Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan. Mullah Mansour killed in Pakistan. Numerous Taliban leaders, including multiple Haqqani commanders, killed in Pakistan. The Quetta, Peshawar & Miramshah shuras... But we're supposed to believe Mullah Omar never stepped foot inside Pakistan.
These @USMC EA-6B Prowlers complete their final flights while assigned to Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 2. The last Prowler squadron was deactivated on March 8th. #KnowYourMilpic.twitter.com/wGVePsTKL6
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief U.S. envoy for North Korea said on Monday that "diplomacy is still very much alive" with Pyongyang despite a failed summit last month, but cautioned that Washington was closely watching activity at a North Korean rocket site and did not know if it might be planning a new launch.
Stephen Biegun told a conference in Washington that although U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un parted on good terms after their Feb. 27-28 summit in Hanoi, big gaps remained between the two sides and North Korea needed to show it was fully committed to giving up its nuclear weapons.
With more than 22,117 kilometres of borders with 14 different countries, China has numerous overlapping territorial claims with its neighbours.
Since 1949, the People's Republic of China has laid claim to numerous areas of land ranging from tiny islands right through to whole provinces — much to the chagrin of its neighbours.
Some of these disputes were solved amicably, others resulted in all-out war, and many continue to simmer.
As the country's economic power has risen, so too has its spending on its armed forces, which it increasingly deploys to further its territorial claims.
Two of Donald Trump's top security advisers have paid a rare visit to the Pacific in another sign that the United States is intent on thwarting China's strategic ambitions in the region.
The senior director for Asian affairs on the White House National Security Council (NSC), Matt Pottinger, visited Vanuatu and Solomon Islands last week for meetings with top politicians and officials. Mr Pottinger also visited Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
He was accompanied by Alexander Gray, who has just taken on a newly created position of director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific Security at the NSC — another sign of intensifying US focus in the region.
The NSC advises US presidents on defence and foreign affairs and has been at the heart of American security policy since World War II.
* But arms exports grew by just 2.7 per cent in 2014-18 from the previous five years, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report * China has expanded its customer base to 53 countries
China is selling arms to more countries and is now the world's leading exporter of armed drones, according to a report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday.
But the latest data from the Swedish think tank shows Chinese arms exports increased by a relatively low 2.7 per cent in the period from 2014 to 2018, compared to the previous five years.
Weapons exports from the United States, however, jumped 29 per cent in the 2014-18 period from 2009-13.
Meanwhile, China expanded its customer base to 53 countries in 2014-18, up from 41 in the previous five years.
* US and Afghan leaders believed the fugitive leader fled to and died in Pakistan * But a new biography says Omar was living just three miles from a major US base * 'Searching for an Enemy', by Bette Dam, says Omar lived as a virtual hermit
Taliban founder Mullah Omar lived within walking distance of US bases in Afghanistan for years, according to a new book that suggests embarrassing failures of American intelligence.
US and Afghan leaders believed the one-eyed, fugitive leader fled to and eventually died in Pakistan, but a new biography says Omar was living just three miles from a major US Forward Operating Base in Zabul province, where he died in 2013.
'Searching for an Enemy', by Dutch journalist Bette Dam, says the Taliban chief lived as a virtual hermit, refusing visits from his family and filling notebooks with jottings in an imaginary language.
Venezuela has been in the grip of a crippling blackout for four days — and the humanitarian situation there is growing increasingly dire.
Signs of the crisis are everywhere you look in the Venezuelan capital. "Drive around Caracas, and you see long lines of cars, waiting for hours at the few gas stations still operational," NPR's Philip Reeves reported from the city.
"Motorists park on highways, cell phones aloft, searching for a signal. The rich have taken refuge in luxury hotels. The poor stand in lines in the street," Reeves added.
Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of Tibet's failed uprising against China.
The abortive mission forced the Dalai Lama, Tibet's traditional Buddhist leader, into exile in mountainous Dharamsala, in India, where he established a Tibetan government-in-exile.
He launched his campaign for a free Tibet from Dharamsala. His efforts earned him worldwide respect and fame as an adherent of non-violence.
