Sovereignty matters: Karzai s office hits back at Pakistan s interior

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FEBRUARY 13 2015 -Dalw 24, 1393 H.S
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Sovereignty matters: Karzai s office
hits back at Pakistan s interior minister
AT News Report
KABUL: Pakistan s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali in an interview with Fars News Agency
(FNA) said that their security forces in coordination with NATO and
Afghan government have conducted military operations inside Afghanistan.
His remarks have upped concerns of the people of Afghanistan
and they look curious to know
how much reality has been there
in Chaudhry s remarks. A press
release issued by the office of
ex-President of Afghanistan,
Hamid Karzai, here on Thursday, said that if Chaudhry s
words have anything with reality, then Pakistan has committed a blatant act of aggression
against Afghanistan.
The United States and
NATO troops are here in Afghanistan with mandate from the
United Nations, but how could
Pakistan s military forces could
do operations inside Afghanistan,
the people of Afghanistan ask as
they consider it a biggest question
mark on their country s sovereignty and independence.
The statement adds that Afghans have suffered much at the
hands of Pakistan for its interventions into internal affairs of Afghanistan. Interventions of other
countries in internal affairs of Afghanistan, and violation of its sovereignty is disrespect to our inde-
pendence which is highly intolerable, the statement adds. Whenever Afghanistan has been attacked
by others, all Afghans have responded them with a tit-for-tat
reply, the statement adds. The
statement quotes Karzai as saying: as a citizen of Afghanistan I
will carry out my own research into
the matter to find out how much
fact is there in Chaudhry s remarks
and I will share the information
with the people of Afghanistan.
Pakistan calls for greater shift in ties with Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD:
Amid
stepped-up diplomatic contacts between Kabul-Islamabad, the advisor to Pakistani
prime minister on foreign affairs and national security said
his country needed a major
shift in ties with Afghanistan,
Iran and India to ensure regional
peace and stability.
Speaking at a seminar:
Crossroads Asia: Dynamics
of Peace and Progress, in Islamabad, Sartaj Azizi said:
The vision of a peaceful
neighbourhood cannot be realised without a qualitative
transformation in our relations
with Afghanistan, India and
Iran, the dawn.com newspaper quoted Aziz as saying.
Building a peaceful neighbourhood was the cornerstone
of foreign policy of the sitting
government, he said, adding
that complex challenges faced
by the region, including terrorism (particularly the rise of the
Islamic State militant group)
and others needed settlement
of regional disputes through
dialogue and political accommodation .
During his speech, Aziz
mentioned specifically his
country s challenging ties with
the three immediate neighbours, including Afghanistan,
Iran and India.
He claimed Islamabad s
ties with Tehran were on path to
improvement while developments
in Afghanistan and improvements
in socio-economic indicators have
been promising.
He called for an end to external interference in Afghanistan,
continuous international economic and financial support and avoidance of the mistakes of the past
for safeguarding the precious
moment of hope and optimism in
Afghanistan .
He mentioned rise in insurgent
activities, narcotics production
and trafficking and corruption and
governance as the continuing challenges in Afghanistan.
The adviser welcomed China s
increased involvement with Afghanistan both at the bilateral and
regional planes and said: Pakistan
views this as a welcome development for peace, security, reconciliation and economic progress of Afghanistan.
He reiterated the negative developments in ties with India since
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif s
meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi
in last May, including the cancel-
lation of foreign secretaries talks
and Indian ceasefire violations
along the Line of Control and
Working Boundary.
Indian leadership s threats
of disproportionate use of force
portend India s dangerous desire
to create a space for war, he noted.
Pakistan, the adviser said,
would not get involved in arms
race in the region, but would
staunchly protect its interests,
besides maintaining credible deterrence capability.
3 rebels, 2 ANA soldiers dead in Nimroz offensive
ZARANJ: At least two Afghan
National Army (ANA) soldiers
and three militants have been killed
during an operation in Dilaram district of southwestern Nimroz
Vol:IX Issue No:192 Price: Afs.15
province, official said Thursday.
Col. Najeebullah Najeeb, district police chief, told Pajhwok
Afghan News that eight other
rebels were injured and three more
arrested in the operation in Gach
Star and Firozgi areas of the district last night.
Three Kalashnikovs, hundreds
of bullets and eight bombs were
also recovered from the militants,
he said. But Taliban spokesman
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said four security personnel were killed and
two others wounded in the operation. He rejected security forces
claim that militants were detained
during the offensive. Separately,
two ANA soldiers were killed and
another wounded when their compound came under militants attack
in Dilaram district. Najeeb said the
incident took place last night and
the rebels managed to escape after
the attack. PAN
PC members block airport
square protesting WJ decision
KABUL: At least 700 Provincial
Councils (PC) members and their
supporters on Thursday blocked
the road leading to Kabul International Airport to protest the Wolesi
Jirga (WJ) decision.
Earlier, the lower house decided provincial councils did not reserve the right to supervise or evaluate the performance of local departments.
But President Mohammad
Ashraf Ghani had said that PC
members deserve the right to supervise the performance of local
bodies in a defined framework.
Despite assurance by the head
of the state the PC members and
their supporters continued with
their protest against the lower
house decision. They blocked the
main airport road at 10:30 am and
the protest was still underway.
Sayyed Abdul Rahman, head
of the Kabul provincial council,
told Pajhwok Afghan News the
protest was a warning to the government and if the decision was
not reversed then the demonstra-
tions would be intensified.
Mohammad Noor Rahmani,
head of the Sar-i-Pul province PC,
said: The protest will continue
until the Wolesi Jirga reversed its
decision.
state and improvement of the
affairs of the province in the
manner prescribe by laws, and
shall advise the provincial administrations on related
issues.The provincial assem-
Article 139 of the constitution
says: The provincial council shall
participate in the attainment of the
development objectives of the
bly council shall perform its
duties with the cooperation of
the provincial administration. (Pajhwok)
NEW VISA
SCHEME
LAUNCHED FOR
FOREIGNERS
KABUL: The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs on Wednesday opened a
consular office at the Hamid Karzai
International Airport, formerly
known as Kabul Airport, to issue
visas to foreign nationals, particularly investors on arrival in a move
to boost business.
Deputy Foreign Minister Attiqullah Atifmal, who inaugurated
the new scheme, said the facility
was aimed at attracting foreign investors and facilitating those entering the country.
He said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would issue visas for
one to three years to foreign investors on arrival in Afghanistan.
We will issue the three-year visas to big investors and the oneyear to those making small investments in Afghanistan.
He added visas would be granted to diplomats, UN and other
international organizations staff, journalists and athletes through
the newly-opened office.
We have set up this facility for nationals in countries where
Afghanistan does not have its embassy or consulate, he said.
(Pajhwok)
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
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Printed at Afghanistan Times Printing Press
Mohamad Elmasry
Three Muslim Americans were
murdered on Tuesday in a University of North Carolina dorm room.
The crime came on the heels of recent anti-Muslim attacks in Europe, carried out in apparent response to the January murders
(committed by Muslims) of Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris.
Western media outlets will likely frame the most recent perpetrator of what some speculate is an
anti-Muslim crime in the same way
they frame most anti-Muslim criminals - as crazed, misguided bigots
who acted alone. If past coverage
is any indication, there will likely
be very little suggestion that the
killer acted on the basis of an ideology or as part of any larger pattern or system.
But what if acts of anti-Muslim violence are consistent with at
western civilisation. Western news
coverage rarely highlights Islam except to show its possible relation
to some atrocity, and Muslims are
rarely mentioned in the context of
news that is positive or benign.
Several studies have found that
Muslims are portrayed as a homogenised body, lacking diversity
and difference, with other analyses showing that news coverage of
violent conflicts in the Muslimmajority world ignores context and
circumstances, implying that
Muslims are inherently violent and
prone to conflict.
Inconsistent coverage
Other studies show inconsistent coverage of violent global and
regional conflicts. When Christians,
Jews and other non-Muslims are
killed by Muslims, Islam is identified as playing a direct role. When
Remarkably, some prominent
media personalities systematically ignore Muslim condemnations
of terrorism and then scream loudly that Muslims aren't condemning terror. Recently, both Rupert
Murdoch and Piers Morgan
claimed that it is primarily the responsibility of Muslims to root
out and defeat the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIL.
In much of the western news
discourse, the implication always
seems clear; western societies
should be suspicious of Muslims
- all Muslims.
Ignored in these analyses, of
course, are the facts that Muslims
in many Muslim-majority countries are often preoccupied, battling brutal dictatorships (which
are often propped up by western
nations, including the US), acute
on news networks alongside antiIslam bigots who have made careers out of dissecting Islamic textual sources they do not appear to
be qualified to interpret?
Media portrayals
Importantly, western entertainment media portrayals also receive unfavourable scholarly evaluations. In the most comprehensive and systematic study of Hollywood movies done to-date, media scholar Jack Shaheen examined
100 years of Hollywood film representations of Arabs and Muslims.
He found that the majority of
the 900 films he examined portrayed Arabs and Muslims as "brutal, heartless, uncivilised religious
fanatics and money-mad cultural
'others' bent on terrorising civilised
westerners, especially Christians
least some strands of current western ideology? What if Islamophobia has become so commonplace,
so accepted, that it now represents
a hegemonic system of thought, at
least for relatively large pockets
of people in some regions of the
West?
Portraying Islam
Given what we know both
about western media portrayals of
Islam and Muslims on the one
hand, and media effects and theory on the other hand, it would be
foolish to dismiss western media
representations as potential causal factors in anti-Muslim sentiment
and crime. In fact, it is likely that
anti-Muslim sentiment and crime
are, at least in part, driven by onesided, narrow, sensationalistic, and
arguably bigoted western media
portrayals of Islam and Muslims.
Listening Post - Is the British
media Islamophobic?
Many scholars - including Edward Said, Elizabeth Poole, Kai
Hafez, Milly Williamson, Karim
Karim, Teun Van Dijk, Kimberly
Powell, and Dina Ibrahim, among
others - have carried out academic
studies examining western news
coverage of Islam and Muslims.
Results suggest that Muslims
are often portrayed in western
news media as violent, backwards,
fundamentalist and as threats to
Muslims are killed by Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims,
however, the religious identity of
the violent perpetrators is downplayed or ignored.
The ongoing conflict in Burma
represents a good case-in-point.
There has been little western news
coverage on the recent persecution
faced by Rohingya Muslims, who
Human Rights Watch says have
been subjected to mass killings;
"crimes against humanity" and
"ethnic cleansing".
Most recently, American television news networks have underlined a possible association between groups like al-Qaeda and
ISIL, on the one hand, and Islamic
religious doctrine on the other.
Analysts claiming that "Islam is
the problem" are given prominent
platforms on news talk shows,
while expert Muslim voices are
systematically ignored.
Notably - and in spite of the
fact that each act of Muslim-perpetrated terrorism is condemned
strongly by all notable Islamic universities, Islamic scholarly councils, Islamic organisations, Muslim governments, and prominent
Muslim jurists - regular cries are
heard from media personalities
complaining that Muslims do not
condemn terrorism.
Prominent media personalities
poverty, and regular bombing campaigns, all of which have helped
create the conditions under which
groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL both of whom kill many more
Muslims than non-Muslims thrive.
In much of the western news
discourse, the implication always
seems clear; western societies
should be suspicious of Muslims
- all Muslims. Various pundits have
taken to prominent media to offer
up inflated estimates of the number of Muslim terrorists, with
some suggesting that "peaceful"
Muslims are, in the first place, a
minority, and, more importantly,
only peaceful because they have
misunderstood the teachings of
their inherently violent religion.
Always ignored is empirical
evidence - of which there is no
shortage - showing that Muslims
aren't more violent than non-Muslims and that the overwhelming
majority of Muslims believe terrorism to be an abomination.
The discussions carried out on
television news programmes are
not surprising given the structural
problems associated with western
news, and, importantly, the basic
imbalance in sourcing. Why, for
example, is Hamza Hansen, a top
Muslim American public intellectual, not given a regular platform
and Jews".
No one could reasonably suggest that western news and entertainment media organisations
should ignore negative portrayals
of Muslims altogether. This would
be unreasonable, especially given
the importance of global terrorism
and the involvement of Muslims
in their fair share of negative
events. It is not unreasonable, however, to ask for contextualised accounts, fairer portrayals, critical
examinations of the root causes of
terrorism, an increase in Muslim
voices, and news coverage that
does more to separate ordinary
Muslims from groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL.
