the United Kingdom and we have indicated that first and foremost we will act in the national interest.
“Lessons will need to be learned from the vote in Parliament. The issue of the backstop needs to be dealt and we will continue to work to that end.
“In keeping with our commitments in the Confidence and Supply agreement, which has benefitted every sector of society in Northern Ireland, the DUP is supporting the Government this evening so that we can concentrate on the real challenges ahead of us.
Meanwhile, speaking in the House of Commons during today’s debate on the no confidence motion, Mr Dodds called on the Prime Minister to reflect on the scale of last night’s vote and to “learn lessons” in order to move forward to secure a better deal. “Last night’s verdict was emphatic and clear. Now that the result is known, the Prime Minister must listen and learn lessons, particularly if she is to secure vital changes to the Withdrawal Agreement,” he said.
“The Government knows full well our concerns about the Brexit negotiations but we believe it is in the national interest to support the Government at this time so that the aims and objectives of the Confidence and Supply Agreement are achieved.


The skeletal remains of the Pompeii victim.
The first major discovery at a new excavation site in Pompeii is turning out to be something right out of a disaster movie.
Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii erupted in 79 AD, killing scores of the city’s inhabitants and famously locking many of them in the positions of their death throes. New excavations at the Royal V site, the so-called “Cuneo” area, have yielded another extraordinary scene, one that ended in tragedy for an individual as he struggled to find safety amid the unfolding chaos.
The resident, likely a male in his 30s, somehow managed to survive the initial salvo of the eruption, and was walking on a thick layer of small stones, called lapilli, when a giant stone fell on his upper torso and head. The skeleton was found on the first floor of a building just slightly above the volcanic lapilli layer. It’s likely this individual was seeking shelter as the eruption progressed, according to archaeologists working at Pompeii Archaeological Park.
Indeed, it wasn’t lava that killed people at Pompeii. Rather, it was the pyroclastic flow—a dense, fast-moving cloud of hot gas and fragments. In this case, and as the eruption continued, the tremendous force of the blast dislodged a stone, probably the vertical part of a door frame (called a jamb), striking the man’s upper body at the moment he turned around to look at the incoming cloud. Or the blast may have already knocked him down, and the stone fell soon afterward. Either way, it was a brutal end.
Adding insult to injury, analysis of the skeleton shows the man suffered from a bone infection, which likely made walking difficult.
Archaeologists have yet to uncover the man’s skull. The size and orientation of the stone suggests the man was decapitated, and that the skull was thrust deep into the lapilli. Future excavations could yield the remains of the man’s decapitated head lying underneath the base of the stone.


"With the U.S. becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse, the balance of political power may shift toward the Democrats unless Republicans increase their advantage among a shrinking white majority, or cut into Democrats' advantage among nonwhite voters," Gallup's Jeffrey Jones said.
WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- White Americans lean more Republican now than at any time in the past three administrations, a new Gallup poll finds.
While the country as a whole trended Democratic under the final years of the George W. Bush administration, it has moved the opposite direction under President Barack Obama.
But the gap between the two groups has not been larger than in 2010, when nonwhite people showed a 43-point preference toward the Democratic party, and white people chose Republicans by a 14-point advantage. At 61 points, Gallup measured the largest gap between the two ethnic groups since it began separately identifying Hispanic voters.
According to yearly aggregates taken since 1995, the percentage of white people identifying as Republican shifted as much as 14 points during Obama's presidency, compared to his two predecessors. Since Obama took office in 2008, the party identification gap between the two groups has never been smaller than 55 points; only between 1997 and 2000 did the gap touch 55 points.
"It is unclear precisely what role Obama's race has played in these changes," said Jeffrey Jones, writing for Gallup. "Whites became slightly more Republican during 2009, the first year of Obama's presidency. However, the biggest movement came during the next year, when Obama signed the healthcare overhaul into law but saw his approval rating sink and his party lose its large majority in the House in that year's midterm elections."
But despite the shift in their favor, Jones says Republicans, not Democrats, may face a demographic advantage.
"With the U.S. becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse, the balance of political power may shift toward the Democrats unless Republicans increase their advantage among a shrinking white majority, or cut into Democrats' advantage among nonwhite voters," he said.


As much as it baffles me that fax machines still exist in the 21st century, I still have a handful of business contacts who rely on--nay, stubbornly insist on--fax machines for important business communications. While this has become rare in the tech world, where sentient beings have long since abandoned faxes for PDFs and email, many independent contractors in a variety of fields still force their clients to fax important documents.
If you’re a Google Docs user still dealing with faxes on an occasional basis, InterFAX’s new support for faxing from Google Docs is a very interesting solution that’s incredibly easy to use. InterFAX customers on all service plans can enable faxing from Google Docs in their InterFAX Settings menu. Once the feature is enabled, you just drag the Fax This bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmarks bar.
Faxing from within Google Docs is as easy as opening a document and then clicking the Fax This bookmarklet. It works on your own Google Docs files, as well as any file attachments you view from within Gmail.
InterFAX service starts at $10 for a basic prepaid sending package, which works out to 11 cents a page for U.S. domestic faxing and varies by country. Receiving plans start at $9.50 per month for a standard number and $12.95 per month for a toll-free 866 number.


Carl Cox at Ultra Music Festival in Miami on March 23, 2012.
After 27 years of service, the iconic club venue Space Ibiza has shut its doors for good. Space Ibiza will soon be under the management of Ushuaia and on Sunday (Oct. 2) the venue hosted it's Space Ibiza Closing Fiesta -- which tapped a slew of electronic producers and DJs to commemorate the venue's end.
Have Ibiza's Glory Days as a Dance Music Mecca Come to an End?
The night's lineup included longtime Space Ibiza resident Carl Cox -- who played his last set there ever -- as well as Nic Fanciulli, Steve Lawler and many more. Dance music devotees who weren't able to attend the magical night could live vicariously through attendees as Billboard Dance and Be-At TV teamed up to live stream the closing event.
Check out some of the sets from last night's Space Ibiza Closing Fiesta.


Strong thunderstorms...a few may contain heavy downpours. High 74F. SSE winds shifting to W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..


So this is now the second Ethiopian place that I've eaten, and I like the food here better than Red Addis Sea, but the atmosphere leaves something to be desired. The address is 145 Broadway, and 147 is the same establishment, but a bar, so the restaurant is appended onto the bar.
Posted by mvanbusk1d0555 on April 05, 2008. Brought to you by rateitall.
Fasika serves traditional Ethiopian dishes, as well as vegetarian and vegan selections.
Posted by Contributor1c2 aba-321366810 on January 06, 2008. Brought to you by rateitall.
Alexia and Company is located at 131 Broadway, Somerville, MA. This business specializes in Jewelry & Watches.
Alexia And Company is located at 131 Broadway in Somerville and has been in the business of Jewelry Repair Services since 2011.


TOTTENHAM will give Mauricio Pochettino what he wants to stay in north London.
That’s according to club legend Chris Waddle who reckons Daniel Levy will eventually give his Argentine chief a transfer war chest.
Spurs didn’t make a single signing in the summer.
And it looks like it’ll be another quiet night in north London with Pochettino struggling for funds.
Tottenham are constructing a lavish new stadium at huge expense.
But, with Manchester United and Real Madrid eyeing Pochettino, Waddle reckons things will change soon.
“Daniel Levy will give Pochettino what he wants to stay at Tottenham and make them genuine title contenders,” he told Sportingbet.
“Pochettino could virtually walk in to any vacant manager role and Tottenham know that he will leave unless they make the funds available for him to sign top players and progress the club.
“Tottenham know how important it is to keep Pochettino at the club and they will have showed him the club's plans for the future.
“He's clearly a massive part of it and will have a massive say in it. It's an exciting time at Tottenham and he'll want to be a part of that.
“Pochettino wants to win trophies, but he's got a long career ahead of him which means he has time to create the dynasty he's started at Tottenham.
There could still be some outgoing players at Tottenham.
Vincent Janssen is deemed surplus to requirements after failing to impress.
Pochettino look set to ship him out on loan again as they look to lighten their wage bill.
Sky Sports say Schalke are in discussions with Spurs over a temporary switch.
The Bundesliga outfit aren’t the only side sniffing around.
It’s suggested Real Betis - and Premier League side Cardiff - are also eyeing a swoop.
Betis have also been offered Chelsea striker Michy Batshuayi.
Tottenham edged past Watford at Wembley last night.
Spurs are third in the table, seven points behind pace setters Liverpool.