President Trump reportedly plans to ask for an overall defense budget of approximately $750 billion in 2020, including a Pentagon budget of $718 billion.
CNN, citing two unidentified U.S. officials, reported that Trump will ask for about $544 billion for the base defense budget and another $9 billion for an "emergency" fund.
WNU Editor: A 4.7 trillion dollar budget. Try to digest that. The media narrative is to focus on the proposed defense budget increase and a few billion for the wall. As for the remaining $3.87 billion in the budget, the narrative is that it is a massive 5% cut (it is not), and that taxes must be raised to pay for it (which has never been the case in the past). It is also predicated on the hope that the U.S. economy will continue to grow as it has for the past two years. I hope that this is what happens, but many in the Republican Party and the entire Democrat Party are advocating policies that I know will stifle the growth that America needs to cover all of this spending. Bottom line. One day there is going to be a day of reckoning for all of this, and I hope that I am not around when it happens.
More News On The White House's Proposed 2020 Budget
LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May rushed to Strasbourg on Monday to seek concessions from the European Union in a last-ditch attempt to avoid another humiliating defeat in parliament of her deal to exit the bloc.
Just 18 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU, there is still no ratified divorce deal and talks with the bloc stalled over the weekend as May felt she was unable to break the political deadlock in London.
In a day of frenetic diplomacy ahead of a Tuesday parliamentary vote on her deal, May spoke to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in an effort to find a way through the Brexit maze.
CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Much of Venezuela, including parts of the capital Caracas, remained without power on Monday for a fifth day, crimping vital oil exports and leaving people struggling to obtain water and food.
President Nicolas Maduro, who has blamed the unprecedented blackout on sabotage by the United States at Venezuela's Guri hydroelectric dam, ordered the suspension of classes and the working day, as he had on Friday.
Update: More details are emerging on what caused this blackout. According to the Independent, the San Geronimo B substation in the centre of the country, which supplies electricity to 4 out of 5 Venezuelans from the massive Guri hydropower plant, went down .... Venezuela plunged into darkness for fourth consecutive day as country teeters on brink (The Independent). The report from the Independent is also quoting un-named sources that electrical workers have been told to NOT report to work. If true, it tells me that the problem must involve a major piece of equipment and/or a network of critical components that needs to be replaced, and they do not have the parts to do so.
Western-backed fighters have killed dozens of people in continuing clashes against Islamic State, a spokesman said, as troops move into the terrorist group's final pocket in eastern Syria.
he Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the US but led by the Kurds, also captured a jihadist arms dump at Baghouz, said SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali on Twitter.
Four Islamic State fighters attempted suicide attacks. One SDF fighter was killed and four were wounded during the clashes.
Commanders previously said they were moving slowly to avoid losses in the face of sniper fire and landmines.
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced on Monday that he had reversed his decision to seek a fifth term, bowing to weeks of mass demonstrations against his rule.
Tens of thousands of people from all social classes have been demonstrating almost daily against Bouteflika's decision to stand in the election, rejecting a stale political system dominated by veterans of an independence war against France that ended in 1962.
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani (left) stands on the frontlines during an offensive operation against Islamic State in the town of Tal Ksaiba, in Iraq, in 2015. (photo credit: STRINGER/ REUTERS)
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Qassem Solemani was awarded the Order of Zulfaqar from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force Major General Qassem Soleimani was awarded the country's highest military honor.
Solemaini was awarded the Order of Zulfaqar from the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, making him the first Iranian military official to receive the order following the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran's Tasnim News Agency reported on Monday.
WNU Editor: I am not surprised that he got this award. It is the timing of this award that caught my eye. With Iranian President Rouhani in Iraq on a very important state visit, the Iranian leader made a decision to give this award on the same day (and taking the media attention with it).
Iran's president is on a high-profile visit to Iraq focused on trade. The visit sends a signal that Iran has regional options against the United States' "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in neighboring Iraq on Monday to kick off a three-day visit as the Islamic Republic is under mounting US pressure over its regional influence.