According to the scholarly literature, the patterns of representation are fairly clear. Some fair,
balanced news coverage and sympathetic entertainment media portrayals of Muslims notwithstanding, Islam and Muslims are generally portrayed negatively and stereotypically, including in some of
the most powerful western media.
At what point do we begin to
hold media organisations at least
partly accountable for the antiMuslim sentiment that is gripping
many western nations?
Or, more importantly, when
will western media organisations
hold themselves to account?
The constitution says
Article 103:
The Ministers can participate in the sessions of either House of the National
Assembly. Eit her House of t he Nat ion al Assembly can deman d t he
participation of the Ministers in its session.
Editorial
Pakistan, terrorism, and
peace in the region
Advisor to Pakistan s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign affairs and national
security, Sartaj Aziz, said the country needs a seismic shift in its relations with
Afghanistan, Iran and India. It s a welcoming move. Yet it looks impossible until
Pakistan s security establishment changes its mood on Pakistan s foreign relations
and Taliban. Since Pakistan has been considered the godfather of the Taliban and
militancy in the region, and if it officially holds its support back, nothing will arrest
peace in the region. It s much propitious for peace in the region that finally Pakistan
has realized there is need for a major shift. But, unfortunately Aziz s words and
wishes wouldn t make a major difference, as he is just an advisor, and his words
will have no effects on the military establishment therefore people in the region
shouldn t be much confident about change in Pakistan s foreign policy. Pakistan s
foreign policy is being devised and written in Pakistan s GHQ instead of by its
government department (foreign office) therefore it will have always a military flavor not letting business ties to overpower political ties. Policymakers in the United
States and its intelligence officials are well cognizant of the fact that Islamabad has
long been pursuing a duplicitous policy. It has created a thick smokescreen of
secrecy and confusion over the tribal belt as no local and international journalists or
aid workers are allowed to visit the area. In such a situation building hopes about
shift in policy is self-deception. If Pakistan really wants to bring shift in its foreign
policy, it will have to reduce the ingredients of perceived threats from its neighboring states in its foreign policy. On domestic front it will have to bring reforms in its
schools and colleges curricula, and regulate madrassas education. Equally important, nevertheless, is redirecting media attention to promoting overall reforms in its
education system. But contrarily, Jamat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have started eliminating materials from books in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
a province where the two political parties have formed a coalition government. The
excluded materials were related to non-violence, the genesis of terrorism in the
region, and how Pashtuns became its victims nevertheless the coalition government
introduced excerptions that teach violence. Attitude towards militant groups in Pakistan are quite geographically clustered, but where there is militancy, the people of
the areas look at militancy and Taliban with disdain. And those who are not directly
affected by Taliban have fascination about it and it s all because of media and text
books. Militant groups receive no support or very little support in the areas where
they have carried out most attacks. Besides that, support for the Afghan Taliban is
almost inversely proportional to their distance from the Afghan border. Ask anybody educated, semi-literate and illiterate in Punjab about the Afghan Taliban
and they will start eulogizing them and ask even a man in the street in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, and they will tell you that the very much concept of good
and bad Taliban is misleading. For them Taliban are Taliban. And their presence
means death and destruction, illiteracy, insecurity and a life of refuge in camps.
Pakistani media don t have the spleen to report fairly as there is a self-censorship
due to fear from unseen hands state actors. Therefore, it doesn t mean that high
level of militant activity in an area is an evidence for the existence of support from
militant groups. Some international media outlets such as BBC Pashto, Deewa
Radio of VOA, Mashaal Radio of VOA, and others report fairly independently
and fearlessly on the tribal belt and terrorism inside Pakistan. To bring shift in its
policies towards terrorism and neighboring countries, it wouldn t be a much hectic
job for the government of Pakistan to improve its ties with neighbors but given that
the military let the civilian government to be on the driving seat. However people
inside Pakistan and abroad think it wouldn t happen particularly after the formation
of military courts, which clearly say much about the credibility or value of judiciary
and courts in the eyes of military generals. When these generals cannot trust the
government s judiciary, how they would let the government to be on driving seat in
devising foreign policy.
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Isotope find
renews focus
on Vt.
Yankee wells
Recent test results showing strontium-90 in four monitoring wells
at the Vermont Yankee nuclear
power plant have renewed a fiveyear-old debate about whether to
clean up the radioactive isotope
now or wait 50 years.
Arnie
Gundersen
of
Fairewinds Associates said Tuesday a relatively quick cleanup
would save the Vermont Yankee
decommissioning trust fund tens
if not hundreds of millions of dollars. He is a well-known nuclear
engineer based in Burlington who
has worked for the Vermont Legislature on nuclear issues, including the 2010 tritium leak at Vermont Yankee.
According to a 2010 report he
prepared for the Legislature, Gundersen had urged that Entergy
Nuclear continue groundwater removal to control the spread of the
radioactive contamination, including strontium-90, which was discovered in the ground near an underground vault close to the plant s
advanced off-gas building.
The vault was determined to
be the source of the large tritium
leak.
Gundersen said it was inaccurate to call the 2010 event a tritium leak since more than tritium
leaked. He said other radioactive
isotopes were contained in the leaking drain water including tritium,
strontium-90, cesium-137 and cobalt-60.
Gundersen said while Entergy
discontinued the groundwater
pumping it had initiated after the
tritium leak in late 2010, he urged
that the source of the strontium90 contamination be cleaned up
now, rather than wait until the Vermont Yankee reactor complex is
cleaned up and dismantled. That
is estimated to take 20 to 50 years,
depending on the health of the
plant s decommissioning trust
fund.
Gundersen, who has a track
record of accurately predicting
problems at Vermont Yankee, said
now that the plant is shut down
permanently, the advanced off-gas
building should be dismantled and
cleaned up.
The difference, he said, could
run in the tens of millions of dollars. He estimated that to dismantle and do the cleanup now would
cost about $30 million, while to
wait would cost around $200 million.
In Gundersen s words, You
now have to chase the strontium
across the Yankee site, and remove
a lot more soil, and ship it for disposal at a low-level radioactive
waste facility in Texas at great expense.
This is the gift that keeps on
giving, he said.
Gundersen said he received a
grant from the Lintilhac Foundation to study Vermont Yankee decommissioning issues, and he will
make a detailed presentation at next
week s NRC hearing in Brattleboro
on Yankee s decommissioning.
Martin Cohn, spokesman for
Entergy in Vermont, said Gundersen was not taking into consideration the fact that the strontium90 levels were very low. The levels are so low that the NRC only
requires us to include it in our license termination plan, Cohn said.
The levels that the Department
of Health reported are well below
the levels that the EPA and the
NRC require.
He emphasized that testing
Entergy does on Yankee s monitoring wells did not detect strontium-90 because the levels were so
low.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan
said only two of the four monitoring wells that tested positive for
strontium-90 were in the original
2010 tritium plume. Two are outside of the plume, but all four are a
short distance from the Connecticut River.
Sheehan stressed that the
source of the strontium-90 found
in the wells had still not been determined.
We don t see any connection
at this point between the AOG
(advanced off-gas) tunnel leakage
and the well sampling results
showing trace amounts of strontium-90. Strontium-90 travels
much more slowly in the soil, he
said.
We do not believe (additional
soil testing) is necessary at this
juncture, he said. Further soil
testing will eventually be part of
the decommissioning process.
Greek standoff weighs on Asian
shares, data boosts Japan
The standoff between Greece and
its creditors weighed on Asian
stock markets Thursday but improved economic data and a weak
yen lifted Japanese shares.
KEEPING SCORE: Japan's
Nikkei 225 rose 1.9 percent to
17,989.59 after being closed for a
holiday Wednesday but most other markets fell. South Korea's Kospi lost 0.4 percent to 1,937.78.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5
percent to 5,742.10 and China's
Shanghai Composite was off 0.2
percent at 3,153.02. Hong Kong's
Hang Seng added 0.3 percent to
24,387.65.
THE QUOTE: "Global markets seem to be in unchartered
waters right now with the Greece
issue presenting significant uncertainty," IG market strategist Stan
Shamu said in a commentary. "As
a result, it certainly seems caution
is warranted and investors are quite
happy to take some profits off the
table as markets consolidate."
GREEK DEBT: Shares were
lackluster in many markets after
an emergency meeting between
Greece's new government and finance ministers from nations that
use the euro ended in a stalemate.
Greek officials proposed renegotiating the terms of an international bailout that has imposed years
of punishing austerity on the country. There is a risk the standoff
could eventually end with Greece
defaulting on its debts and leaving
the euro common currency.
BULLISH JAPAN: The U.S.
dollar's surge against the Japanese
yen and against other currencies
helped push shares in exporters
higher. Meanwhile, data showing
an 8.3 percent month-on-month
increase in machinery orders raised
hopes that the economy may be
recovering from the recession that
set in following a sales tax hike last
April.
WALL STREET: The Dow
Jones industrial average edged
down 6.62 points, or 0.04 percent,
to 17,862.14 on Wednesday. The
Standard & Poor's 500 closed flat,
down 0.06 of a point to 2,068.53
and the Nasdaq composite rose
13.54 points, or 0.3 percent, to
4,801.18.
ENERGY: The price of oil fell
back below $50 a barrel after the
Energy Department reported that
U.S. crude inventories rose by 4.9
million barrels last week to their
highest level for this time of year
in at least 80 years. In Asia on
Thursday, benchmark U.S. crude
was up 61 cents to $49.45 a barrel
in electronic trading on the New
York Mercantile Exchange. It fell
$1.18 Wednesday to close at
$48.84 a barrel. Brent crude, a
benchmark for international oils
used by many U.S. refineries, rose
49 cents to $56.41 in London.
CURRENCIES: The dollar
rose to 120.33 yen from 120.16
yen in the previous day. The euro
dropped to $1.1309 from $1.1319.
Baidu says
quarterly
profit up 16
percent
BEIJING: Baidu Inc., which operates China's most popular Internet search engine, said
Thursday its quarterly profit
rose 16 percent but growth
slowed as it spent more to attract users to its mobile services.
The Beijing-based company earned 3.2 billion yuan
($520.4 million) in the three
months ending Dec. 31. Revenue rose 47.5 percent to 14 billion yuan ($2.3 billion).
Profit growth declined from
the previous quarter's 27 percent as spending on promoting mobile services soared by
89.2 percent over a year earlier.
Chinese Internet companies are spending heavily to
attract users as they shift
quickly to going online with
smartphones and other wireless devices.
Baidu said mobile services
accounted for 42 percent of total revenue, passing its traditional desktop personal computer business for the first time.
"We've successfully transitioned from a PC-centric to a
mobile-first company," said
chairman Robin Li in a statement.
For full-year 2014, profit
rose 25.4 percent over a year
earlier to 13.2 billion yuan ($2.1
billion). Revenue rose 53.6 percent to 49 billion yuan ($7.9 billion). Mobile represented 37
percent of full-year revenue.
Over the past two years,
Baidu has spent heavily to expand its mobile offerings and
to invest in e-commerce, taxi
hailing and other businesses.
"2015 will be an important
year for Baidu as we execute
on our plan and invest for the
next phase of mobile growth,"
said CFO Jennifer Li.
West Coast seaports mostly shut
down amid contract dispute
LOS ANGELES: Seaports in major West Coast cities that normally are abuzz with the sound of
commerce are falling unusually
quiet.
Companies that operate marine terminals said they weren t
calling workers to unload ships
Thursday that carry car parts, furniture, clothing, electronics just
about anything made in Asia and
destined for U.S. consumers. Containers of U.S. exports won t get
loaded either.
The partial lockout is the result of an increasingly damaging
labor dispute between dockworkers and their employers.
The two sides have been negotiating a new contract, and paralysis at the bargaining table is all
but paralyzing 29 ports that handle about one-quarter of U.S. international trade around $1 trillion worth of cargo annually.
The 15 ships scheduled to arrive Thursday at the ports of Los
Angeles and Long Beach, by far
the nation s largest complex, will
join a trail of about 20 others anchored off the coast, awaiting
berths at the docks to clear. There
are clusters of ships outside the
dockworkers to operate the towering cranes which hoist containers of cargo on and off ships.
The berths won t clear Saturday, Sunday or Monday either.
One each of the four days, dockworkers would get bonus pay
they are presidents day holidays
or weekends
and employers
refuse to pay extra to longshoremen who have slowed their work
rate as a pressure tactic, said Steve
Getzug, a spokesman for the Pacific Maritime Association, which
is bargaining on behalf of terminal
operators and shipping companies.