The American Petroleum Institute late Wednesday reported that crude supplies rose 1.3 million barrels for the week ended May 22, according to sources. Analysts surveyed by Platts forecast a 1.8 million-barrel decline. July crude was at $57.59 a barrel in electronic trading, compared with the $57.51 close on Nymex. The more closely watched Energy Information Administration report is due Thursday. Supply data were delayed by a day because of Monday's Memorial Day holiday.


Poor maintenance contributed to a devastating C-130 crash. Here’s how the Air Force will make sure it doesn’t happen again.
WASHINGTON — Sloppy maintenance work at an Air Force depot was at the root of a tragic crash of a Marine Corps Reserve KC-130T that resulted in the deaths of 16 service members in July 2017.
According to a command investigation and about 2,000 pages of supporting documentation, obtained exclusively by Defense News and Military Times, a corroded blade broke off of the aircraft, sliced through the fuselage, and set off a chain of events that ended with the plane splitting into three pieces and crashing into a Mississippi soybean field.
The blade was last overhauled at Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in 2011, where civilian maintainers are responsible for rooting out corrosion and other such problems. But although the investigators found evidence that small cracks and pits were already present in the propeller blade, maintainers did not properly treat it — allowing it to grow into a long fracture.
A corroded propeller was sent through an Air Force maintenance depot but was not repaired.
Now, the Air Force is taking steps to make sure that those mistakes are never repeated.
"We have commissioned an independent review team made up of experts from the Navy, Marine Corps the Air Force and industry to look at the blade overhaul process, to revamp that process, to ensure that we have the proper procedures, the latest technology, the right technical manuals and the right training,” Brig. Gen. John Kubinec, the current commander of WR-ALC, said in a recent interview.
The team has come up with a standardized overhaul process that can be applied to Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy propellers — a massive departure from the procedures used in 2011, which set special standards for Navy and Marine Corps blades.
Read the Marine Corps investigation of the 2017 KC-130T mishap here.
WR-ALC, like other Air Force repair facilities, threw out its records after two years, making it difficult to know exactly which maintenance requirements were skipped or overlooked. But investigators, who assessed the mishap aircraft’s blades and the WR-ALC’s workflow, made many troubling findings.
For instance, the investigation found no evidence that the corrosion-preventing permatreat coating or epoxy primer was ever put onto the blade that incited the accident, even though such treatments were required by the Navy at the time.
Investigators also discovered that eddy current inspections, which use electromagnetic waves to detect anomalies under a metal surface, were also not performed at WR-ALC during 2011, even though they were a compulsory part of the Navy process.
The Marine Corps has grounded its fleet of KC-130Ts “out of an abundance of caution” following the events of the deadly crash earlier this month, the service has confirmed to Defense News.
WR-ALC halted all C-130 blade overhauls in September 2017, when investigations first revealed the root of the July mishap. It started working with the other parties in the independent review team on a single, streamlined overhaul process for all the services’ blades, and the new process is currently under review, Kubenic said.
Most likely, it will be validated in time to restart blade overhauls in January 2019, stated Wendy Varhegyi, a spokeswoman for Air Force Materiel Command.
The new 21-step process is “largely similar” for both the Air Force and Navy blades, with “a very small number of differences due to service-unique propeller configurations and differing engineering assessments,” Varhegyi said.
Robins Air Force Base in central Georgia will soon begin doing overhaul maintenance on the C-130 airplanes flown by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
Updating the fluorescent penetrant inspection, which involves submerging metal components into a fluorescent dye so that maintainers can see corrosion and cracks under a black light. Under the new process, the blades will be robotically submerged in the dye for a minimum of four hours, according to the investigation. This greater “dwell time” will aid in the "detection of potential corrosion or cracking of the propeller blades and critical components,” Varhegyi said.
New eddy-current inspection equipment and procedures that automate some of the process, improve the sensitivity of the technologies used to find corrosion, and increase the area that is assessed.
A more advanced “computer-controlled electronic borescope” that captures imagery at higher definition and resolution than older models. “The new process will also be digitally recorded and retained for review by technicians or engineers if required,” Varhegyi said.
Requiring that a “glass bead blast” is conducted on all blades before inspections. The process uses abrasive chemicals to clean metal surfaces and improves the application of protective coatings.
In addition to these advances, WR-ALC is making the other changes recommended by the investigation, Kubinec said. It will now retain all maintenance documentation during a blade’s lifecycle instead of disposing of records after a set period of time.
WR-ALC is revamping quality control and assurance procedures to ensure that all maintenance tasks are properly checked. The complex is also revising its agreement with the Navy on C-130 blade overhauls to more precisely define each parties’ obligations.
“This is a hard problem, and we’re working very closely with the Navy and Marine Corps officials on it,” Kubinec said.
The WR-ALC commander could not quantify exactly how much the Air Force will spend on new equipment and training needed to stand up the new overhaul process, but stated that the sum was well worth it.
“We’re getting the technology we need because we can’t afford to let this happen again,” Kubinec said.
However, the Marine Corps investigation warned that it may be more difficult than anticipated to implement the new process.
However, the investigator expressed concern about the team’s lack of chain of command, which he believed could muddy reporting requirements or implementation responsibilities.
The memo recommends that Naval Air Systems Command conducts a review to ensure Navy and Air Force are on the same page as they lay out the responsibilities and requirements of the new process.
It notes that the Navy still had not come up with a comprehensive evaluation process that ensures work is done correctly, while WR-ALC continued to lack the oversight needed to ensure compliance with technical documents. Most worryingly, WR-ALC "failed to show significant process improvements" even after the Navy's initial audit after the mishap in August 2017.
"This is concerning considering the same procedural and quality control errors that allowed" the mishap propeller "and countless other propellers to erroneously enter the fleet could still exist,” the memo states.
The investigators were “highly critical” of the Air Force, and for good reason, said Pat Kumashiro, a retired Air Force colonel who served as the chief of the service’s maintenance division from 2012 to 2016.
But unfortunately, as military aircraft get older, corrosion becomes more of a problem. And that, along with the other mechanical issues that come with advanced age, can add up to a lot of unforseen work that is often very difficult for maintainers to get their arms around, he said.
With older aircraft like the A-10, C-130 and F-15, “the ‘over-and-above’ work increases” every time they move through depot maintenance.
"That is really problematic and very challenging for the depot,” he said.
A proposed commission to review spiking military aviation mishaps and physiological episodes is on track to become part of the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the annual defense policy bill.
One opportunity for lawmakers and the department to make sweeping organizational and process improvements is through the new commission on military aircraft safety.
The commission, established in the 2019 defense policy bill following a Military Times investigation on aviation mishaps over the past decade, will assess causes and key factors in fatal accidents. Of the eight-person panel, two members have been named: Pete Geren, a former Texas congressman and secretary of the Army, and Raymond E. Johns Jr., a retired Air Force general with more than 5,000 flight hours under his belt.


NEW BEDFORD — A 61-year-old Dartmouth man died Sunday of a suspected drug overdose in the city's West End, the DA's office said.
New Bedford police were called to a residence in the 100 block of Lindsey Street about 3:40 p.m. Sunday, according to the New Bedford Police Department logs.
The man was found deceased in the living room of the residence, according to a spokesman for the DA's office. He was taken to St. Luke's Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 3:50 p.m. He had been staying there with a family member.
A needle and two bags of heroin were found on a table near him, the DA's office said.
A NBPD spokeswoman did not respond Monday morning to an email about the suspected fatal overdose.