Rouhani's first official visit to Iraq — dubbed as a "historic" new start in relations by his foreign minister — is primarily focused on trade and investment at a time when Tehran is battling against economic isolation following the Trump administration's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposition of unilateral sanctions.
The Trump administration has been internally discussing how to get countries that host US troops in times of peace to pay more of the cost of keeping those troops stationed there.
The term used to sum up one specific formula under consideration is "cost plus 50." That means that the United States would work to get countries to cover the full cost of the US military presence in their country, then also pay an additional 50% of that cost. The idea is that the host country gets a certain value with having a US military presence inside their own borders, and they should pay up.
People standing near the wreckage of a recent Shabab-claimed suicide car bomb attack on a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Shabab has proved resilient against American airstrikes, and continues to carry out regular bombings in East Africa.CreditCreditFeisal Omar/Reuters
WASHINGTON — The American military has escalated a battle against the Shabab, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, in Somalia even as President Trump seeks to scale back operations against similar Islamist insurgencies elsewhere in the world, from Syria and Afghanistan to West Africa.
A surge in American airstrikes over the last four months of 2018 pushed the annual death toll of suspected Shabab fighters in Somalia to the third record high in three years. Last year, the strikes killed 326 people in 47 disclosed attacks, Defense Department data show.
And so far this year, the intensity is on a pace to eclipse the 2018 record. During January and February, the United States Africa Command reported killing 225 people in 24 strikes in Somalia. Double-digit death tolls are becoming routine, including a bloody five-day stretch in late February in which the military disclosed that it had killed 35, 20 and 26 people in three separate attacks.
Africa Command maintains that its death toll includes only Shabab militants, even though the extremist group claims regularly that civilians are also killed. The Times could not independently verify the number of civilians killed. The rise in airstrikes has also exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in the country, according to United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations working in the region, as civilians are displaced by conflict and extreme weather.
WNU Editor: With the war against ISIS now winding down in the Middle East, it looks like the U.S. is repositioning some of its assets to fight against al-Shabaab in Somalia.
Chinese ship reportedly rams and sinks a Vietnamese fishing boat in the Paracels (again). China's neighbors have become so numb to the constant exercise of low-intensity violence and intimidation that it will warrant barely a mention in regional press. https://t.co/fgumeS3MXR
TAIPEI — A capsized Vietnamese fishing boat that Hanoi says was hit by a Chinese vessel in contested waters is the latest in what scholars call a string of often unreported maritime mishaps between the two sides despite official efforts to get along.
The fishing boat carrying a crew of five capsized on March 6 near the Paracel Islands, a group of South China Sea islets claimed by both countries but controlled by China.
The National Committee for Incident-Natural Disaster Response and Search and Rescue in Hanoi says a Chinese vessel rammed the boat near Discovery Reef due east of Vietnam and southwest of Hong Kong, according to the news website VnExpress International. Another Vietnamese fishing boat rescued the crew, the report says. China rejects blame for the mishap.
It's the most advanced weapon system ever made, and one F-35 pilot tells us what it's like in the cockpit.
Lots of people love the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, one of the most advanced, stealthiest warplanes on the planet. And lots of people loathe it, pointing to the ballooning costs and arguing America's newest fighter is more flash than function. But what's it like to fly it?
Despite all the public acrimony about the plane, we haven't heard much from the men and women who will strap into the cockpit. So, with F-35s now entering service in the U.S. and abroad, Popular Mechanics asked Air Force pilot and host of "The Professionals Playbook" podcast, Major Justin "Hasard" Lee, what it takes to fly the fighter.
* Russia recently singled out potential hypersonic-weapon targets in the US. * The missiles are concerning because they're not covered by existing treaties and may be able to thwart existing defenses. * But Russia's boasts about the weapons may be more for domestic consumption.
Normally inured to the fire and brimstone of Russian state TV, international audiences perked up their ears last month when a Sunday evening news show singled out a handful of locations in the United States that could be targets for annihilation by Russia's new hypersonic weapons.