Employers could still hire
smaller crews that would focus on
moving containers already clogging
dockside yards onto trucks or
trains in an effort to free space
amid historically bad levels of congestion. Full crews would still service military and cruise ships, and
any cargo ships bound for Hawaii.
But both are small operations
compared to working container
ships that are as long as some skyscrapers are tall.
Cargo has been struggling for
months to cross the troubled West
Coast waterfront. Containers that
workers deny slowing down and
say cargo is moving slowly for reasons they do not control, including a shortage of truck beds to take
containers to retailers distribution
warehouses. In recent days, the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union said companies are
exaggerating the extent of congestion so they can cut dockworker
shifts and pressure negotiators into
a contract agreement.
The last contract bargaining
session was Friday, nearly a week
ago. Negotiations were to resume
Wednesday in San Francisco, but
were canceled despite heavy
and increasing
pressure from
elected officials and businesses to
reach a deal. The two sides rescheduled for Thursday.
Talks have stalled over how to
arbitrate future workplace disputes. Some of the biggest issues,
including health care, have been
resolved with tentative agreements.
In response to employers decision to limit work crews, announced Wednesday, the union
noted that longshoremen also were
not hired to load or unload vessels
last weekend.
ports of Oakland, and Seattle and
Tacoma in Washington.
The Southern California slots
weren t opening Thursday. The
ships occupying them were being
idled because companies that operate marine terminals did not call
used to take two or three days to
hit the highway have been taking a
week or more, causing disruptions.
The maritime association
blames the crisis on longshoremen
they say have staged work slowdowns since November; dock-
The union is standing by
ready to negotiate, as we have been
for the past several days, union
President Robert McEllrath said
in a written statement. He suggested the maritime association is trying to sabotage negotiations.
Total reports $5.7b loss
IN FOURTH QUARTER
LONDON: Total, the Paris-based
oil giant, on Thursday reported a
loss of $5.7 billion for the fourth
quarter of 2014 as it struggles with
the deep slump in oil prices
Write-downs of about $6.5
billion, mostly on Canadian oil
sands projects, shale gas operations in the United States and European refining businesses, contributed to the loss, the company
said.
Net income adjusted for inventory changes and one-offs, a metric closely watched by industry
analysts, fell 17 percent in the quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, to $2.8 billion.
For the year, adjusted net income
fell 10 percent to $12.8 billion on
revenue of $236 billion.
In a statement, Patrick Pouyanné, who became chief executive
of Total after the death of Christophe de Margerie, whose private
jet hit a snowplow in Moscow last
year, linked the write-downs to
the current economic environment.
Oil prices have plunged roughly 50 percent since the summer,
amid a glut of supply and slowing
demand. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at
about $55 a barrel on Thursday,
well below the level of about $110
a barrel in June.
Oil companies are now find-
ing that their investments are either not viable or not worth as
much as they had estimated when
oil prices were higher. Other companies, like BP and Tullow, an explorer based in Britain, have taken
write-downs in the fourth quarter.
Analysts say that many other
companies will need to follow suit.
Income in Total s exploration
and production unit, which finds
and produces oil and gas, fell 48
percent to $1.6 billion.
Mr. Pouyanné established a
reputation for cutting costs in his
previous role as head of Total s
marketing and refining operations,
having negotiated the closing of
some plants with European
unions. Pressured by the drop in
oil prices, he is trying to broaden
cost-cutting to the rest of the company, including the core exploration and production unit.
Total also said that it would
trim investment to as little as $23
billion from $26.4 billion, partly
by stopping projects that have
become less profitable. The company said it would accelerate the
sale of some assets, echoing plans
announced by other companies.
In a note to clients published
before the results, analysts at Bernstein Research in London wrote
that Total was likely to sell older
oil and gas fields in the North Sea
and West Africa.
Credit suisse rises after
announcing steps to
boost capital
Credit Suisse Group AG rose the
most in two years after it announced fresh measures to boost
capital buffers, including plans to
increase asset reductions and give
investors the option of receiving
their dividend in shares.
Shares rose as much as 5.3
percent to 20.84 francs at 9:16 a.m.
in Zurich trading. The stock is
down 17 percent so far this year,
compared with a 0.9 percent increase in the 49-member STOXX
600 Banks Price Index.
Switzerland s second-biggest
bank returned to profit in the
fourth quarter, posting 921 million
francs ($991 million) in net income
on Thursday, compared with a 476
million-franc loss in the year-earlier period. The lender cut bonuses for the group and the executive
board.
Chief Executive Officer Brady
Dougan has been scaling back the
investment bank and selling real
estate to boost Credit Suisse s capital buffers, hurt last year by a $2.6
billion fine for helping Americans
evade taxes. The prospect of
stricter leverage requirements in
Switzerland have raised questions
about the strength of the bank s
balance sheet while earnings are
under pressure from the surging
franc.
People would react well to
the improved leverage ratio, said
Jon Peace, an analyst at Nomura
Holdings Inc. in London. Credit
Suisse seems to be able to mitigate
the impact from the Swiss franc.
The board of directors agreed
to cut its compensation by 25 percent, while performance-related
pay for the executive board was
cut by an equivalent of 20 percent
slowly due to market volatility but
we have a strong pipeline with execution dependent on market conditions.
The company said the Swiss
central bank s decision last month
to abandon its cap on the franc
would squeeze profit about 3 percent based on last year s earnings.
It plans to offset that impact
through an extra 200 million francs
in cost cuts by the end of 2017 to
better align the proportion of expenses in francs to the revenues it
derives in the currency. Chief Financial Officer David Mathers declined to say if this would include
job cuts.
Fourth-quarter pretax earnings
at the investment bank amounted
to 12 million francs in the quarter,
missing a 244-million franc average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, as revenue from fixed-income trading
slumped 18 percent to 610 million
francs while equities revenue
gained 13 percent to 1.19 billion
francs. Earnings at the unit were
also hurt by funding valuation adjustments, the bank said.
Wealth Management
The investment bank, particularly in equities was very strong,
said Nomura s Peace. A number
of banks have indicated that trading picked up in the first months
of the year. Credit Suisse s business mix will lend itself well to
that.
The private banking and
wealth management division,
which encompasses all other businesses, had pretax earnings of 882
million francs, up from 424 million francs a year earlier when the
bank took provisions for litigation,
of the amount that would have otherwise been granted, split between
the current and prior year awards,
the bank said. Credit Suisse said it
cut bonuses for the group by 9
percent to reflect stable pretax
profits and the U.S. tax fine.
Franc Impact
We did feel it was right to
acknowledge the impact of the settlement on the earnings and as a
result the board as well as the executive board voluntarily took
these reductions in compensation, Dougan said in a Bloomberg
TV interview.
The bank plans a dividend of
70 centimes a share, payable in
cash or in stock, and investors will
vote on the proposal April 24,
Credit Suisse said. It paid shareholders the same amount in cash
for 2013 profit after giving a combination of shares and cash for the
previous two years. The bank also
proposed Seraina Maag as a new
member of the board, while JeanDaniel Gerber and Anton van Rossum will not seek re-election.
Cost Cuts
Year-to-date profitability of
the group is in line with last year,
Dougan said in a statement. Our
private banking and sales and trading businesses have shown an improving trend in recent weeks.
Underwriting and advisory activities have started the year more
and missing analysts estimate of
982 million francs. Credit Suisse
attracted 4.4 billion francs in net
new assets from wealth management clients in the quarter.
Leverage Ratio
Credit Suisse announced new
targets for asset reductions, aiming to bring its ratio of Tier 1 capital to assets to about 4 percent by
the year end in anticipation of
stricter requirements. The bank cut
its target for total leverage exposure to between 930 billion francs
and 950 billion francs for the end
of this year, compared with the
1.05 trillion-franc goal it set in October. This will include as much as
170 billion francs in reductions at
the investment bank as the bank
moves more positions to clearing,
scales down businesses including
rates and gets rid of non-strategic
assets.
A government-appointed panel in December recommended raising leverage requirements for Credit Suisse and UBS Group AG, the
country s biggest bank, to among
the highest in the world. The government is due to submit its own
report on the effectiveness of toobig-to-fail regulation to parliament
later this month. A higher leverage
ratio requirement would affect
Credit Suisse more than UBS because it has less capital compared
to assets.
Twitter buys agency that
grooms social media stars
SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter on
Wednesday announced it is buying Niche, a startup that acts as a
talent agency of sorts matching
online video celebrities from Vine
and elsewhere with advertisers.
Twitter did not disclose financial terms of the deal, which technology news website Re/code said
was valued at more than $30 million.
"As more users and creators
use different products as a way to
share what's happening in their
world, brands are also looking to
partner with those individuals in
hopes of generating moments that
resonate with the people they are
trying to reach," said Twitter director of product management Baljeet Singh.
Niche was launched in late
2013 and soon began working with
Twitter, which owns the Vine app
for sharing short, looping videos
online.
The world of social media has
grown to include people who have
become celebrities by posting clever, funny, or fascinating looping
video snippets using Vine or Facebook-owned Instagram.
Niche boasted it has more than
6,000 "social media creators in its
growing stable of talent.
"All across the world, come-
dic personalities, aesthetic photographers, visual artists, foodies and
fashionistas have leveraged new
mobile platforms to build vast and
direct fan bases," Niche said in an
online post.
Niche, which has offices in San
Francisco and New York City, describes itself as more than just a
talent agency for social media stars.
The company said it provides
analytics to back online popularity, whether fans visit from desktop and mobile devices, and fosters partnerships between video
makers and brands seeking ways
to connect with online audiences.
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Vitamin D deficiency in childhood may lead
to heart diseases in later life
According to a new research, low
level of vitamin D in children is
associated with subclinical atherosclerosis more than 25 years later
into their adulthood.
Researchers from the University of Turku in Finland state that
low levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin
D (25[OH]D) during childhood
were associated with increased
adulthood carotid intima-media
thickness (IMT).
Atherosclerosis is a condition
in which plaque builds up within
the arteries, hampering blood flow
to the body. Plaque contains fatty
substances and cholesterol mostly but will also include fibrin,
which are blood-clotting material,
calcium and waste products from
the cells.
Markus Juonala, MD, PhD, of
the University of Turku in Finland, and the lead author of the
study, said, Our results showed
an association between low
[25(OH)D] levels in childhood
and increased occurrence of subclinical atherosclerosis in adulthood. The association was independent of conventional cardiovascular risk factors, including serum
lipids, blood pressure, smoking,
diet, physical activity, obesity in-
Smoking likely
kills even more
Americans
than we think:
Study
A new study published Thursday
in the New England Journal of
Medicine suggests that more Americans die as a result of smoking than
previously thought.
The U.S. surgeon general says
that 480,000 Americans die from
one of the 21 causes of death officially linked to smoking each year,
but the study says the actual number could be at least 575,000. Researchers looked at data from five
big health studies, and found that
out of the smokers who died between 2000 and 2011, most were
more likely than nonsmokers to
have died from an established
smoking-related disease, the Los
Angeles Times reports that includes stroke, several types of cancer, most kinds of heart disease,
and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Those diseases were
primarily what people who
smoked to the end of their life died
from, but 17 percent of deaths
among female smokers and 15 percent of deaths among male smokers had different causes, and in almost each case, the diseases in this
second group were more likely to
kill current smokers than nonsmokers, researchers said. For example,
the risk of death from an infection
was more than twice as high for
smokers than nonsmokers, and the
more cigarettes a person smoked
daily, the greater the risk of dying
from an infection, which makes
sense as cigarette smoke is known
to suppress immune function. The
researchers say that the surgeon
general's tally should be revised,
as "our results suggest that the
number of persons in the United
States who die each year as a result of smoking cigarettes may be
substantially greater than currently estimated."
dices and socioeconomic status.
In their study, the researchers
analyzed 2,148 patients from the
Cardiovascular Risk in Young
Finns Study who were aged 3 to
18 years at baseline in 1980. The
researchers reexamined the patients in 2007 when they were aged
30 and 45 years. They also measured childhood levels of 25(OH)D
from stored serum, in 2010.
The researchers also measured
the carotid IMT, a marker of structural atherosclerosis, using ultrasound technology on the posterior wall of the left carotid artery.
They found that the patients
with the lowest levels of 25-OH
vitamin D during their childhood
had dramatically higher instances
of carotid thickness, making them
likelier to have higher risks of atherosclerosis.