Lakewood?s Victoria Dubrowskij placed first in every event she performed in, grabbing the individual CIF title.
LAKEWOOD – The all-around title at the Moore League gymnastics finals wasn’t hard to determine Friday night. It went to Lakewood High junior Victoria Dubrowskij, who placed first in each event.
But the team title, determined by the five highest scores out of six competitors from each school in four events, required depth more than individual talent. And it was Wilson that proved to be the deepest at Lakewood High.
The Bruins, led by Erin Duffy, Kelsea Regier and Maddy Blevin, scored 159.4 team points to finish first. Lakewood placed second with 155.25 points and was followed by Millikan (153.55), Valley Christian (150.75) and St.Joseph (149.7).
Lakewood finished the regular season at 4-0 in Moore League competition while Wilson was 3-1. After Friday’s competition, each team had a 7-1 dual meet record and they will share the league title.
Marion attributed some of his team’s success to having its own dedicated gymnastics room on campus while other programs have to use private gyms such as the Lakewood YMCA. He also stressed that, while Wilson has several club gymnasts, it tries to develop non-club athletes as well.
Dubrowskij won easily on the vault (9.35) and balance beam (9.3). Regier was second on the vault at 8.5 and Duffy was runner-up on the beam at 8.2.
But she was pushed hard in the floor exercise and uneven bars. Dubrowskij had a floor score of 9.55 – her best of the night – but drew stiff competition from Millikan’s Summer Allen, who scored 9.35. On the bars, Dubrowskij scored 9.3 with Duffy close on her heels at 9.2.
Dubrowskij finished with 37.5 all-around points, ahead of Duffy (34.0) and Allen (33.95).
Lakewood’s Caitlin Bartkus took third place in the floor exercise (9.2) and the balance beam (8.1). Regier placed third on the uneven bars (8.8) and Duffy was third on the vault (8.4).
Unlike previous seasons, there will be no separate Southern California finals because of scheduling problems, so Friday’s event was the final prep gymnastics competition of the year.


Rose exhibit at MOCA; 2nd Friday Art Night in LR.
When it rains, those who get rain say, it pours. There's a rain of art coming up Friday, July 13, that will require that gallery goers choose between Little Rock, where downtown galleries will be open late for 2nd Friday Art Night, and Hot Springs, where David Malcolm Rose's "The Lost Highway: Constructions in Miniature" exhibit opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The last shall be first: "The Lost Highway" features Rose's amazing scale models of the motels and gas stations and diners that once lined U.S. highways before the interstates took away the traffic and the business.
Among the models: the funny turreted gas station in Rixey ("Gas"), a sun-worn Navajo trading post, the Asher Avenue drive-in. Says the Hot Springs artist of the works on his website, davidmalcolmrose.com: "Who knows, in the future we may want to find our way back to the times when business leaders and community leaders shared common interests. If that happens, these models may be as useful to us as bread crumbs were to Hansel and Gretel."
The MOCA reception runs from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Nine galleries are taking part 2nd Friday Art Night, showcasing Civil War artifacts (Butler Center Galleries in the Arkansas Studies Institute), bracelets by Linda Bradley (Curran Hall), and Arkansas Pastel Society members' work (Christ Church), landscapes by Jennifer Cox Coleman (Gallery 221). The Strojek family's Barbie Doll collection is the focus and Steve Bates offers the music at the Historic Arkansas Museum. Interstate Buffalo will provide music at the Old State House, which is showing "Battle Colors of Arkansas," an exhibition of 18 Civil War flags. StudioMain is pairing furniture designed by students in the Applied Design program of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with Herman Miller chairs. Garbo Hearne will give a talk at 6 p.m. on collecting at her gallery, Hearne Fine Art, which is showing "Montage 24," an exhibit of work by 224 artists who've been with the gallery 24 years.
On Saturday, the Delta Cultural Center is hosting a reception for artist John Ruskey, a Mississippi River canoe outfitter and guide who is also a painter and sculptor. "John Ruskey: The Downstream Painter" features watercolors of the Mississippi and its animals, hand-colored maps and hand-carved canoes.
The Arkansas Arts Center is accepting entries for its 38th annual "Toys Designed by Artists" exhibition, which runs Nov. 21 through Jan. 6. Deadline to enter is Sept. 14. Artists may submit up to three entries; all must have been completed since 2010. Entry fees are $15 for first and $10 for each additional. For more information, go to www.arkarts.com or call 372-4000.
Zeek Taylor, the Eureka Springs artist known for his paintings of chimps, irises and chimps and irises, a source of great energy in the artistic hamlet, has won the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arkansas Arts Council. Winning the Individual Artist Award was John Jeter, director of the Fort Smith Symphony.
Other 2012 winners: Jeff Baskin, Laman Library director, Arts Community Development Award; Christen Burke Pitts of North Little Rock and Clayton Scott of Fayetteville, Arts in Education Awards; TRUE Marketing of Jonesboro, Corporate Sponsorship of the Arts Award; gospel singer/songwriter Marty Phillips of Crossett, Folklife Award; Drs. Mack and Vern Ann Shotts, Patron Award; and retired ad man Jim Johnson, the Judges Special Recognition Award.
Jurors were chairman Michael Tidwell, Husny Dahlan, Lana Hallmark, Mike Malek, Clyde Milner and Bob Pest.


History revs to life — and glides along the water, roars as it ignites a rocket and much more — during this year's Gilmore Car Museum’s Speaker Series.
The series began last week and continues at 3 p.m. each Sunday through April 28 at Gilmore Car Museum, 6865 Hickory Road, Hickory Corners, MI 49060.
"It’s not just topics that might interest an automotive enthusiast. There’s so much more at the museum, so we wanted to focus on more than cars or car history. There’s a lot of that, but there’s so much more," said Jay A. Follis, director of marketing at Gilmore Car Museum. "You come and you learn so much you don’t expect to learn, and it’s fun and engaging the whole time you’re doing it."
The speakers range from a former Ford executive to an authors to a geologist, to a NASA historian to a senator and more.
Don LaCombe, who worked at Ford Product Development for 36 years, then volunteered at The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village for many years, will speak on the famous entrepreneur's auspicious beginnings.
"He’s a historian that knows so much about Ford simply for working there so long, that his talk is going to be the stories of the men that made Henry Ford famous," Follis said. "Henry Ford is this great industrialist. But it was all the workers, people behind the scenes, that had the stories. So that’s what he’s going to come and share about."
Follis himself will speak on the historic Titanic sinking and its Michigan ties in March.
"We have a lot of interesting connections just in Michigan," Follis said. "A lot of stories you just think, 'Wait a minute, I didn’t know that.'"
But all of the topics and lectures will be worth a listen, he said.
"Every one that I’ve ever been to has been far more than I ever expected it to be," Follis said. "… They’re fun, just a neat way to get with a bunch of people and learn about a topic, almost like you were watching Discovery Channel or History Channel."
While the word "lecture" makes it sound like a long and boring speech, Folis said it's far from that.
"I look at this and I’m like, oh my word, each one of these I find interesting," Follis said. "... There’s enough here that it doesn’t matter what you’re interested in, you’re going to find something."
And after — or before — the lecture, visitors are encouraged to enjoy the rest of the museum, which is one of the largest in the U.S.
"Don’t think you’re going to spend an hour here," Follis said. "You’ll get tot the museum and realize, 'Oh my word, we’re going to be here for a good part of of the day."
With 194 thousand square feet of space, Gilmore Car Museum is North America's largest car museum. The exhibits are always changing, creating a place where there's always something new to see.
The museum's exhibit on the Green Book — made famous in the recent movie — has been on display for several years, while the display of Duesenberg cars is "the largest and longest exhibit of Duesenbergs anywhere in the country," Follis said.
Admission to a single lecture is $5 by itself, or free with admission to the Gilmore Car Museum — which is $14 during winter months.
"I think the biggest takeaway is that if they want to find a hidden treasure ... they’re going to have a blast," Follis said, "and they’re going to walk away going 'Wow, what a neat treasure.'"