"For now, we're not threatening anyone," said the TV host Dmitry Kiselyov, who some label Russia's chief propagandist. However, Russia worries that the United States, after having withdrawn from an important arms control treaty that regulated missile deployment, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, might again station intermediate-range missiles in Europe. "But if such a deployment takes place, our response will be instant," Kiselyov said.
WNU Editor: Adding hypersonic nuclear missiles to Russia's nuclear arsenal will not alter the nuclear strategic balance between Russia and the U.S.. This Kremin talk about new weapons is purely for domestic consumption.
Lawmakers are close to passing a bill that would rewrite the rules of the internet in Russia. Protesters have rallied in Moscow, saying the law would isolate Russians and pave the way for nationwide censorship.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Moscow on Sunday to rally against a draft law that aims to reconfigure the foundation of Russia's internet. More than 14,000 people participated, according to independent monitor White Counter. Interfax news agency put the number at 6,500.
At least 16 people were arrested ahead of the protests, which were authorized by authorities. Eight of them were detained for using "floating devices" when they released blue balloons in a sign of protest, according to Russian news agency Interfax, citing protest organizers.
The incident is a reminder of just how fast threats can appear for the Secret Service agents tasked with getting the President safely from A to B.
As the Presidential Motorcade was traveling near Opelika, Alabama on I85, an SUV traveling in the other direction slammed into a highway median barrier just as the core of the procession was passing in the opposite direction. It is not clear at this time exactly what caused the motorist to steer into the motorcade at that exact moment, but it does seem awfully suspicious.
President Trump was in Alabama to visit the site of a powerful tornado that did major damage to the town of Beauregard and claimed 23 lives. Although the Secret Service and local law enforcement clear the route the motorcade will travel on, the oncoming traffic that is separated by an open patch of grass for this stretch of the I85 appears to have been moving along unimpeded. Thankfully, the barrier between the two roadways worked and the SUV, a Jeep Liberty, was stopped from continuing on its path that seemed as if it would have taken it careened right into the heart of the motorcade if it was left to its own devices.
WNU Editor: This accident occurred because the driver had to avoid a car in front who had slowed down to watch the motorcade. I can understand that. I saw a President Clinton in a motorcade years ago in the Bay area, and it is quite a site to see, and everyone wants to stop and look at it.. As for this event over the weekend, I can only imagine how the Secret Service must have reacted when this occurred. President Trump was also not in his usual limousine, but in a SUV which I suspect does not provide him the same level of protection.
Rodrigo Duterte addressed a group of female law enforcement and army officers with the term “puta,” which translates to “bitch,” at an event meant to honor them on Monday.
Presenting to a group of almost all females at the Outstanding Women in Law Enforcement and National Security of the Philippines event, the president of the Philippines also called the group “you crazy women,” the Guardian reports.
Duterte reportedly told the group that women are “depriving me of my freedom of expression,” in apparent rebuke to recent criticism for sexist comments.
“I love women,” he added, according to the Guardian. “That’s why you see I have two wives. That means I like women.”
Duterte caused controversy last week when he said women should stay away from Catholic priests because of the “scent of your body,” according to the Guardian. At Monday’s event he re-visited his earlier comments saying women are “rejects of priests.”
Duterte has faced frequent criticism for his sexist comments since taking office in June 2016. Last July, women’s rights activists in the Philippines staged a protest against his treatment of women.
Both Singapore and Australia announced that they are suspending operations of Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft Tuesday, following Sunday’s crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.
Singapore said the suspension will be implemented “in light of two fatal accidents involving Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in less than five months,” the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said in a statement.
The ban covers all flights flying in and out of Singapore, and several airlines will be affected including SilkAir, China Southern Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Shandong Airlines and Thai Lion Air.
The statement calls the suspension “temporary,” but does not specify how long it will last.
Australia also said its ban is a temporary while they “wait for more information to review the safety risks of continued operations” of the aircraft. Australia’s decision will only affect Singapore Airline’s Silk Air and Fiji Airways as no domestic airlines use the plane, according to Reuters.
Several other countries have already halted operations of the aircraft. Authorities in China, Indonesia, and Ethiopia ordered airlines to ground Boeing 737 MAX planes on Monday.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration sought to assure the public of the model’s “airworthiness” in a statement on Monday, stating that the aircraft will still be allowed to fly in the U.S. where several major airlines utilize the model.