The researchers have stated
that children should receive ample
levels of vitamin D as part of a
healthy diet. They also added that
that further studies need to be carried out to determine whether or
not low levels of vitamin D caused
thickening in the carotid arteries
of the subjects. The findings were
published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
New drug proposal could be revolutionary
for Alzheimer s research, treatment
A new proposed drug to combat
Alzheimer's disease, one of the
leading causes of death in America, is ready for trials to gauge its
effectiveness, U.S. researchers say.
Scientists at Boston University Alzheimer's Disease Center and
Boston Medical Center say several trials will be conducted in order
to observe the effects of a newly
developed drug known as T817MA.
T-817MA aims to actively alter the course of the disease to help
people already suffering with dementia, making it different from
current medications which are used
to slow the early symptoms that
come with the onset of Alzheimer's, the researchers point out.
If the trials lead to approval of
T-817MA by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration, it will be the
first Alzheimer's drug approved
since 2003.
"The changes in the brain in
Alzheimer's disease start maybe 20
years before the first symptoms
and then get worse and worse as
the disease gets further along,"
notes Dr. Robert Stern of the
Alzheimer's Disease Center.
If the drug displays positive
results in trials then it can offer
hope of slowing down that progression, helping a person with
Alzheimer's maintain a much-improved quality of life without deterioration, he says.
T-817 has successfully passed
a first phase of testing, demonstrating it is safe for trial testing on larger groups of patients, and will begin Phase 2 trials this years, the
researchers say.
"In my mind, right now, in all
the studies that are going on, this
is one of the most, if not the most
promising approach to try to slow
down the disease in someone who
is already at the point of having
moderate stages of dementia,"
Stern says.
Presently there are only five
FDA-approved drugs for treating
Alzheimer's, which affects nearly
5 million Americans presently and
is predicted to strike as many as
15 million in the next 5 years as
America's aging population grows.
Alzheimer's, a neurodegenerative disease accounting for more
than 60 percent of all dementia, is
the sixth leading cause of death in
the United States.
One problem the trials for T817MA may come up against is
finding enough Alzheimer's patients to participate, Stern says,
since the disease if often unnotice-
able in its earliest stages of minor
memory loss issues, and therefore
difficult to diagnose.
"It is in general a tremendous
problem nationwide to recruit an
adequate number of people to participate in Alzheimer's studies," he
says.
Still, he says, trials of new
drugs such as T-817MA are im-
portant, since they show promise
of "truly modifying the disease
course, and clinically you're preventing it."
US is about to drop its decades-old warning against cholesterol
Every five years, the United States
government updates a set of Dietary Guidelines intended to help
its citizens make healthier food
choices. These guidelines also help
inform how companies package
and market their products.
The 2015 edition, as noted by The
Washington Post, will mark perhaps the biggest change since the
original 1977 advice by dropping
the warning about cholesterol consumption. One of the six core goals
since the 1970s has been to limit
the intake of cholesterol to less
than 300mg per day, however the
present Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) does not
believe that cholesterol consumption is something we need to be
worried about.
Foods high in cholesterol
such as eggs, offal, and seafood
have long been considered contributors to the risk of heart disease,
however research seeking to establish any causative link between
them and undesirable health outcomes has been equivocal. In the
absence of a proper scientific consensus and given that the human
body produces a lot more cholesterol than it takes in via the diet,
the DGAC has decided that "cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption." That's not to say that cholesterol is completely innocuous,
and having it clog up your arteries
is still a threat to heart health, but
the amount of it that you consume
is no longer thought to be important enough to restrict.
NOBODY'S REALLY SURE
ABOUT WHAT THE HEALTHIEST DIET IS; OR IF SUCH A
THING EXISTS
The DGAC is more concerned
about the chronic under-consumption of good nutrients, noting that
Vitamin D, Vitamin E, potassium,
calcium, and fiber are under-consumed across the entire US population. Placing a greater emphasis
on pushing people toward healthy
choices like nutrient-dense vegetables and away from the villain-
ous duo of sugar and sodium
(which are universally over-consumed) is set to be the big focus
for the 2015 Dietary Guidelines.
The change in thinking about
cholesterol consumption is just
part of an evolving body of opinion about the healthiest diet choices. Just this week, a new study of
the data available in 1977 conclud-
ed that the original Dietary Guidelines were based on inadequate
evidence and should never have
been issued.
The report, authored by an
international team of academics led
by Zoe Harcombe, was critical of
the advice against the consumption of fat, which could, with time,
be another area where the DGAC
seeks to modify its recommendations.
For now, the big change is the
removal of the cholesterol warning, which the US departments of
Agriculture and Health and Human Services are expected to endorse in the final publication of
the 2015 Dietary Guidelines later
this year.
For most strokes, clot-retrieval
device boosts effectiveness of
drug treatment
In most patients suffering a potentially devastating ischemic
stroke, the added use of a medical
device designed to retrieve the
blockage and restore flow of blood
to the brain reduces rates of death
and disability, four new studies
have demonstrated.
The latest research confirms
that, compared with patients who
get clot-dissolving medicine alone,
those that also get a treatment
known as intra-arterial intervention are more likely to go home,
and in better shape.
Intra-arterial stroke treatment
uses either a suction or stenting
device to capture and withdraw
blood clots lodged in the vessels
leading to the brain. The devices
are already in use at some comprehensive stroke centers across the
United States, and three different
designs are approved here.
But many centers, citing mixed
findings on the devices' benefits,
have either abandoned or have been
reluctant to offer the treatment,
which is costly and complex to
provide. Insurers, too, have been
skeptical of the procedure's value,
and many refuse to reimburse for
it.
The results of two clinical trials were published Wednesday in
the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at an international conference on stroke in Nashville. Two more studies presented
there offered further confirmation
of the clot-retrieval devices' benefits.
assess the extent of damage to the
brain and locate and evaluate the
size of the clot.
Treatment, too, must come
quickly: The use of alteplase, a
clot-dissolving medication, is already limited to otherwise healthy
patients who arrive at a hospital
within 3 to 4.5 hours. In the Australia/New Zealand study, treatment with a clot-retrieving device
had to be initiated within six hours
of the onset of stroke symptoms
and completed within eight hours.
Compared with stroke patients who got clot-dissolving medicine alone, those who got the twopronged treatment were nearly
twice as likely to regain some neurological function after three days,
had 81% better function 90 days
after their stroke, and were nearly
half as likely to die.
In one of the trials, paid for by
the Australian National Medicine
and Health Research Council,
among the 35 subjects who were
assigned to get both treatments,
100% of the subjects' brain tissue
initially affected by blockage had
blood flowing to it after 24 hours.
Among the subjects who only got
alteplase, also known as tPA, the
median level of restored blood flow
was 37%.
Both clinical trials described in
the New England Journal of Medicine were ended early when it became clear that the addition of clotretrieval devices to clot-dissolving
medication was superior in treating ischemic stroke when com-
The new studies were hailed
by some as "game changers" in
stroke care: UCLA stroke specialist Dr. Sidney Starkman said the
presentations were greeted with
standing ovations among neurologists and neurosurgeons at the conference.
At UCLA's Stroke Center,
said Starkman, "we ve seen how
well it works and have a team and
a system that s really ready" to
implement the procedures required
to provide intra-arterial stroke
treatment. "So we were enthusiastic all along and wanted to get others to do the same."
The new research is expected
to usher in more widespread use
of clot-grabbing technologies and
new practices at stroke centers
across the nation. It comes just a
year after a three widely cited studies--also published in the New England Journal of Medicine--failed
to show benefits for stroke patients who got the additional therapy.
In the two large studies published Wednesday in the journal,
researchers showed that more careful selection and speedy treatment
of patients who got intra-arterial
therapy yielded clearer evidence of
the treatment's benefits.
In both clinical trials, stroke
patients eligible for recruitment
needed to arrive to the study site
with a portion of their brain still
undamaged by the lack of blood
flow. The study's positive results,
then, assume that hospitals offering intra-arterial stroke treatment
are equipped and staffed to conduct extensive radiological scans to
pared with clot-dissolving medication alone.
"These are overwhelmingly,
unequivocally positive numbers,"
said Dr. Jay Mocco, director of the
Cerebrovascular Center at Mt. Sinai Health System in New York
City. The studies suggest that for
every 2.5 to 4 patients, on average, treated with intra-arterial therapy, one could be expected to have
an outcome better than they would
have had with alteplase alone.
"This is radically better than
anything we ve had," said Mocco.
The studies' ethnically diverse
subject population also means the
findings are likely to be widely
applicable. At the same time,
Mocco cautioned that few hospitals, or even specialized stroke centers in the United States, were
ready to offer intra-arterial stroke
treatment. "There are a great many
centers that will report they have
the capability to provide these services," said Mocco. "But there are
truthfully relatively few that have
put in the effort and expertise to
create the comprehensive teambased work flow needed to rapidly evaluate and treat these patients
safely and efficiently," he added.
In the United States, three clotretrieval devices are approved for
marketing. They are the Solitaire
Flow Restoration stent retriever
made by Medtronic; the Trevo
stent device, made by Stryker; and
the Penumbra thromboaspiration
device, made by Penumbra Inc. of
Alameda, which suctions up a
blood clot rather than capturing it
in a mesh pouch, as the stent devices do.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is
real and is now called systemic
exertion intolerance disease
Top medical advisory body publishes comprehensive report
Sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome have long complained about
what they regard as a trivializing name for their condition. Now, they
can claim two victories: it was renamed systemic exertion intolerance
disease (SEID), and was proclaimed to be a real disease by a panel from
the Institute of Medicine, an influential government advisory body.
The 15-member panel, which released a 235-page report Tuesday
also offered new and simplified diagnostic criteria: profound fatigue;
total exhaustion after even minor physical or mental exertion; unrefreshing sleep; and brain fog.
The disease, afflicting anywhere from 860,000 to 2.5 million Americans, can leave sufferers incapacitated, incapable of attending school or
going to work. The majority are undiagnosed because there is no test
and sufferers battle a prevailing stigma that their ailment is primarily
psychological.
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
A prototype for a versatile minispaceplane has successfully completed its first test flight, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
The IXV resembles a smaller,
robotically controlled version of
the US space shuttle, and could
provide Europe with a re-useable
orbital transportation system of
its own
The test data could also inform
future Mars landing technologies.
The demonstrator flew east
around the globe, before coming
down in the water west of the
Galapagos Islands at about 15:20
GMT.
The wedge-shaped IXV (Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle)
was designed to gather information
on how space objects fall back to
Earth.
Commenting on the flight, Esa
director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain said: "It couldn't have gone
better.
"But the mission itself is not
over because now it is necessary
to analyse all the data gathered
during the flight."
At the time the craft re-entered
the atmosphere, it was moving at
7.5km/s. As it pushed against the
air, the temperatures on its leading
surfaces would have soared to
1,700C.
Flaps and thrusters controlled
the trajectory, ensuring the IXV
came down close to a recovery
ship.
IXV
The IXV is an Italian-led
project within Esa. The vehicle is
5m long and and weighs almost
two tonnes
Spashdown
Floatation balloons came out
to stop the IXV from sinking
A parachute system deployed
in the very late stages of the flight
and put the two-tonne vehicle gently in the ocean. Floatation balloons came out to stop it from sink-
How Darwin s
Finches
developed Beak
diversity
Charles Darwin's famous finches
from the Gal pagos archipelago and
Cocos island are hallmark examples of speciation and adaptive
evolution. Now, new research
shows how over the years these
birds developed the extraordinary
diversity in beak shape that we see
today.
It's common knowledge that
alcohol can impair your speech,
and apparently the same can be
said of birds. Recent research has
shown that even drunk zebra finches slur their songs.
Drunk Finches Slur their Songs
Scientists from Louisiana State
University (LSU) are reworking
famous English scientist Charles
Darwin's species diversity theory, changing the way we think
about evolution and speciation in
the animal kingdom, new research
describes.
Their common ancestor arrived on the Galapagos about two
million years ago, and since then
the finches have evolved into 15
separate species, each with differing beak shape, among other
things. Naturalists believe these
birds developed specific adaptations to live in one region or another. For example, on islands
where insects are common in trees,
the finches learned to live in trees
and eat bugs, whereas those on islands where seeds are readily found
on the ground adapted to that feeding method. And researchers say
that their breaks also evolved accordingly, all driven by Darwinian
selection.
ing.