The Professional Online Desktop, or POD, is an online communications tool that does not try to reinvent the wheel.
POD, from OmniPod Inc. of New York, integrates into a non-IM environment or one that already has America Online, Microsoft or Yahoo instant messenger services. The POD works much like the other messenger programs, but it has the advantages of instant messaging over a 168-bit, Triple Data Encryption Standard, Secure Sockets Layer encrypted connection. Text within POD is nonexecutable, so it is not susceptible to most IM-based virus attacks.
Files being transferred go through OmniPod's data servers, which eliminates most bandwidth problems. Agencies that prefer to keep their data in-house can set up centralized servers.
If users already have some of the many consumer IM programs, POD will display them within the POD screen. Users are identified based on their associations, so you know whether 'Bob' is an Internet friend you met on AOL, or your supervisor on the secure network.
Administering POD is surprisingly easy. Users can download it by grabbing a 5M file.
The administrator can set up accounts, maintain the network or even restrict access to non-POD IM services.


Bonds finally backed off and sentiment cooled quite a bit.
Stocks are higher Monday on a strong manufacturing report from China and indications of progress in the U.S.-China trade talks.
Kellogg will sell the brands to Ferrero, the maker of Nutella, for $1.3 billion.
Kellogg is nearing a deal to sell its Keebler, Famous Amos and fruit snacks businesses to Nutella-maker Ferrero, a report says.
U.S. stock futures post solid gains, boosted by the strongest reading of manufacturing output in China in at least eight months; retail sales for February lead Monday's economic calendar; Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg suggests more regulation would be a way to improve the internet; Kellogg reportedly nears deal to sell Keebler and Famous Amos brands.
BATTLE CREEK, Mich., March 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) will host a live audio webcast of its 2019 Annual Meeting of Shareowners.
Uber Technologies snapped-up middle east ride-sharing rival Careem Tuesday in a $3.1 billion deal ahead of its stock market listing that could value the world's most expensive start-up at more than $120 billion.
Uber is adding to its roster of underwriters for a hotly-anticipated IPO that could arrive in the first half of 2019.
BATTLE CREEK, Mich., March 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of International Women's Day, Kellogg Company's Business/Employee Resource Group, Women of Kellogg, highlights the company's commitment to gender balance.
BATTLE CREEK, Mich., March 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kellogg Company is joining people around the world to celebrate International Women's Day (IWD) and is launching a global video to inspire conversation and bring further awareness to gender equity.
The most recent short interest data was recently released for the 01/31/2019 settlement date, and Kellogg Co is the #77 most shorted of the S&P 500 components, based on 5.58 "days to cover." There are a number of ways to look at short data, but one metric that we find particularly useful is the "days to cover" because it considers both the total shares short and the average daily volume of shares typically traded. The number of shares short is then divided by the average daily volume, to express the total number of trading days it would take to close out all of the open short positions if every share traded represented a short position being closed.
So far there is no bounce in Kraft Heinz which is not a good sign.
SNY, RYN, I, SIG and K all recently were downgraded by TheStreet's Quant Ratings.
My expectation is that we will correct toward the end of the week.


The Gators finished 20-11, and their 11-7 Southeastern Conference record earned them the No. 3 seed in this week’s SEC tournament. They’ll open on Friday at 9:30 p.m. against either No. 14-seed Ole Miss, which beat UF earlier this year, No. 11-seed South Carolina, which UF both lost to and beat earlier this year, or No. 6-seed Arkansas, which UF beat earlier this year.
The story for the Florida basketball team all season has been consistency. The Gators started with a strong showing in the PK80 tournament, then lost to Florida State, Loyola Chicago and Clemson.
Florida then rolled like a tsunami into SEC play by winning its first four conference games. Then it lost to, as it turned out, the lowest-seeded conference team, Ole Miss.
A roller coaster of wins and losses followed, culminating in a 90-degree drop of a three-game losing streak with three more games to play. The Gators responded by winning those final three games and securing some momentum for the tournament and the postseason.
Those three wins made the Gators a lock for the NCAA Tournament. Brackets will be announced on Sunday following the conclusion of conference tournaments, and both White and his team are excited for the tournament to get under way following their run to the Elite Eight a season ago.
The No. 1 Gators are steamrolling opponents to start the season. The Gators are 12-1 (the one loss coming at Miami) and have outscored their opponents 99-26.
They continued their dominance this weekend by sweeping Stony Brook at home. The one standout to highlight among many is Wil Dalton, who crushed three home runs on Friday against the Seawolves. Dalton, a junior college transfer who has been starting in Florida’s outfield, leads the team in hits and RBIs while his .373 average ranks third. Captain JJ Schwarz leads the batting race at .383.
Florida’s pitching has also been dominant, starting with its weekend rotation. Sunday starter Tyler Dyson leads the group with a 1.42 ERA followed by Saturday starter Jackson Kowar at 1.86 and Friday starter Brady Singer at 2.84. The three boast a combined record of 8-1.
The freshman quintet of Jordan Butler (2.08 ERA), Hunter McMullen (1.69), Tommy Mace (0.93) and Jack Leftwich (0.87) has also been impressive, alleviating some of coach Kevin O’Sullivan’s concerns about who would bridge the gap between his elite starters and his elite closer Michael Byrne, who hasn’t allowed a run in nine innings pitched this season.
The Gators play a home-and-home series against UCF on Tuesday and Wednesday and will host Rhode Island for a three-game series this weekend.
No. 2 Florida continued its early run of dominance this week at the Judi Garman classic in Fullerton, California.
The Gators (19-1) dispatched all three of their opponents — Loyola Marymount, Cal State Fullerton and No. 8 Baylor — by a combined score of 27-0. Against Baylor, the combination of All Americans Kelly Barnhill and Aleshia Ocasio no-hit the Bears.
Florida opens SEC play on Friday against No. 24 Kentucky in Gainesville.
▪ Florida’s gymnastics team fell on the road against Missouri for the first time ever — 23 meets — against the Tigers, 196.925-196.70. The team is still reeling from the loss of senior All American Kennedy Baker, who tore her Achilles on Feb. 23 against Arkansas. The Gators close their regular season on Friday at home against Nebraska.
▪ UF’s No. 6 lacrosse team throttled No. 3 North Carolina 17-10 this weekend in Chapel Hill. The Gators are 4-1, with their only loss coming to then-No. 1 Maryland, but their path to success remains rocky. They face No. 5 Syracuse in New York on Wednesday.
▪ The defending national champion Florida women’s tennis team continued to bounce back from its uninspiring start to the season with two wins this week. UF defeated No. 7 Ole Miss on Thursday, 4-3, and Mississippi State on Sunday, 4-0. The team, which opened the season by losing four of its first seven matches, will host LSU on Friday and Texas A&M on Sunday.
▪ The No. 18 Florida men’s tennis team cruised to a pair of victories this past week by besting No. 17 Georgia 5-2 on Friday and No. 25 Tennessee 6-1 on Sunday. UF will take on No. 27 Mississippi State in Starkville on Friday and unranked Auburn in Alabama on Sunday.


A file photo of RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani.
Mumbai: Indian oil and gas major Reliance Industries (RIL) denied on Tuesday a media report that the company was interested in buying a stake in TV firm Network 18.
“We deny that we have any interest in picking up a stake in Network 18," a Reliance spokesman said.
He declined to comment on whether Ambani, with a personal wealth of $22.6 billion according to Forbes Magazine, was interested in acquiring a personal stake in the firm. The report, citing unnamed sources, was ambigious on how the stake would be bought.
Shares in the company, which broadcasts CNBC, MTV and CNN in India, had pared early gains to trade at Rs40 ($0.76), up 10.8% at 1145 am, in a Mumbai market that was trading down 0.1%.