The crash of a Boeing 737 MAX in Ethiopia on Sunday killed all 157 people on board. The latest incident follows another deadly accident in Indonesia last October, when 189 people were killed in a Lion Air flight crash.
Similarities between the crashes have called the safety of the aircraft into question. In both situations, the planes, which were new, crashed just minutes after takeoff after the pilots had requested to return to the takeoff airport after experiencing difficulties.
Ethiopian Airlines said on Twitter the “black box” flight data recorder for Flight 302 was found Monday, though it may take several years to complete a formal investigation into the cause of the crash.
(ALGIERS, Algeria) — Algeria’s president of two decades abandoned his bid for a fifth term Monday following unprecedented protests over his fitness for office, but his simultaneous postponement of an election set for next month had critics worried he intends to hold on to power.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has rarely been seen in public since he had a stroke in 2013 and just returned from two weeks in a Geneva hospital, promised to establish a panel to plan a rescheduled vote and to put an interim government in place.
In a letter to the nation released by state news agency APS on Monday, Bouteflika, 82, stressed the importance of including Algeria’s disillusioned youth in the reform process and putting the country “in the hands of new generations.”
But for many of the protesters – students, lawyers and even judges among them – the most important sentence in the president’s letter read, “There will be no fifth term.”
Celebrations popped up instead of protests on the streets of the capital, Algiers, at the news. Car horns rang out while people waved flags, jumped up and down, and sang the national anthem. Several thanked Bouteflika. One described the development as a “real ray of sunshine.
Others were more cautious, calling their longtime leader’s pledge to step aside just a first step. Bouteflika did not give a date or timeline for the delayed election.
He said in his Monday letter that the “national conference” he would task with planning the vote also would be responsible for drafting a new constitution for Algeria.
He said he would name an interim government as well. The changes were put in motion within hours.
Noureddine Bedoui, a Bouteflika loyalist and the current interior minister, was made prime minister and charged with forming the new administration, according to Algerian state news agency APS.
Critics said they fear the moves could pave the way for the president to install a hand-picked successor. Others saw his decision to postpone the election indefinitely as a threat to democracy in Algeria.
A wily political survivor, Bouteflika fought in Algeria’s independence war against French forces and has played a role in Algeria’s major developments for the past half-century.
He became president in 1999 and reconciled a nation riven by a deadly Islamic insurgency, but questions swirl over whether he is really running the country today.
The recent protests surprised Algeria’s opaque leadership and freed the country’s people, long fearful of a watchful security apparatus, to openly criticize the president.
Algerians also expressed anger over corruption that put their country’s oil and gas riches in the hands of a few while millions of young people struggle to find jobs.
The unprecedented citizens’ revolt drew millions into the streets of cities across the country to demand that Bouteflika abandon his candidacy.
On Monday, Algerian state television aired the first images of Bouteflika since the protests started. Bouteflika, who has used a wheelchair since his stroke, appeared weak and moved with slow gestures. No sound accompanied the images.
While the tense nation waited to see if he would make any concessions now that he was back from his hospital stay, teenagers and lawyers held protests, and workers held scattered walkouts,
Security was high in Algiers, where some businesses were shuttered by a second day of strikes. Lawyers in black robes gathered in front of courthouses to join calls for Bouteflika to withdraw from the election.
Some judges joined the lawyers protesting in the city of Bedjaia. Judges normally are prohibited from publicly demonstrating, as are police officers and soldiers.
(STRASBOURG, France) — Britain and the European Union emerged from last-minute talks late Monday to announce they had finally removed the biggest roadblock to their Brexit divorce deal, only hours before the U.K. Parliament was due to decide the fate of Prime Minister Theresa May’s hard-won plan to leave the EU.
On the eve of Tuesday’s vote in London, May flew to Strasbourg, France, to seek revisions, guarantees or other changes from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that would persuade reluctant British legislators to back her withdrawal agreement with the EU, which they resoundingly rejected in January.