Europe's expertise on re-entry
technologies is more limited than,
say, the US's or Russia's - something it wants to change with the
help of the IXV.
Esa's project manager Giorgio
Tumino told BBC News: "Europe
is excellent at going to orbit; we
have all the launchers, for example. We also have great knowhow
in operating complex systems in
orbit. But where we are a bit behind is in the knowledge of how to
come back from orbit.
"So, if we are to close the circle - go to orbit, stay in orbit, come
back from orbit - we need to master this third leg as well as other
spacefaring nations."
Esa has already approved a
follow-on spacecraft, called Pride,
which looks very similar in design
to the X-37B, a robotic craft operated by the American military.
No-one is quite sure what missions are flown by the X-37B, but
they are likely to include the early
testing of new technologies for future satellites.
This could be a role also for
Europe's Pride vehicle. In-orbit
servicing of satellites is a capabili-
ty often discussed in this context
as well.
Esa nations will meet shortly
to define these roles.
"We need still to agree with all
the member states all the different
types of operations in orbit. But
whatever the payload, it will always be in the perimeter space of
civilian applications," stresses Mr
Tumino.
Smartphone thefts plummet after kill-switch introduction
The number of thefts and robberies of smartphones, particularly
iPhones, is on the fall in New York,
London and San Francisco, according to data to be released Wednesday.
Law enforcement officials,
who have been at the forefront of
demands to include a kill switch
in all smartphones, hailed the news
as proof that the technology is
working as a deterrent.
In San Francisco, overall robberies and thefts dropped 22 percent from 2013 to 2014, but those
involving smartphones were down
27 percent. Thefts and robberies
of iPhones fell 40 percent. In New
York, smartphone theft dropped
16 percent overall with iPhone figures down 25 percent. And London saw smartphone thefts from
persons drop 40 percent in a year.
The huge drops in smartphone theft that have occurred
since the kill switch has been on
the market are evidence that our
strategy is making people safer in
our cities, and across the world,
said New York State Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman in a
statement.
The kill switch is a software
lock that can be remotely activated when a phone is lost or stolen.
It can wipe personal data from a
phone and brick it so it can t be
reused or reprogrammed.
Law enforcement officials
campaigned to make the technology standard in reaction to a growing numbers of thefts of robberies
of smartphones on city streets
across the U.S. and beyond. The
assumption was that phones
would be much less desirable targets if they could quickly be made
useless.
Apple added a kill switch,
called Activation Lock, to its iPhone in September 2013. Samsung
followed in April 2014 with its
Galaxy S5 and Google made it a
standard feature of Android with
the release of Lollipop.
Soon most smartphones sold
will include a kill switch thanks to
a new California law that mandates
them in smartphones manufactured
after July 1 this year and sold in
the state. While the law only covers California, it s leading to their
introduction in phones sold worldwide.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, who together
with Schneiderman led the law enforcement effort on the kill switch,
welcomed the news and said he
expects to see further reductions
in smartphone robberies as the kill
switch makes its way into more
phones. The cellular industry at
first resisted the efforts but later
reversed its opposition. Major U.S.
carriers are also being more proactive about sharing data on stolen
phones so they cannot be activated on networks in the U.S. and
abroad even if they don t contain
a kill switch.
Acura reinvents ILX 2016 with significant luxury to compete Audi A3
Acura has put together a reinvention of the ILX, which has been
billed as a sedan that introduces a
lot of luxuries, and feels significantly upgraded from previous
models. Acura s ILX was built to
compete with Audi s A3, the Mazda3, and even Volkswagen s Jetta.
All of these vehicles have seen significant and continued improvements as the years have gone on.
Most-recently though, the ILX
was reinvented for 2016 to finally
bring some of the standard luxury items that were beginning to be
left out. While the Acura ILX of
2016 is certainly not a new model or car entirely, it has some significantly overhauled features that
definitely change the vibe and feel
of the car which was previously
weak in comparison to modified
and more up-to-date vehicles.
Acura has given two engine
options in the 2016 ILX. First,
there is the entry-level 2.0-liter
four-cylinder engine that will be
paired with a five-speed automatic transmission. Certainly not bad
by any means, and pretty much in
line with the competition in terms
of production and efficiency. That
said, there is also a 2.4-liter option
that boasts a six-speed automatic
transmission, which also offers a
good combination of power and
stability for a compact sedan.
Averaged out the ILX gets around
29 mpg that breaks down to 25
mpg in the city and then 36 mpg
on the highway. Either way, the
vehicle is by no means inefficient,
so this isn t a vehicle to be taken
lightly in the efficiency categories.
Acura added some cosmetic
changes in to make the car and the
ride more comfortable. Slightly
thicker glass makes the ride a little
less noisy, and Acura even improved the wheel design to help
improve how noise is generated in
the first place.
The other important thing to
remember is that Acura has done a
lot to improve the feel of the vehi-
cle on sport models, and models
inclusive of a manual transmission.
While many, believe that the car
handles best when left to its own
devices, if someone is looking for
a true driving experience, this car
will not disappoint and is a seri-
ous upgrade from its predecessor.
In fact, drivers will find that this
new version of the ILX is a positive change from previously engineered models of the vehicle that
seemed boring, to describe them in
the best light possible.
Study says Dinosaurs
were High on Fungus
Archeologists go on to find more
and more about the dinosaur structures. They are studying their
bones and other ancient and prehistoric fossils. But all along the
way while may new dinosaur species were identified over the past
few years, one thing that the researchers have recently found suggests more about the lifestyle these
animals had when they lived on
the planet.
Researchers found an amber
fossil in Myanmar and it is recently preserved. The fossil is believed
to be the earliest grass specimen
ever uncovered. The fossil dates
back to around one hundred million years old. But researchers say
that this is not just the age of the
grass specimen that only matters
and remarkable. But researchers
say that they have also identified
that the grass was covered by a
fungus that was actually similar to
ergot -a plant that is linked to
animals as well as humans for eons.
Ergot, the plant, has been used
as medicine to cure various illnesses, a hallucinogen and a toxin.
Lead study author George Poinar Jr, of Oregon State University,
comments, It seems like ergot has
been involved with animals and
humans almost forever, and now
we know that this fungus literally
dates back to the earliest evolution of grasses.
Poinar goes on to say, This is
an important discovery that helps
us understand the timeline of grass
development, which now forms
the basis of the human food supply in such crops as corn, rice or
wheat. He continues, But it also
shows that this parasitic fungus
may have been around almost as
long as the grasses themselves, as
both a toxin and natural hallucinogen. He also says, There s no
doubt in my mind that it would
have been eaten by sauropod dinosaurs, although we can t know
what exact effect it had on them.
Man-made climate change
may need man-made remedies,
science panel says
Alarmed by the rapid pace of climate change, a key federal science
panel is urging a major research
effort into high-tech schemes that
could cool the planet if prevention
fails, potentially including giant
machines to suck greenhouse gases from the air, aerosol sprays shot
into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, and fertilizers for the ocean to boost growth
of carbon-hungry plants.
Technologies to dial down the
planet s thermostat have long been
considered a sideshow in the debate over global warming, largely
dismissed by scientists as unworkable and potentially dangerous. But a comprehensive study
released Tuesday by the National
Research Council, the government s main scientific advisory
body, concluded that such interventions may be needed to avert a
climate catastrophe and that the
government should act now to figure out which might be most feasible.
Lawmakers take step toward
fulfilling state climate change goals
Lawmakers take step toward
fulfilling state climate change goals
Let's hope it never happens,
ing changes in weather patterns.
The panel s conclusion that even
those techniques might be needed
at some point reflects how dangerous the climate situation has
become, McNutt said.
Environmentalists greeted the
panel s report cautiously.
Countries that do not want to
take action on climate change can
say if the U.S. is doing this, it means
it is not serious about reducing
greenhouse gases.
- Simon Nicholson, co-director of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment at American
University
The billions of tons of climate
pollution that we put into our atmosphere every year are causing
serious changes to the climate,
said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense
Fund. The way to address the
problem is [to] cut the pollution.
But given the urgency of this challenge, some are also exploring
geoengineering. We come to this
issue very concerned about the
danger of unintended consequences, but agree that further discussion makes sense.
The research council s work
but if we ever have our back
against the wall, we will know
ahead of time what we need to do,
said Marcia McNutt, the former
head of the U.S. Geological Survey, who chaired the committee.
These are not solutions that
we want to turn to, added McNutt, who is currently editor in
chief of Science magazine.
The panel s report is certain
to be controversial. Environmental activists have long considered
so-called geoengineering schemes
to be distractions that threaten to
take the public s focus off the need
to rapidly reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that
contribute to warming. The report
emphasized that those emissionreduction efforts must remain the
priority.
But the federal government
needs to have every possible tool
available to keep climate change
under control, the panel advised.
It warned that even if the U.S. were
to shun the new technologies, other countries might try to deploy
them, whether they had been fully
vetted or not.
The lack of progress for more
than two decades on reducing
greenhouse gas emissions makes it
increasingly likely that as a society we will need to deploy some
technologies to reduce Earth s temperature, the report said.
The technologies that scientists think could work on a global
scale are particularly risky and
potentially could set off devastat-
was divided into two lengthy reports. One assessed technology to
remove carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere; the other looked at
techniques to reflect more solar
radiation back into space.
The direct removal of carbon
dioxide is a less dangerous approach, but has high costs, would
take decades or even centuries to
make a difference and is not yet
ready to be deployed. Accomplishing the goal would involve giant
machines that filter carbon dioxide
out of the air, but counteracting
today s emissions would require
30,000 such devices, according to
a separate estimate by Riley Duren, chief systems engineer of the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory s Earth
science branch. Liberals hate the
thought of geoengineering because
it takes away their main argument
for imposing carbon taxes on oil
companies, transportation companies, and homeowners. If mankind
can survive the thousands of volcanic eruptions that have occurred
around the world since the stone
age then... Absent a huge technological advance, getting rid of fossil fuels altogether would be
cheaper than that type of geoengineering, the panel concluded. Another approach would involve fertilizing the oceans with iron to increase marine vegetation that
would absorb carbon dioxide. New
forests could also be planted, but
they would require vast areas of
land, much of which is now dedicated to agriculture.
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
A round up of social events from the week
GAUAHAR GETS 'SELECTIVE'
Model-actress Gauahar Khan, who hogged limelight with her dance performance in the song "Jhalla walla"
from "Ishaqzaade", now wants to do selective work. Besides, she is open to doing more dance numbers.
"Right now I am doing selective work. I don't want to do just a song. People love me for my dance and I
hope that something great comes up," Gauahar said here Tuesday at an event.
"If I will get a really interesting dance number, I will definitely want to do it," added the successful model,
who had first showcased her dancing prowess in reality show "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa".
Meanwhile, the former "Bigg Boss" winner is also set to make her acting debut with Rajeev Jhaveri's film
"Fever".
Fifty Shades of Grey is a great
Camps,
spanking bored says JAN MOIR
groups not for Fans
- Fox News
were promised lashings
of passion and piping
They tear through this tale of
me: Mallika literally
hot sex from this adaptation of the raw passion like a couple of dripmulti-million-selling erotic novel py teens, with neither party exby E.L. James, who attended the hibiting the kind of dark sensualiSherawat
world premiere in Berlin last night ty needed to make this rom-com
Aamir Khan
finds AIB
Roast
disturbing
Actor Aamir Khan has joined the
growing list of people, who have
shared their discontent at the AIB
Knockout Roast featuring Bollywood celebrities Arjun Kapoor,
Ranveer Singh and Karan Johar,
reported Indian Express.
The actor said he did not find
the show funny and thought it was
graphic due to its verbal violence.
If you want to impress me, try
making me laugh without insulting
anyone. I will enjoy it then, he
said at a public event. Khan criticised Karan and Arjun for forgetting their responsibility as celebri-
50 Cent trashes Grammys, disagrees with
Kanye west's comment on Beck s win
50 Cent weighs in on Kanye West's
antics at the 2015 Grammy
Awards on Sunday night, February 8. The G-Unit rapper shared
his thought on his former rival's
rant against Album of the Year winner Beck as he discussed his underwear line FRIGO in a new interview with PEOPLE.
Before talking about West's
controversial action, Fif first
trashed the Grammys. "I'm not
sure that people care about those
establishments anymore," he said.
"My reason for being excited about
an award show is my peers being
there to acknowledge the award.