Global Road Entertainment has pacted with DRG for quiz show format, Catch Phrase. Under the deal, Global Road (formerly IM Global) has acquired an option for North and Latin America as well as China. Based on a property created by Pasetta Productions and Steven Radosh, Catch Phrase pits three contestants against each other, requiring them to identify well-known phrases and sayings contained in animated picture puzzles, in order to win big cash prizes.
It originally had a U.S. syndicated run in 1985-86 and has been a mainstay of ITV primetime in the UK for over 20 years. The recently re-booted version was renewed for a 6th cycle last month.
Global Road’s Phil Gurin calls it “a gem of a format. It is brilliantly simple, highly visual and has great play-along for the whole family.” Catch Phrase adds to the newly-rechristened Global Road’s development slate that also includes King Kong Skull Island; Cat’s Cradle; and I, Rebel as well as unscripted shows Oh Sit!, Grudge Match and Fittest Family.
Other producers to have licensed Catch Phrase include Shine in France, Endemol in Italy, Pernel Media for Switzerland and FreemantleMedia for Australia. The UK version is produced by STV Productions.


Thirty years since the Charter's equality provisions and LEAF's founding, where is equality now?
The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) began working toward equality 30 years ago today. Time to look at what's been done and what still needs doing.
White-collar crime is generally treated less severely than other forms of illegal activity, which is another way of saying there are different rules for 'important people' than the rest of us.


IT is no small achievement that the year-old UN-sponsored cease-fire between Iran and Iraq is holding, Secretary-General Javier P'erez de Cu'ellar said in a statement marking its Aug. 20 anniversary. But while countless lives have been spared and tension has been reduced, he cautioned, there is no reason for complacency. Some 15 direct meetings, the last in April, between the foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq have failed to yield any progress on the implementation of the UN peace plan contained in Security Council Resolution 598. Mr. P'erez de Cu'ellar has again appealed to the leaders of both countries to join him in a renewed effort to achieve an overall political settlement, saying that lasting peace can be established only on the basis of no victor, no vanquished.
No new contacts are scheduled, but the UN chief plans to see both sides during the nonaligned summit meeting in Belgrade in early September.
The first steps demanded by the UN resolution are a cease-fire followed by withdrawal without delay. But Iraq raised the issues of Iran's right to stop and search ships for belligerent cargo and reasserted its claim to sovereignty over the entire Shatt al Arab waterway.
Last October, to overcome these difficulties, which had stalled progress in the ministerial talks, the secretary-general came up with a four-point plan: withdrawal of troops and verification according to maps on file with the United Nations, freedom of navigation in accordance with international law, the clearing of the Shatt al Arab waterway, and the beginning of negotiations of other outstanding issues.
Iraqi negotiators say that they have neither accepted nor rejected the four-point proposal - in deadpan parody of Iran's deliberately ambiguous position on the UN resolution, before its official declaration of acceptance a month prior to last year's cease-fire.
The cease-fire is the only part of the resolution to be implemented so far - and both sides have complained about violations.
Iraq, which continues to hold a strip of Iranian territory running all along the border, maintains that all provisions of the resolution not yet implemented should be the subject of negotiations.
Iraq makes one exception - repatriation of prisoners of war, which it says should proceed unconditionally.
The Iranians feel that by this Iraq is trying to redraft and reinterpret the resolution itself - a charge previously leveled at Iran.
The Iranians also argue that Iraq is trying to renegotiate the cease-fire by demanding that it include cleaning of the Shatt al Arab. Iran has accepted the four-point plan.
[According to Reuters, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein says he has demobilized more than 200,000 soldiers since the UN-arranged cease-fire, but diplomats say the armed forces remain ready for battle.
[Iraqi leaders were upset by Iran's economic and arms agreement in June with the Soviet Union, one of Baghdad's biggest military suppliers during the war.


The ABC network has eliminated 15 to 20 management positions in its broadcast operations and engineering department.
ABC has commissioned an efficiency study of engineering operations by IBM. However, Davis left the door open for more layoffs when he said he had yet to review the results of that study and “will share the findings and recommendations with all of you” when it is ready.
Preston Davis has been president of Broadcast Operations & Engineering for the ABC Television Network Group since 1993. A 31-year veteran of ABC, he spoke this week with HD Notebook.
Entertainment chief said network won't follow the crowd.
Up to 30 percent of the network’s online division is being laid off.
The cuts are happening across the Disney company.
Japan Broadcasting Corp is finalizing plans to cut its workforce by about 1,200 over a three-year period from fiscal 2006 due to a higher-than-expected rise in the number of viewers refusing to pay fees, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun has reported.
The cuts are expected to be in the newsgathering and operations sides of NBC News and MSNBC cable news divisions.


We're not just debating the best video game of 2009 this week. We've got other awards to dole out. Today, I declare which '09 game had the best cut scenes and which was the runner-up.
If you want something more conventional from your cut-scenes, something that puts possible/scuttled Halo movies paradoxically preemptively to shame, there's these winning cut-scenes from Xbox 360-exclusive real-time strategy game Halo Wars.
I'm not sure if end-credits count as a cut scene, but this profane, Not Safe For Work Madworld credits sequence deserves some sort of highlight.
Look for more special-category awards from the rest of the Kotaku team throughout the week.


Published: March 14, 2013 at 01:57 p.m.
Updated: March 14, 2013 at 05:16 p.m.
The Kansas City Chiefs have done a nice job picking up contributors for low prices in free agency, from Mike DeVito and Dunta Robinson to Anthony Fasano, Donnie Avery and Chase Daniel. On Thursday, the Chiefs made a bigger move.
NFL.com's Albert Breer reported Thursday that the Chiefs reached an agreement with cornerback Sean Smith. David Canter, Smith's agent, quickly took to Twitter to confirm that it was a three-year contract. Breer and NFL.com's Ian Rapoport reported it was a three-year deal worth $18 million, with $11 million guaranteed.
Smith was one of our top 15 players available in free agency, but he didn't get the money he was hoping for on the open market. Like so many cornerbacks this year, Smith's market was somewhat slow to develop. He appeared to have strong interest from multiple teams before free agency opened, but the big-dollar contract that he was looking for wasn't available when free agency opened. For this money, we like the move for the Chiefs very much.
Smith is a big, physical cornerback who has shown flashes of brilliance. He's a solid starter at worst and will be paired with one of the NFL's better cornerbacks in Brandon Flowers. Robinson figures to be a nickel back or play safety in Kansas City; he's paid more like a reserve.
When Andy Reid took over as Chiefs coach, there was a lot more work to be done on the offensive side. But there also is the framework in place for a very good defense. Smith should help the Chiefs compete right away under Reid; they might even have enough cornerbacks to slow down the Denver Broncos.


The 300 metre beach near the tiny village of Dooagh on Achill Island vanished in 1984.
Achill Island, Ireland: A beach that was swept away more than 30 years ago from a remote island off the west coast of Ireland has reappeared after thousands of tons of sand were deposited on top of the rocky coastline.
The 300 metre beach near the tiny village of Dooagh on Achill Island vanished in 1984 when storms stripped it of its sand, leaving nothing more than a series of rock pools.
But after high spring tides last month, locals found that the Atlantic Ocean had returned the sand.
"It's enormously significant," Sean Molloy of Achill's tourism office told the Irish Times newspaper, recalling how the popular beach once sustained four hotels and a number of guesthouses on the west coast of the island of 2,600 people.
"Achill already has five blue-flag beaches, so we are hoping that in time it will be awarded a sixth."
The island, the largest off the coast of Ireland, forms part of the Wild Atlantic Way, a tourist trail stretching from the south of the country to the north-west that has benefited from a tourist boom in the European Union's fastest-growing economy.


Display marketers are eager to launch mobile campaigns. But they face challenges such as audience fragmentation, a chaotic vendor landscape, and myriad new technologies and devices. In order to navigate these challenges, we recommend that marketers focus on creating convenient mobile experiences by building mobile display campaigns that are simple, immediate, and contextually relevant to the section of their audience most likely to use them.