And if it means that we get to
choose ourselves who deserves
what awards, then why would I
show up for them to tell me?"
He then mentioned his Best
New Artist loss to Evanescence
back in 2004 as he tried to prove
the Recording Academy wasn't always right. "When's the last time
you've seen Evanescence?" he
asked, adding, "Crickets. Crickets.
But that's just the way it is."
Although he said Grammy
trophies sometime go to the wrong
artists, Fif disagreed with West's
Spider-Man
will finally join
the Avengers
on the big
screen
BOBBI KRISTINA
Brown 'will be okay'
ties at the cost of an irresponsible
and abusive entertainment session.
I am not talking about AIB,
but about Arjun, Karan and other
actors at the event. I think, as a
creative person, it is my responsibility to search for the good in people, added the PK actor. He said
he did not like jokes being cracked
on someone s colour or sexuality.
Khan said he hasn t seen the
entire show but whatever bits of it
he has seen were violent and in bad
taste. Despite the criticism, Khan
believes that the kind of backlash
the show has generated was not
justified and thought that the onslaught was uncalled-for unless the
group was guilty of breaking the
law.
I don t know if they ve broken the law. I also see that there is
a lot of lynching happening to
them. I do not believe in that either. If I do not like something you
have done, I should convey it to
you strongly and that is where it
ends. Who am I to tell you how
you should conduct yourself?
said Khan.
According to Hindustan
Times, Khan explained this saying, I have also made a film like
Delhi Belly, which got an A certificate. I myself have gone out telling people it s an adult film. There
are expletives in the film, so please
don t come if you don t like such
stuff. I do have the liberty as a
creative person, but I also have a
responsibility and I have to fulfil
both. That s all I would say.
statement about how Beyonce
Knowles should have won the Album of the Year Award over Beck.
He argues that Beck, who wrote,
recorded and produced his own
album, is way more talented than
Beyonce who has a bunch of people work with her for one LP.
"[Beck] produced the record,
he wrote the record," Fif explained.
"There's 11 producers on Beyonce's album - Kanye, being a
producer and a writer should see
that, but you get jaded."
Most actors and filmmakers in tinsel town have a set group of people they often work with, but
Mallika Sherawat says she prefers
to be "independent".
"These camps and groups are
not important for me. I want to be
an independent woman who can
take care of herself. I have never
been part of any group and I'm
happy being who I am," Mallika
said here.
The actress, who has been part
of movies like "Khwahish", "Murder" and "Hisss", will soon be seen
in K.V. Bokadia's "Dirty Politics.
She says she's not too choosy
about her work, and that when
she's not acting, she is busy with
her family.
"I like to spend time with my
family when I am not working. I
am also into fitness so I like to
that," added the bold and beautiful
Mallika.
Bobbi Kristina Brown's aunt insists she is "doing well right now."
The 21-year-old aspiring actress, who was placed on life support after being found unrespon-
sive in her bathtub on January 31,
has started showing signs that "she
will be okay," according to Leolah
Brown.
She said: "I'm very hopeful
everything will be okay with Krissi. There are so many signs showing us she will be okay in spite of
what people are saying. Krissi is
fine, as I sit here before you today."
Asked if the doctors have told
the family that she is improving,
Leolah told Fox 5 Atlanta on Tuesday (February 10): "Yes. She's still
on life support. We know that
she's opening her eyes, that's true.
She's opening her eyes and there's
a few more things that she is doing. But Krissi is doing well right
now, she is."
Police are investigating the incident because Bobbi Kristina, who
is the daughter of Bobby Brown
and the late Whitney Houston, re-
portedly sustained suspicious
marks on her face before she was
found at her home in Atlanta, Georgia, and Leolah insists she would
never hurt herself.
She said: "Krissi would never
do anything to herself. She loved
life too much. She had too much
going on. She had too much ahead
of her." Meanwhile, some of Bobbi Kristina's other relatives paid
tribute to Whitney on the third anniversary of her death today (February 11).
Her aunt Tina Brown shared
several images of the singer on Facebook, with the caption: "I miss
you MY sister...rip nip....I miss
you sis,...like crazy!!!!!!-...rip my
sister... (sic)"
Fawad Khan may
star along side Sid,
Alia in Karan
Johar's new movie
Fresh from winning the best debut
by a male actor award at the Filmfare awards, actor Fawad Khan will
be returning to the Indian silver
screen, sharing it with the likes of
Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt
in a Karan Johar film, the Mumbai
Mirror reported on Thursday.
The movie is scheduled to
start filming in April, and will be
directed by Shakun Batra of Ek
Main aur Ekk Tu fame.
There is speculation on whether there will be a clash with Fawad
doing a cameo opposite Aishwarya
Rai Bachchan in Karan s directorial, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. But that
may be sorted after Fawad was
spotted coming in and out of the
Dharma office in Mumbai.
There were some reports suggesting that Fawad may not have
been first choice for the role. The
Mirror said that Fawad was included because Varun Dhawan was
busy shooting with Rohit Shetty
and Shah Rukh Khan. However,
Bollywood Life claimed that Arjun Kapoor was also in the running for the role.
The as yet unnamed movie will
be a family-centric drama.
News about Spider-Man finally
joining his fellow mighty Marvel
superheroes on the big screen is
getting fans excited.
While both Marvel and Sony
are avoiding specific details, fans
hoping the quick-witted web-slinger will make an appearance in
Marvel s Civil War are a lot closer
to seeing that dream become a reality.
New Spider-Man Will Appear First in an Upcoming Marvel
Film Within Marvel s Cinematic
Universe, Sony announced via
social media earlier this week.
Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a
Marvel film from Marvel s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next
installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28,
2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise
launch for the studio 13 years ago.
Together, they will collaborate on
a new creative direction for the web
slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and
have final creative control of the
Spider-Man films.
The initial report is a bit confusing, as it continually refers to
Marvel s new Spider-Man,
while also mentioning Sony releasing another installment of its $4
billion Spider-Man franchise.
It doesn t seem likely that audiences would embrace two separate cinematic Peter Parkers. And
with the press release continuing
that, Marvel and Sony Pictures
are also exploring opportunities to
integrate characters from the
MCU into future Spider-Man
films, early signs point to a single
unified universe.
Whether that s a universe in
which Andrew Garfield s Spidey
is simply new to Marvel, or one
where Feig s cinematic take on
Spidey becomes the continuation
at Sony is a detail fans are still
speculating about.
But however that turns out,
we re pretty happy Peter Parker
finally gets to hang out with the
Avengers.
with the movie s director and stars.
Yes, this Fifty Shades Of Grim
might have its titillating moments,
but it just goes on and on and on
for no good reason before ending
in an abrupt and unsatisfactory
way
the very definition of bad
sex, not good.
Part of the difficulty is the lack
of sexual chemistry between the
two leads. This is a particularly
acute problem in a tale of two lovers exploring a relationship that
takes in the wilder shores of bondage, submission, dominance and
terrible dialogue.
Laters, baby! cries hero
Christian Grey, as he leaves his
lover, Anastasia Steele.
Why won t you let me in?
she complains when he fails to
open up to her emotionally.
Sitting through the turgid and
tedious S&M melodrama that is
Fifty Shades Of Grey may feel like
its own form of torture. Those
looking for hot, kinky sex will be
disappointed.
Fewer than 15 of the movie s
125 minutes feature sex scenes.
The dialogue is laughable, the pacing is sluggish and the performances are one-note. Worst of all, the
chemistry is nil between Jamie
Dornan and Dakota Johnson. Dornan spends most of his time frowning while Johnson stares vacantly
and bites her lip.
with extra dom even halfway believable.
I m not exactly jumping at the
opportunity to get whipped and
chained in your red room of pain,
Ana chirrups at one point, as if
contemplating tidying her knicker
drawer.
That was nice, she says, after taking a bit of a thrashing from
Grey. Nice? You d think he d just
given her a half-hearted peppermint foot rub.
Meanwhile, Grey s eyes are
supposed to blaze with seething
lust all the time, but he just looks
as if he s suffering from trapped
wind. Nurse, fetch the Tums!
It is true that this Hollywood
adaptation is not as bad as the
books. Even their most devoted
fans would probably admit they
were often clumsily written, teenstyle steamy fiction. British director Sam Taylor-Johnson has sliced
through the worst of the dialogue,
but overcompensated by making
the film all too tasteful and ponderous, like an empty collection
of slightly pervy but beautifully
shot perfume adverts.
Poor Dakota
the daughter
of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith is often naked, with
a high nipple count, lots of buttock shots and occasional flash of
front bottom.
Jamie gets to keep his jeans on
- USA Today
It has stripped away the fun
and settled on palatable. There
have been perfume commercials
with more depth and story arc. We
may have been curious going in,
but by the time the credits roll,
there s another question that
springs to mind: is that all there
is?
- Times Union newspaper
Fifty Shades is a lot tamer
than it could have been. Dornan, a
god on Earth with a wobbly American accent, is forced to play the
same notes over and over. Which I
don t mind watching him do, but
he begins to seem bored. The film s
plotlessness becomes a burden in
the last 20 or so minutes, when
something like a climax is needed,
but all the film can muster is yet
another argument.
- Vanity Fair
This is a turn-off
every
time a sex scene comes on, some
lady starts singing a big, whooshy
Sex Scene song. Hello, Beyonce . .
. It will work better as home entertainment, when each viewer can
race past the blah-blah about how
well Christian plays the piano and
pause on the fleeting image of the
man minus his pants.
- Entertainment Weekly
Both actors do strip . . . but
anyone hoping the movie would
really push the S&M envelope
may find Christian s tastefully
shot toy room a little . . . vanilla.
We see a whip here, a handcuff
there, but nothing that would
shock even newcomers.
- New York Daily News
The mediocre plot, bland characters and tepid tone don t do any
favours. The result is a boring,
drawn-out call to a sex dungeon
that takes an indeterminable time
to arrive.
a lot, which hardly seems fair or
feminist, although we do get to see
his impressive bottom, rippling
with muscles like a bag of walnuts.
Of Christian Grey s fabled
manhood, which features so much
in the books, there is no sight.
Grey s only hardware on show is
his monogrammed helicopter, his
glider and his collection of fancy
cars.
Still, what else could Sam Taylor-Johnson do? The film of Fifty
Shades had a difficult inception,
with a number of actors, directors,
writers and key personnel all being changed at short notice.
British screenwriter Patrick
Marber was drafted in to beef up
the script, then author E.L. James
threw out all his work and reinserted her own dialogue.
She is famously proprietorial
about Fifty Shades
and why
not? Despite the fact that the
books have little literary merit, she
knows what her readers want: sex
and lots of it.
Exploring the world of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism (BDSM) might seem daring, but to be honest, the mass
market appeal of 50 Shades is
strictly old fashioned. The books
struck a chord with women who
want that timeless fantasy
to
be swept away from their humdrum lives by a tide of passion over
which they have no control.
These are presumably the kind
of women who see Beyonce and
Madonna turning the simplest pop
song into a leather-clad psychosexual performance, and perhaps
want some of that, too.
But might it be the case that
this story is not really about sexual desire, but about the desire to be
dominated by a handsome, rich
Prince Charming?
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Manchester United back in the top-three
Defender Chris Smalling scored
twice after coming on as an early
substitute to set Manchester United on its way to a 3-1 win over
Burnley that lifted the team to
third place in the Premier League.
Sent on the fifth minute for the
injured Phil Jones, Smalling scored
seconds later with his first touch
when he headed home following a
corner.
Relegation-threatened Burnley
took the game to United, equalising through in-form striker Danny
Ings but Smalling made the visitors pay for their misses in the third
minute of injury time by heading
in Angel Di Maria's corner and
Robin van Persie added a late penalty.
Elsewhere, Sergio Aguero
scored in each half to guide
Manchester City to a 4-1 win at
Stoke as the reigning champions
rediscovered their form after a fivematch winless run in the Premier
League.
James Milner and Samir Nasri
also found the net in City's first
win at Britannia Stadium in seven
attempts - and first win in the
league since January 1.
Chelsea midfielder Willian
Nishikori survives 3-set match
to move into quarterfinals
Top-seeded Kei Nishikori was
pushed to three sets in his opening match of the Memphis Open
on Wednesday, beating American
qualifier Ryan Harrison 3-6, 6-3,
6-4 to advance to the quarterfinals.