This BRAND NEW home sits on a cul-de-sac w/4 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths, 2 car attached Garage, Family Room, Dining Room, Study (Home Office or Play Room), Breakfast Area & Game Room! Kitchen features: beautiful staggered Umber cabinets w/ crown molding, large island, HUGE walk-in pantry, stainless steel appliances, Aqualok laminate flooring & Butler Pantry w/ extra cabinet storage between the Kitchen & Dining Room. 9' ceilings are throughout the 1st floor for that spacious, open feeling. Master Suite features: 15x21 Master Bedroom, double sinks, tub/shower combo, nickel bath hardware & large walk-in closet. Convenient Laundry Room is located upstairs. The 13x17 Game Room is perfect as a 2nd living space. Home comes with 10 year home warranty.


ANDERSON, Ind. - Police in Anderson are investigating after a man was shot to death New Year's morning. Authorities have identified the victim as 39-year-old Tommie Griffin.
"To that person out there, I hope you turn yourself in because we will have justice for Tommie," said Joyce Griffin, Tommie's mother.
Griffin was found shot to death in his vehicle near Ninth and Chestnut streets at around 8:30 a.m. According to the coroner, Griffin was shot multiple times. No suspect information has been released. Police are not sure if Griffin was targeted or if this was a random act.
"This is the hardest thing I've had to deal with in my lifetime," said Joyce Griffin.
William Casey is a former sergeant with the Anderson Police Department. He is working to get a 10 Point Coalition team on the streets in Anderson.
"Prevention (is) that’s the main thing. (We want) to working with all the different organizations and groups, police departments, school system, all those agencies, not trying to reinvent the wheel just make everybody work together," said William Casey, former sergeant with the Anderson Police Department.
Griffin's family describes Tommie as being very athletic. In his memory, they want to start a scholarship to help a local high school athlete in need.
Police are asking anyone for information on this shooting to contact them at 765-548-6370.


The debate over Brexit among UK politicians has become so toxic that the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition have more in common with each other than they have with their own parties.
With just weeks to go before a Brexit deal needs to be signed, Theresa May's plans for leaving the European Union have hit a brick wall. Some believe that she has as little as 48 hours to reach an agreement with Brussels, or risk having to spend millions in preparation for a no-deal.
In 137 days, the UK will leave the EU, whether or not an agreement between the two has been reached. And given the deep divisions between politicians of all stripes in London and the fast-approaching deadline, a no-deal Brexit has never looked so likely a prospect.
An emergency meeting of May's Cabinet, scheduled for Tuesday, to approve the latest version of the deal has been postponed.
Barely a day goes by without a Conservative MP proposing a different version of what Brexit should look like, and whether the final deal should be put to the British people in a second referendum.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition, gave an interview to a German magazine over the weekend, declaring that Brexit cannot be stopped. This goes against his own Labour Party's official line.
The problem with Brexit, as the Prime Minister is finding to her cost, is that it has been impossible to find a blueprint for EU withdrawal that makes all factions in all parties happy -- or, more seriously, is not furiously opposed by at least one of those factions.
In any vote she puts to Parliament, she needs 320 MPs from all parties to back her. There are 150 Conservative MPs who are ministers and government aides and are therefore obliged to either vote with her or resign. This means she is far short of a guaranteed Commons victory. Given the state of revolt in her party at the moment, she has a lot of work to do.
For Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, who resigned as foreign secretary in July, May's compromise Brexit plan -- known as Chequers -- gives Brussels too much control over the UK even after Brexit.
In his latest article on the subject, Johnson said Britain would be forced to "remain in captivity" by Europe because a safety mechanism, or backstop, would tie the country into a customs union with the EU indefinitely.
There are at least 50 Conservative MPs who feel the same way -- enough to cause trouble for the PM but, crucially, not enough to win an overall majority for a hard Brexit when the final deal is put to a vote in the House of Commons.
Johnson's younger brother, Jo, has put himself at the head of the other side of the debate, inside the same party. Jo Johnson resigned as transport minister on Friday, declaring the Prime Minister's "failure of statecraft" was the worst since the Suez crisis, one of the most calamitous moments for the British government in the last century. He said May's Brexit plans were a choice between "vassalage or chaos," and the risk of a damaging no-deal was so high that there should be a People's Vote -- a referendum on the final deal.
These Conservative MPs in the remain/soft Brexit camp are a smaller group than their Brexiteer colleagues, but, given May has no overall majority in the Commons, every MP's vote counts.
Even putting aside the rebellious factions in the Conservative Party, the issue of Northern Ireland is proving to be the sticking point in Brexit negotiations between the British government and Brussels. There is still no agreement on whether the Irish backstop -- the mechanism that would ensure Northern Ireland remains inside the EU customs union after Brexit to avoid a hard border with Ireland -- should apply to Northern Ireland only or the whole of the UK, and whether there is a further safety clause -- a backstop to the backstop -- to allow the UK to end this commitment.
The Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party, whose MPs have 10 votes in the Commons and are the only reason May has a theoretical majority in Parliament, are vociferously opposed to any backstop that leaves the province cut off from the rest of the UK.
And then there is Corbyn's Labour Party, the official opposition in the Commons, which has as much Brexit disunity in its own ranks as the Conservatives. The Labour Brexit policy, agreed at their party conference in September, is for all options to remain on the table, including a second referendum. Yet last week, Corbyn gave an interview to Der Spiegel declaring that Brexit could not be stopped.
On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, insisted that Brexit could, in fact, be halted if the deal on the table did not meet Labour's demands. There are a handful of pro-Brexit Labour MPs who would vote with their Conservative counterparts, but the rest of Labour's 257 MPs are unpredictable, ranging from those who are loyal to Corbyn to those who are loyal to the EU and will block Brexit at any cost.
Some MPs want to revoke Article 50, the triggering mechanism which set the path to Britain leaving the EU on March 29, 2019, because Brexit is in such a mess.
Neither main party is officially advocating this as a policy, but the lack of agreement on all sides leaves a stalemate which, effectively, means an orderly Brexit cannot go ahead. In the Commons, there is no majority for a hard Brexit, soft Brexit, a People's Vote or remain.
It is a parliamentary impasse verging on a constitutional crisis. Brexit can never be solved because too many people disagree with all possible outcomes.
And so, in the absence of any deal, and without a revoking of Article 50, Britain crashes out of the EU on a no-deal basis -- a scenario that has alarmed national and international businesses and inside Britain's machinery of government and public services, due to the prospect of swingeing tariffs on goods at the border, miles of queued lorries and stockpiling of food and medicines by panicking householders.


Grace Virginia Porter "Cakes", 96, of Lexington Park, MD, formerly from Baltimore, MD passed away on Thursday, June 7, 2018 in Leonardtown, MD. She was born on February 16, 1922 in Leonardtown, MD, and was the daughter of the late Grace Tolson Carroll and Douglas Carroll. Grace was the loving wife of the late Vernon Porter whom she married in Baltimore, MD.
Grace is survived by her siblings; Sarah Chase, Frances Carroll, and Paul Carroll all of Lexington Park, MD and 4 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her son Cameron Porter, as well as siblings; Agustus Carroll, Charles Carroll, Talbert Carroll, Thomas Carroll, Lucy Dudley, and Helen Robinson.
Grace graduated from Cardinal Gibbons High School in Ridge, MD. She moved from Baltimore, MD to St. Mary's County, MD in 2010. Grace was a cafeteria cook for Baltimore Public Schools for 20 years, retiring in 1962. Grace loved dancing, bingo, traveling, and cooking. She loved hanging out with family and friends.
The family will receive friends on Saturday, June 16, 2018 from 9:30 am to 10:30 am in St. Cecelia's Catholic Church St. Mary's City, MD. Where a Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10:30 am with Father Scott Woods officiating. Interment will follow in St. James Catholic Cemetery, Lexington Park, MD. Pallbearers will be: Maurice Carroll, Eddie Russell Carroll, Sr., Troy Brooks, Melvin Carroll, Jr. Raymond Chase, and Sheron Chase. Arrangements by Mattingley-Gardiner Funeral Home.


Fodor’s warns: “Tides in the bay are dangerously unpredictable. The sea can rise up to 45 feet at high tide and rushes in at incredible speed -- more than a few ill-prepared tourists over the years have drowned.” In low tides, there are also patches of quicksand, so we recommend staying away from the sand flats period.
You'll find this impressive abbey on a skinny strip of land in the English Channel. Admission is €8.50 EUR or about $12 USD. For more information, visit the abbey’s official website.


Pastor Sammy Stewart, 71, of Panama City went to be with the Lord on Thursday, October 11, 2018. He was born September 29, 1947 in Panama City and was a 1965 graduate of Rutherford High School. He attended the CSI Academy of Florida and received a Bachelor’s Degree of Ministry from Gulf Coast Seminar. Sammy proudly served his country for nine and a half years in the Army National Guard, followed by a fourteen year career as a law-enforcement officer. He then founded and was the pastor of Straightway Christian Ministries for 27 years.
This giant of a man became as gentle as a lamb, while sharing wisdom and great compassion to those in need. His greatest passion was his love for Jesus Christ and to minister hope to bruised and broken hearted people.
He had extreme respect for law-enforcement and held it in high esteem. He shared an impetuous love and pride in America, and prayed for our great nation and president daily!
He is preceded in death by his father, Hollis Wyatt Stewart and mother, Helen C. Everage; paternal grandparents, Versie Mae Stewart and Oren Wyatt Stewart; and maternal grandparents, Buster and Zelma Turner.
Those left to cherish his memory include his wife of 36 years, Sandi Pettis Stewart; daughter, Melissa Masisak Bullington (Chris); son, Russell Wyatt Stewart (Jessica); granddaughter, Keely, whom he loved with all his heart; sisters, Sandra Kent Spence, Sarah Oliver (Mitch), and Darlene Gash (Larry); brothers, Steve Everage (Karen), Danny Everage, Dwight Stewart, Dwayne Stewart (Kendra), and Dennis Stewart (April); a special aunt that he loved like a sister, Charlotte Parrish; aunt, Evelyn Kay Ray (Donnie); sister and brother-in-law, Wanda and David McMullon, who helped care for him for the past 22 months, while battling cancer; brother-in-law, Rev. Charles Pettis (Susan); numerous nieces and nephews; as well as his loving dog, Buddy and granddog, Spanky.
Serving as pallbearers will be his nephews, Davey McMullon, Gary Kent, Joe Kent, Tripp McMullon, Josh McMullon, Robert Parrish, Ryan Gash, Chris Gash and Jamie Brittenham. Honorary pallbearers will be the congregation of Straightway Christian Ministries, Guy Tunnell, Frank McKeithen, Dennis Pledger, J.T. Pettis, Dennis Haddock, Jim Sanson, Steve Robinson, Ed Menck, Donnie Jackson and Allan Ferguson.
A visitation will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M., Monday, October 29, 2018, in the Heritage Funeral Home Chapel. A graveside service will take place 11:00 A.M., Tuesday, October 30, 2018, at Evergreen Memorial Gardens with Rev. Charles Pettis, Bishop Ray Willis, and Rev. Curtis Kent officiating. A celebration of Sammy’s life will be held on a later date, once Straightway’s storm damage has been repaired.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Straightway Christian Ministries building fund. Those wishing to extend condolences may do so at www.heritagefhllc.com.


ZCam is a prototype technology from Israeli firm 3DV Systems, which does roughly the same thing as Sony’s EyeToy gaming camera, but with more features. Specifically, it captures depth, rather than just movements to the side.
The effect? You can punch away in a boxing game, and it has an accurate idea of how you’re swinging. You can move your hands, legs, head or fingers in any direction, and they’ll be mirrored on-screen by a character. The video above shows 3DV’s representative demonstrating the boxing, to knockout effect.
It can also be used to control an avatar on-screen, while the technology is sensitive enough to pick up finger movements, allowing you to control, say, an interactive menu system on your TV by pinching your fingers, or waving them.


Chicago police say "the trajectory of the investigation" into the reported attack on Jussie Smollett has shifted and they want to conduct another interview with the "Empire" actor.
CHICAGO — Chicago police say "the trajectory of the investigation" into the reported attack on Jussie Smollett has shifted and they want to conduct another interview with the "Empire" actor.
On Saturday, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi issued a statement saying: "We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the Empire case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation. We've reached out to the Empire cast member's attorney to request a follow-up interview."
Smollett, who is black and gay, has said he was attacked by two masked men shouting racial and anti-gay slurs and "This is MAGA country!" He said they looped a rope around his neck before running away as he was out getting food at a Subway restaurant early on Jan. 29. He said they also poured some kind of chemical on him.
Police have been unable to find surveillance video of the attack.
A spokeswoman for Smollett did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Guglielmi's statement.


Mayor Pete Buttigieg might have a chance of eating away at Sen. Bernie Sanders' strong support with young voters, according to a new poll.
Buttigieg came in third place overall in two recent polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, both early primary states.
Sanders is the frontrunner at the moment, but it might not last.
Sen. Bernie Sanders often boasts that he garnered more support from young voters in 2016 than President Donald Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton combined.
But a new Monmouth University poll with voters in Iowa suggests he might have a harder time making a repeat performance with this demographic in 2020.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, appears to have the potential to eat away at Sanders' support with the younger crowd.
Sanders received the most support from young voters in the poll, with 18% of those between 18 and 49 saying they back the Vermont senator. Former Vice President Joe Biden came in second with this age group, receiving 16%. Meanwhile, Buttigieg received 12% support with this demographic, which is notable given he was a stranger to national politics just a few months ago.
Sanders received the most support among male voters, 24%, and while Buttigieg came in third with this group with 13% supporting. The South Bend, Indiana mayor was close behind Biden — who received 15%.
Among voters who identified as liberal, Buttigieg and Sanders tied for second, with each receiving 13%. Biden received 20% among liberals.
The Indiana mayor also wasn't far behind Sanders with college educated voters. Among this group, Buttigieg came in third with 12% to Sanders' 13% (he tied with Sen. Kamala Harris for second) as Biden received 20%.
If you pull back and look at Sanders versus Buttigieg with young, male, liberal, college-educated voters across the board, they aren't that far apart from one another.
In terms of voters overall, Biden came in first with 27%, Sanders in second with 16%, and Buttigieg in third with 9%.
This is a huge surge for Buttigieg compared to polling in Iowa from even a month ago. A Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll from early March found just 1% of voters identified the South Bend mayor as their first choice. Things have evidently shifted over the past few weeks, and this seems to be linked to rising support for Buttigieg among young, male, liberal, college educated voters.
The more recent Monmouth Iowa poll is a narrow look at how these candidates could fare in 2020. But Iowa is also the site of the first major presidential nominating contest and performing well there can make or break a candidate's chances in the long run.
National polling has consistently shown Biden in first with Sanders trailing close behind. But Biden also hasn't announced yet, and Sanders is dominating fundraising in a broad field of candidates.
A recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll also showed Sanders beating out other 2020 contenders by double digits with voters aged 18 to 29.
In short, Sanders is the frontrunner at the moment.
But Buttigieg's performance in this new poll out of Iowa suggests he's a contender to be taken seriously. He also came in third in a new Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll with voters in New Hampshire with 11%, as Sanders came in second with 16% and Biden first with 23%. New Hampshire is also the site of an early presidential primary and like Iowa is viewed as a barometer for how a candidate will do in the end.
At 37, Buttigieg is among the youngest candidates running in 2020. He's also the only openly gay candidate, an Afghan war veteran, a Rhodes scholar, and speaks multiple languages. Buttigieg's resume has captivated pundits and he's dominated headlines in recent weeks.
The latest national polling from Morning Consult places Buttigieg in sixth place overall in the 2020 race, with Biden in first and Sanders in second. But if these recent polls in Iowa and New Hampshire are a sign of things to come, he could start climbing up that latter.