Nishikori, the two-time defending champion from Japan who
had a bye in the first round, struggled in the opening set against Harrison, who was playing his fifth
match in five days. After steadying his play, he jumped to a 4-0
lead in the second set. In the third,
he broke Harrison early and each
held their serve through the rest of
the match.
''The third set was a tight game,
but I got the first game break, and
that helped mentally,'' Nishikori
said. ''I was a little more loose.''
Earlier Wednesday, fifth-seeded Ivo Karlovic, the runner-up in
2014, was eliminated by qualifier
Austin Krajicek 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-4.
Also, Sam Querrey defeated
wild-card entry and fellow American Jared Donaldson 6-4, 6-1 in a
match that took less than an hour.
In the final singles match of
the day, third-seeded John Isner
defeated Ivan Dodig of Croatia. 64, 7-6 (5). The hard-serving American used 22 aces combined with
only one double fault to overcome
Dodig. Isner will face close friend
Querrey in the quarterfinals. Querrey won the 2010 championship
in Memphis, defeating Isner in the
finals
Karlovic, who won his opening match with 23 aces, recorded
32 in the three sets against Krajicek, but only seven of those came
in the deciding set, when the Croatian also double faulted seven
times.
For Krajicek, it marked only
Tiger Woods
taking a break,
won't play again
until 'I'm ready'
Leave of absence. Break. It's semantics. The bottom line is Tiger
Woods said Wednesday he won't
play tournament golf until he's
ready and that he could be ready
in two weeks ... or not.
On his website, Woods explained he's fighting two battles
that will keep him from playing
tournament golf until both are won.
Woods said he is having daily
physical therapy to treat the back
injury that forced him to withdraw
from the Farmers Insurance Open
after 11 holes in Round 1. He also
said his game isn't in tournament
shape and won't play again until it
is. "Right now, I need a lot of work
on my game, and to still spend time
with the people that are important to me," Woods wrote on his
website. "My play, and scores, are
not acceptable for tournament
golf. Like I've said, I enter a tournament to compete at the highest
level, and when I think I'm ready,
I'll be back. Next week I will practice at Medalist and at home getting ready for the rest of the year.
I am committed to getting back to
the pinnacle of my game."
Woods didn't rule out his next
originally scheduled start at the
Honda Classic (Feb. 26), but he
sounded doubtful at best for the
start of the PGA Tour's Florida
Swing.
his third win on the ATP tour, and
set him up to face Nishikori in the
quarterfinals.
Nishikori said there wasn't
anything in particular that caused
the slow start against Harrison.
''He played
to a good level,'' Nishikori said.
''The first set I wasn't really ready
for the match. The second set, I
broke through Everton's resistance
with a late goal to clinch a 1-0 over
the 10-man visitors and preserve
the team's seven-point lead.
Willian's 89th-minute strike
from outside the penalty area flew
past returning goal-keeper Tim
Howard. It came shortly after
Everton midfielder Gareth Barry
was sent off for fouling Willian and
receiving a second yellow card.
started playing better and stepping
in a little more. I was more aggressive.''
The aggressiveness showed
with the fifth-ranked player in the
world coming to the net and running Harrison from side to side on
extended points.
''I was coming in a little more
because he was hitting a little slice.''
Nishikori said, ''and he has great
defense. I knew I had to sneak in a
couple of times.''
NZ edge out South Africa, Zim
stun SL in WC warm-ups
New Zealand served up a resounding win over South Africa while
Zimbabwe shocked former champions Sri Lanka in surprising results from two of Wednesday's
four cricket World Cup warm-up
matches.
Elsewhere, Pakistan beat England by four wickets in Sydney,
and Australia had an easy win over
the UAE.
Cup co-host New Zealand
continued its impressive recent
form by beating favoured South
Africa by 134 runs in
Christchurch. Brendon McCullum
made 59 and Kane Williamson 66
as New Zealand scored 331-8 in
50 overs before bowling out South
Africa for 197.
Sri Lanka's confidence took a
big hit when Zimbabwe surpassed
its total of 281-3 in only 45.2
overs, led by Hamilton Masakadza's unbeaten 117 from 119 balls
in Lincoln, New Zealand.
Michael Clarke returned from
hamstring surgery to captain Aus-
Jon Jones' younger brother wants to
fight the UFC champ for charity
The search to find the next apt
opponent for Jon Jones may be
over at least, that's the case if
someone who knows the UFC light
heavyweight champion better than
most has his way.
Jones younger brother Chandler as in, New England Patriots
Super Bowl champion Chandler
Jones told TMZ that he would
be up for giving his older brother a
whooping, like he used to before
Jon became arguably the most dangerous fighter in UFC history.
Me and my brother used to
fight all the time when we were
young, and I'm pretty sure I can
take him down now. I am way bigger than he is, said Chandler, who
outweighs his brother by roughly
40 pounds and outreaches him by
an inch. I would just throw him
to the ground.
To prove it wouldn t be a selfserving publicity stunt, the younger Jones suggested they could perhaps choose a charity to donate
the money raised by the potential
sibling superfight.
It will be fun if we actually
did a one-round match for charity;
that would be fun. If I win, he
would have to donate to the charity of my choice and vice versa. I
don't know how my coach would
feel about it. I don't think it would
fly."
It sounds like the standout
Pats defensive end is hinting that
the fight wouldn t be a lighthearted sparring session like most charity bouts end up being. Otherwise,
why would his coach have an issue with him making a charitable
appearance?
As a body language expert
pointed out last month, Jones,
who revealed in his much-maligned
Fox Sports interview that his
brothers were giving him some flak
over the news he tested positive
for cocaine, Bones was very
uncomfortable talking about their
disappointment in him over the
incident. Since then Jones, who
once told Sherdog that he was the
kid who snitched on marijuana
users growing up, admitted that he
used cocaine quite a few times
in college. Such a public admission
likely doesn t sit well with Chandler or their older brother, Indianapolis Colts defensive end Arthur
Jones, as both players are lauded
as much for their clean images as
they are for their impressive gridiron skills.
Maybe this is Chandler s way
of teaching his brother a very public life lesson with some tough love,
like Jon and Arthur used to impart
on him in the front yard of their
childhood home in Rochester, NY.
For his part, Chandler has
spent time training with his brother at the Jackson-Winklejohn gym
in Albuquerque. Maybe he knows
something we don t in terms of
how to beat Jon.
Barcelona set one foot in King's Cup final
Luis Suarez had the Barcelona fans
chanting his name after he set up
Lionel Messi to score the opening
goal in a 3-1 victory for the record
winners in their King's Cup semifinal, first leg at home to Villarreal.
Uruguay forward Suarez won
possession in the Villarreal half in
the 41st minute at the Nou Camp
before laying a perfect pass into
Messi's path for the Argentina captain to sweep a first-time shot.
Villarreal levelled three minutes
into the second period after home
keeper Marc Andre Ter Stegen let
a long range Manuel Trigueros shot
straight through his hands.
Andres Iniesta put Barca back
in front a minute later and Gerard
Pique made it 3-1 in the 64th
minute with a header from a Messi corner.
Messi would normally have
taken the spot-kick when Barca
were awarded a penalty for a Mateo Musacchio handball in the
70th minute but after he stepped
aside to allow Neymar a chance
the Brazil captain had his effort
well saved by Asenjo.
Barca's 10th consecutive win
in all competitions put them in a
strong position to advance to
May's final after the return at the
Madrigal in three weeks.
Athletic Bilbao, whose 23
Cup triumphs are only bettered by
Barca's 26, host 2006 winners Espanyol in the other semi-final, first
leg later on Wednesday.
tralia and top-score against the
UAE with 64 runs as the hosts,
winning the toss, won by 188 runs.
Australia made 304-8 before restricting the UAE to 116 in 30.1
overs. At the Sydney Cricket
Ground, Misbah-ul-Haq scored an
unbeaten 91 as Pakistan beat England.
England won the toss and totaled 250-8, with Joe Root making
85 and Gary Ballance adding 57.
But Pakistan reached 252-6 with
seven balls to spare.
Kristoff at the
double, Terpstra
retains lead in
Tour of Qatar
Dutch rider Niki Terpstra of the
Etixx team retained the leader's gold
jersey in the Tour of Qatar after
Wednesday's fourth stage was won
by Norwegian Alexander Kristoff,
the Katusha cyclist's second success.
Kristoff triumphed after a
bunched sprint finish at the end of
the 165km stage between Al Thakira and Mesaieed, finishing ahead
of Slovak Peter Sagan and German
Nikias Arndt.
In the overall standings, Terpstra now enjoys a six-second advance on Poland's Maciej Bodnar,
with Briton Ian Stannard 12sec
adrift.
With his second success in just
three days, the Norwegian, 27, asserts himself as one of the men to
follow early in the season.
"It's my best start of a season.
I didn't expect to be that good. I
feel good, I feel confident. I have
never felt so strong in Qatar before. It's a great feeling", said Kristoff.
His Wednesday sprint win
turned out be easier than Monday's, which came after a high-tempo and windy stage.
"Maybe I started a bit early
but I felt I had to go otherwise I
would have come in from behind.
In the end, Sagan was fast. I saw
him on my left and I wasn't too
sure I had won. It was a tight one",
Kristoff explained.
Thursday's fifth stage sees the
riders tackle 153km from Al
Zubarah Fort to Madinat Al Shamal.
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FRIDAY
.
.
FEBRUARY 13 2015 -Dalw 24, 1393 H.S
Vol:IX Issue No:192 Price: Afs.15
Obama seeks
Congress
authorisation
to fight ISIL
US President Barack Obama has
asked Congress formally to authorise military force against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant
(ISIL) group, arguing that the fighters could pose a threat to the US
homeland.
A proposed draft resolution
sent to Congress on Wednesday
calls for conducting operations
against ISIL with no geographic
limitations for at least three years,
with the suggestion "that Congress
revisit the issue at the beginning of
the next president's term".
While asking lawmakers to bar
long-term, large-scale ground combat operations like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama said he
wants the flexibility for ground
combat operations "in other more
limited circumstances". Those include rescue missions, intelligence
collection and the use of special
operations forces in possible military action against ISIL leaders.
"This resolution strikes the
necessary balance by giving us the
flexibility we need for unforeseen
circumstances," the US president
said, speaking at the White House.
"For example, if we had actionable
intelligence about a gathering of
ISIL leaders and our partners didn't
have the capacity to get them, I
would be prepared to order our
special forces to take action."
Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from the White House,
said that "this is not going to change
anything on the ground", citing
over 2,000 air strikes against ISIL
since the US-led coalition began its
offensive last August. "What
Obama is doing here is changing
the legal framework of the operations" within US law, he added.
Obama, elected on a promise
to end the US' wars, has asked legislators for war authorisation over
the rise of ISIL, citing the large expanses of Iraqi and Syrian land the
group has seized, and the American and allied hostages it killed after making online propaganda videos.
"It threatens American personnel and facilities located in the
region and is responsible for the
deaths of US citizens James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Abdul-Rahman
Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller,"
Obama said, listing the American
hostages who died in ISIL custody.
"If left unchecked, ISIL will
pose a threat beyond the Middle
East, including to the United States
homeland."
No geographic limitations
Confirmation of the death of
Mueller, a 26-year-old humanitarian worker, on the eve of Obama's
proposal added new urgency, while
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
were a caution to some legislators
against yet another protracted military campaign.
Obama is asking Congress to
authorise the campaign for three
years, extending to the next president the powers and the debate
over renewal for what he envisions
as a long-range battle.
He is proposing no geographic limitations where US forces
could pursue the fighters.
The authorisation covers ISIL
and "associated persons or forces," defined as those fighting on
behalf of or alongside ISIL "or any
closely related successor entity in
hostilities against the United States
or its coalition partners".
The latest proposal bans "enduring offensive combat operations", a novel term in military
force authorisations.
Its ambiguity is designed to
bridge the divide between legislators opposed to ground troops and
those who say the commander-inchief should maintain the option.
Obama said his draft would not
authorise long-term, large-scale
ground combat operations like
those deployed in the past to Iraq
and Afghanistan, arguing that
those battles should be left to local forces instead of the US military.
Iraq says it has not asked for US ground forces
Baghdad has not requested foreign
ground forces to battle ISIS militants, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari said Thursday after
Barack Obama called for military
operations that stop short of a fullscale invasion.
The U.S. president said
Wednesday he would not flinch
from sending U.S. special forces
to kill ISIS leaders, as he urged
Congress for authority to take the
fight to the extremists beyond their
current footholds in Syria and Iraq
if necessary.