Hong Kong's new chief executive shakes the hand of China's president.
Hong Kong's new leader, Leung Chun-ying, was sworn into office Sunday morning in a ceremony presided over by Chinese President Hu Jintao, as protesters burned pictures of Leung outside the venue.
Hu was making a rare three-day visit to the city to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty and inaugurate the third chief executive, replacing the recently scandal-plagued Donald Tsang.
Hu's speech in front of some 2,300 of the party faithful had the usual platitudes about Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy.
"We must stay committed to keeping a balance between adhering to the 'one country' principle and respecting the differences of the 'two systems', between upholding the authority of the central government and ensuring a high degree of autonomy of the Hong Kong S.A.R. (Special Administrative Region), between safeguarding the overall national interests and protecting the interests of various social sectors of Hong Kong, and between supporting Hong Kong in actively conducting exchanges with the outside world and opposing interference by external forces in Hong Kong affairs," he said.
Security guards overwhelm a lone protestor, in blue shirt, during Hu Jintao's address.
slogans calling for an end to one-party rule on the mainland and for people to remember June 4th (date of Tiananmen massacre in 1989). About ten security guards wrestled him out of the venue after snatching his placard. Tsang told RTHK afterward the guards had placed their hands in his mouth to stifle his shouting.
In Leung's speech, he said his "goal is to develop the economy, improve people's livelihood, promote democracy and build a more prosperous, progressive and righteous society."
Leung had won a bitterly contested election campaign that allows only 1,200 voters to take part from a population of seven million. Recently, the former property surveyor has been embroiled in a scandal for allegedly having numerous illegal structures on his luxury home on The Peak.
In spite of the government's carefully scripted plan, heavy-handed tactics by Hong Kong's police force in dealing with both the media and protesters have been attracting the most attention.
Yesterday, a reporter from Apple Daily newspaper was detained by police for about 15 minutes after asking Hu about June 4th. The incident, shown on local television, was sparked when Hon Yiu-ting called out to ask if Hu had heard Hong Kong people's hope to reverse the verdict of June 4th. Hu did not respond. When confronted by other journalists at the scene, a plain-clothes police sergeant reluctantly said Hon was detained for causing a disturbance, although other reporters had been shouting questions to Hu in the same manner earlier. The difference between Hon's question and the others was that it touched upon one of the so-called "sensitive" issues.
On the same day, the police used pepper spray on another group of pro-democracy protesters trying to break through police barricades to get closer to an event Hu was attending. Organizers of the demonstration had been complaining that "protest zones" set up by police were too far away for their voices to be heard. They were calling for an investigation into the suspicious death of mainland dissident Li Wangyang and to overturn Beijing's condemnation of the June 4th protests in Tiananmen.
Although Hong Kong had been promised the right to select their leader before 1997, 15 years after the handover, they still haven’t been given that right. Many fear that with Beijing’s interference future elections will almost certainly be rigged.


Emirates Airline is the number one airline for premium capacity measured in international available seat kilometres (ASKMs), clocking 876 million ASKMs per week, according to flights data firm OAG.
OAG said the popularity of the Dubai-based airline's Business and First Class cabins is primarily due to the long haul nature of Emirates fleet deployment.
Earlier this month, the airline received delivery of its 50th A380, configured with 90 First and Business Class seats, further adding to Emirates' average weekly capacity of over 191,000 premium seats.
Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline said: "When we signed up for the A380, we had a clear vision for how we would deploy these aircraft. At the same time, we also saw a tremendous opportunity to take the flying experience to whole new levels.
"We took a bit of a gamble pulling out rows in Business Class to put in the Onboard Lounge, we pushed the envelope to bring the first showers onto a commercial flight, and we made sure our inflight entertainment system in all classes offered unparalleled choice and quality. These efforts have paid off, and our customers love flying the A380."
Over 27.5 million passengers have flown on Emirates' A380s since 2008, with premium and overall seat factors on the A380 fleet consistently outperforming the network.
Globally, Emirates' First Class capacity grew by six percent over the last year, while First Class passenger traffic increased by eight percent.
Across the network, First Class demand is strong, particularly on routes to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, recording consistently high load factors of over 70 percent.
Emirates is in the advanced stages of developing a new First Class "bedroom concept" for its A380 and new Boeing 777 fleets. Customers can expect fully enclosed rooms and all the touches and amenities common to luxury hotels and yachts, including room service.
Emirates operates the world's largest fleet of A380s, with 50 in service, and another 90 pending delivery. It also operates the world's largest fleet of Boeing 777s with 139 in service and another 205 on its order books.


Early childhood education majors earn $39,000 a year on average.
Before declaring your major, make sure you're passionate about the subject you decide on, particularly if you're considering working with children.
Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce found in their recent report, "The Economic Value of College Majors," that education majors are paid the least — specifically those specializing in early childhood education, who earn a median annual salary of $39,000.
While the paychecks are not particularly enticing, people in education find a high level of meaning from their jobs. And the satisfaction from helping others tends to outweigh the lack of pay growth.
The education field is also unique in that it provides job security. "It's high security but low wages," Anthony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce, tells us. "So you have to ask yourself what you value — security or wages?"
Human services and community organization ranked second lowest, with a median annual paycheck of $41,000.
Choosing majors is not just about the dollars and pennies — it involves your interests and values — but it can be helpful know the facts and figures in order to make an informed decision.


The Care.data pilots have been put on hold again, as the NHS is working to create new opt-out and consent models for the programme.
The controversial project, which aims to extract anonymised patient data from GPs to a central database held by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), was restarted this summer.
NHS England has now asked the four pilot sites – Leeds, Blackburn and Derwent, West Hampshire and Somerset – to temporarily pause the programme, according to a statement from Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group.
The pilots were put on hold after health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced at the NHS Innovation Expo that the national data guardian for health and care, Fiona Caldicott, would provide guidance on how to word a new model of consent and opt-outs for the programme.
Hunt has also asked the Care Quality Commission to undertake a review of standards of data security for patients’ confidential data across the NHS, and Caldicott will contribute to the review by developing guidelines for the protection of personal data.
The government aims for the work to be completed by January 2016. Until the new opt-out and consent models have been agreed, the pilots will not be able to proceed.
In total, 104 GP practices are part of the pilot scheme. A spokesperson from NHS England told Computer Weekly that the programme is “not paused” and that the work with the pathfinders is continuing. However, Computer Weekly understands that none of the pilot sites had started the extraction.
Commenting on the pause, a spokesperson for Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group said: “The purpose of the Care.data pathfinder pilot has always been to help NHS England with the testing and evaluation of patient literature and the process by which coded patient data might eventually be extracted from their GP medical records.
The controversial Care.data programme to create a database of NHS patient records in England is about to restart.
The Care.data scheme has been surrounded by controversy. Privacy campaigners have argued the NHS has failed to educate the public about the project, leading to fears around how the data would be used. The project has also been heavily criticised due to its opt-out, rather than opt-in, model.
NHS England was forced to halt the programme in February 2014, a pause originally planned for six months. Last October, the four pathfinder sites were selected to pilot the programme.
It was then delayed again as a result of even more criticism, including a report from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Patient and Public Involvement in Health and Social Care and the Patients Association that challenged the scheme yet again in December 2014.
In June 2015, further controversy ensued after it emerged that at least 700,000 people opted out of Care.data before the roll-out of the project was scrapped in 2014, but the NHS still shared their data with several bodies, including insurers.
Tim Kelsey, NHS England’s director of patients and information, acknowledged that more work needed to be done to ensure the public’s concerns are taken into account.
“We recognise that patients have concerns about data safety and we will do everything we can to protect their information and build their trust. It is imperative we listen to the public and address all their concerns,” he said.
This story has been updated to include a comment from NHS England.