In Sydney, the Iraqi minister
said ground forces were not part
of his government's plan.
We have never asked for a
ground forces contribution, he
said through an interpreter after
meetings with Australian Foreign
Minister Julie Bishop.
We have established a set of
guidelines, for the international
coalition, al-Jafaari told a press
conference.
This was to provide air support for Iraqi forces, training and
intelligence, he stressed.
The message that Iraq has
submitted to the (United Nations)
security council never included a
request for ground forces to enter
Iraqi territory to conduct such
operations.
However he added: We are at
the beginning of a major war and
the situation could be changing.
The minister noted that Iraqi
armed forces were advancing
against ISIS and had no shortage
Russian President Vladimir Putin
says he and leaders from Ukraine,
Germany and France have agreed
on a plan to end the fighting in
Ukraine.
At a news conference in Minsk on Thursday Putin said that a
ceasefire would start on February
15.
Putin said the leaders also
reached an agreement on a division
line for a heavy weapons' pullback
in eastern Ukraine.
7 die as
Al-Qaeda seizes
south Yemen
army camp
of troops.
There is no doubt that the
Iraqi armed forces need aerial support, in addition to intelligence information," he said. "No country
has regular armies or ground troops
present in Iraq except for providing training and counseling.
Since August 2014, the U.S.
Chinese FM reaches in
Islamabad on two-day visit
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and China on Thursday reiterated their
resolve to give new boost to their
existing ties and further deepen
their cooperation in various sectors for the benefit of both countries.
The announcement was made
by visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yiand Adviser to Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif on National
Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz while addressing a joint
news conference after holding a
meeting at the foreign ministry.
Sartaj Aziz said that during the
meeting, the Chinese foreign minister was apprised about the developments in the region and Pakistan s stance on various issues.
The adviser to PM on foreign
affairs stressed on the importance
of China contribution for the development of Pakistan especially
in the form of Pak-China Economic Corridor.
Aziz said he also apprised the
nomic and security cooperation
between the two countries is of
vital importance.
Yi announced that both the
sides had decided to enhance people to people and cultural contacts.
He said China will ensure completion of development projects in
infrastructure, energy, water and
power sectors for rapid development of Pakistan.
Chinese Foreign Minister
Wang Yi had earlier arrived for a
two-day visit to hold bilateral
talks, promote economic and trade
cooperation and discuss the regional situation with the Pakistani
leadership.
Sources had said that during
the meeting between Yi and Aziz,
the Chinese foreign minister was
apprised about Pakistan s stance
on the recent regional developments including US President
Obama s visit to India last month.
The sources added that the
Chinese foreign minister was also
Chinese side about the steps being
taken to bring peace and stability
in Afghanistan and said both Pakistan and China are agreed to work
together for this purpose.
Yi assured the Pakistani side
that China will extend full cooperation for the early completion of
the project as the economic corridor is vital for both countries.
Adressing the joint press conference, he said the corridor is targeted for whole Pakistan which will
be beneficial for the people of all
parts of Pakistan.
The Chinese foreign minister
added that the economic corridor
is a flagship project which will help
bring an economic revolution not
only in Pakistan but the whole region.
He said that Chinese President
Xi will visit Pakistan during the
current year and added that eco-
briefed about Pakistan s stance on
various international issues including reforms in the United Nations
Security Council.
During the visit, Yi, who is leading an eight-member delegation,
will also hold talks with President
Mamnoon Hussain and Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif.
He is also expected to hold
meeting with high-ranking military
officials. Both Beijing and Islamabad are to finalise the dates of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit
to Pakistan, which is expected to
take place next month.
A statement issued by the Foreign Office earlier had said that all
aspects of the bilateral relationship
between China and Pakistan, with
a special focus on political, strategic and economic cooperation,
would be reviewed and consolidated during the talks.
military -- along with allies including Australia -- has been conducting a campaign of air strikes against
the jihadist in Iraq and Syria.
With the group losing territory and large numbers of fighters,
Obama has now promised to back
up the strikes with targeted covert
ground-based attacks if necessary.
in Iran s peaceful nuclear programme made the United States
come to the negotiation table, Rouhani said. Iran is seeking a winwin outcome in the nuclear talks
with world powers. Tayyebeh Ahmadi, a woman who attended the
rally, said the nuclear talks likely
inspired Iranians to take part in commemorations. This year, we have
turned out bigger than before because of the ongoing nuclear talks
to make America understand that it
cannot achieve its goals in these
talks, Ahmadi said. In recent years,
Iran has used the anniversary of the
Islamic Revolution to demonstrate
against the West over its sanctions
for the country s disputed nuclear
programme.
Bishop said Australia's role in
Iraq was restricted to aerial support, training, advice and intelligence.
We have not sought to expand our role to include combat
troops, she said.
Australia was part of the coalition the invaded and occupied Iraq
to oust Saddam Hussein from
2003.
Obama s move signals a ramping up of pressure on ISIS as Baghdad prepares for a major ground
offensive, expected within months.
It would also provide a firmer legal basis to prosecute a monthsold military campaign.
Bangladesh s Zia open to consensus deal to end crisis
DHAKA: She has been stuck in
her office for 40 days and slapped
with a series of charges over the
deadly violence outside, but Bangladesh's opposition leader Khaleda Zia says she and her arch enemy Sheikh Hasina can still reach a
deal to end the turmoil.
In an exclusive interview with
AFP, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Zia accused Prime
Minister Hasina of killing democracy and the ruling Awami League
of being behind the violence that
has killed scores since the turn of
the year.
But she also stressed her desire to reach a consensus to pull
the country back from the brink,
even if it meant talking to her nemesis.
Zia, who has twice served as
prime minister, has not set foot
outside her offices in downtown
Dhaka ever since the security forces barricaded her compound on
January 3 to prevent the 69-yearold from spearheading a mass prodemocracy protest.
Since then Bangladesh has witnessed an upsurge of violence that
has revived memories of the
bloody build-up to Hasina's controversial walkover re-election on
January 5 last year in which more
than 100 people died. In her first
interview with the foreign media
since her confinement, Zia said she
feared the bloodshed would get
worse unless the two women could
agree on a way to contest new elections under a neutral caretaker government.
Every conscious and conscientious person in Bangladesh
knows that the only way to resolve the current political crisis is
to hold an inclusive, competitive
and meaningful election, Zia told
AFP by phone Wednesday. The
more quickly it can be arranged,
the better it is for everyone. If it is
delayed, the crisis could become
even more complex.
Zia's BNP and 19 other opposition parties boycotted last year's
election, arguing that it could not
be fair if its organisation was overseen by Hasina.
In her interview, she reiterated
long-standing demands for Hasina
to step aside and allow elections
to take place under a neutral government but significantly she acknowledged that there was room
for argument and compromise.
We've not said others have to
agree what we've proposed. It
should be based on the consensus
of all parties and through talks,
Iran marks anniversary of Islamic Revolution amid N-talks
TEHRAN: Iran marked the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution on Wednesday with massive
rallies, with many chanting against
the US and Israel as the country
tries to reach a permanent deal
with world powers over its contested nuclear programme. State
television aired footage of commemorations in Tehran and elsewhere across the country. Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani, addressing a crowd of thousands in
Tehran, pledged to spare no effort to protect the Islamic Republic s rights as it negotiates. The
sanctions have not forced Iran to
enter the talks but the impracticality of the all-out pressures on Iran
and the significant advancements
Putin says
leaders agree
on Ukraine
ceasefire
she said. We have said a fair election should be held based on consensus of all (parties) and through
talks. We want that. We also have
to make some decisions on the election commission, administration
and electoral rules so that a level
playing field is created for all the
parties.
Zia said that proposals that
have been put forward to Hasina's
camp but so far we've not heard
anything from them .
More than 80 people have
been killed in political violence
since January 3.
Many of the victims have died
in firebombings of buses and trucks
since Zia ordered her supporters
to stage a transport blockade that
is in its sixth week.
Hasina has said she will not
deal with terrorists or murderers , comparing the arson deaths
to the recent killing of a Jordanian
pilot by the Islamic State organisation. Zia herself was charged last
week with instigating one of the
deadly firebombings in which eight
people were killed, in addition to
earlier corruption charges.
But Zia said the arson attacks
appeared to be the work of Hasina's Awami League and that they
are putting the blame on us .
The tit-for-tat accusation was
an illustration of the deep-rooted
distrust between the two sides that
makes the prospects of an agreement so tricky.
However there are signs of
growing international pressure on
both sides to put their heads together.
Al-Qaeda militants overran an
army camp in southern Yemen
Thursday following clashes that
killed at least seven people, a local
government official said.
The militants seized the camp
of the 19th Infantry Brigade in
Baihan, a town in southern Shabwa province, the official said, adding that three soldiers were among
those killed.
Ansar al-Sharia, the main arm
of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, claimed the
attack in a statement on Twitter,
accusing troops at the camp of
links to the Shiite Houthi militia
controlling the capital.
It published pictures of its
militants raising the black and
white flag of Al-Qaeda at the camp
entrance, as well as pictures of
soldiers it claimed to have captured.
Tribal sources said the militants seized dozens of soldiers
and took their weapons, but freed
them following tribal mediation.
The tribes are demanding AlQaeda hands over the arms.
The attack came a day after
the United States, Britain and
France announced the closure of
their embassies in Sanaa, citing security fears after the Houthis took
power in the capital.
Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is seen
by the United States as the deadliest branch of the global extremist
network. AQAP claimed responsibility for last month s attack on
French satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo that left 12 people dead.
Yemen, a deeply tribal country, has been shaken by growing
unrest since the Houthis seized
control of Sanaa in September before pushing farther south.
They have met deadly resistance from Al-Qaeda as well as
Sunni tribes.The Houthis dissolved parliament and declared a
presidential council last week
after Western-backed president
Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi tendered his resignation saying he
could no longer govern.
Yemeni authorities have for
years allowed the United States to
carry out drone strikes against
AQAP on their soil, and Hadi had
been a key U.S. ally in fighting AlQaeda.
US authorities investigate motive
IN STUDENTS KILLINGS
Authorities in the US state of
North Carolina are trying to determine whether hate played a role in
the shooting deaths of three Muslim students.
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, was
charged with three counts of firstdegree murder on Wednesday in
the fatal shootings of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his 21-year-old
wife, Yusor Mohammad, and her
sister, 19-year-old Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.
Authorities said the preliminary investigation of the shooting
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
showed that a long-simmering
parking dispute was the motive,
but family members insist it was a
"hate crime".
"This was not a dispute over a
parking space, this was a hate
crime," Mohammad Abu-Salha,
the father of the two slain women,
told the News & Observer newspaper . "This man had picked on
my daughter and her husband a
couple of times before, and he
talked with them with his gun in
his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not
know he would go this far."
The campus at the University
of North Carolina Chapel Hill has
never witnessed scenes like it as
thousands of students gathered for
a silent candle lit vigil.
Church bells peeled across the
grounds as students stood in silence, some weeping, as a big
screen displayed pictures of Deah
Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor and
her teenage sister Razan.
The images were of happier
times: Deah and Yusor's recent
wedding and the kind of selfies that
young people across the world
take. It was a sombre scene but a
show of unity that this small university town will not easily forget.
Students of all faiths joined
hands and comforted each other
over a loss deeply felt across this
entire community. The three students were all leading lights in their
chosen fields and generous with
their time in helping others.
Suzanne Barakat, sister of
Barakat, appealed to authorities on
behalf of her family, saying "we
ask that the authorities investigate
these senseless and heinous murders as a hate crime".
Gerod King of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives said that agents were
in touch with the US attorney's
office in North Carolina that encompasses Chapel Hill and that
investigators had not ruled out a
hate crime.
"We understand the concerns
about the possibility that this was
hate-motivated, and we will exhaust every lead to determine if
that is the case," Chapel Hill police Chief Chris Blue said in an
email to reporters.
The cautious wording of the
police statement contrasted sharply with the anguished reaction
among some American Muslims
who viewed the homicides as an
outgrowth of anti-Muslim opinions.
Outrage was voiced on social
media with the hashtags #MuslimLivesMatter and #CallItTerrorism.
"Based on the brutal nature of
this crime ... the religious attire of
two of the victims, and the rising
anti-Muslim rhetoric in American
society, we urge state and federal
law enforcement authorities to
quickly address speculation of a
possible bias motive in this case,"
Nihad Awad, of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, said
in a statement.
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