At a joint news conference, May and Juncker claimed to have succeeded.
May said new documents to be added to the deal provided “legally binding changes” to the part relating to the Irish border. The legal 585-page withdrawal agreement itself though was left intact.
“In politics, sometimes you get a second chance. It is what you do with this second chance that counts. Because there will be no third chance,” Juncker warned the legislators who will vote late Tuesday.
“Let’s be crystal clear about the choice: it is this deal or Brexit might not happen at all,” he said.
May said the changes should overcome lawmakers’ qualms about a mechanism in the deal designed to keep an open border between Britain’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. The mechanism, known as the backstop, is a safeguard that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU until a permanent new trading relationship is in place.
Brexit-supporters in Britain fear the backstop could be used to bind the country to EU regulations indefinitely.
May said the new wording “will guarantee that the EU cannot act with the intent of applying the backstop indefinitely.”
“Now is the time to come together to back this improved Brexit deal and deliver on the instruction of the British people,” she said.
But the changes appear to fall well short of Brexiteers’ demands for a unilateral British exit mechanism from the backstop.
Pro-Brexit U.K. lawmakers said they would read the fine print and wait for the judgment of Britain’s attorney general before deciding how to vote on Tuesday.
Announcing the breakthrough in Britain’s House of Commons, Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said lawmakers faced “a fundamental choice … to vote for the improved deal or to plunge this country into a political crisis.”
And Juncker warned Britain “there will be no new negotiations” if lawmakers rejected the deal again.
Britain is due to pull out of the EU in less than three weeks, on March 29, but the government has not been able to win parliamentary approval for its agreement with the bloc on withdrawal terms and future relations. The impasse has raised fears of a chaotic “no-deal” Brexit that could mean major disruption for businesses and people in Britain and the 27 remaining EU countries.
“This is a government in chaos, with a country in chaos because of this mess,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said.
May has staked her political reputation on securing an exit deal with the EU and is under mounting pressure to quit if it is defeated again. She survived a bid to oust her through a no-confidence vote in December. As a result, she cannot be forced from office for a year.
The EU is frustrated at what it sees as the inability of Britain’s weak and divided government to lay out a clear vision for Brexit. It is irritated, too, that Britain is seeking changes to an agreement that May herself helped negotiate and approve.
May has been working frantically to save her deal, speaking by phone to eight EU national leaders since Friday, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
If Parliament throws out May’s deal again on Tuesday, lawmakers will vote over the following two days on whether to leave the EU without an agreement — an idea likely to be rejected — or to ask the EU to delay Brexit beyond the scheduled March 29 departure date.
Conservative lawmaker Nicky Morgan said May’s position will become “less and less tenable” if she suffers more defeats in Parliament this week.
“It would be very difficult for the prime minister to stay in office for very much longer,” Morgan told the BBC.
Alan Wager, a Brexit expert at the U.K. in a Changing Europe think tank, said Parliament this week could decisively rule out both May’s deal and a no-deal departure.
That, in turn, would make such options as a new Brexit referendum or a “softer” withdrawal from the EU lot more likely, he said.
“Finally, the House of Commons is going to have to make a final judgment on what it wants in terms of Brexit,” he said.
(UNITED NATIONS) — U.N. experts say they are investigating possible violations of United Nations sanctions on North Korea in about 20 countries, from alleged clandestine nuclear procurement in China to arms brokering in Syria and military cooperation with Iran, Libya and Sudan.
The expert panel’s 66-page report to the Security Council, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, also detailed the appearance in North Korea of a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Mercedes-Benz limousines and Lexus LX 570 all-wheel drive luxury vehicles in violation of a ban on luxury goods.
And it noted a trend in North Korea’s evasion of financial sanctions “of using cyberattacks to illegally force the transfer of funds from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.”
The report’s executive summary, which was obtained in early February, said North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs “remain intact” and its leaders are dispersing missile assembly and testing facilities to prevent “decapitation” strikes.
The full report said “the Yongbyon nuclear complex remained active,” noting that satellite imagery through November showed excavation of water channels and construction of a new building near the reactors’ water discharge facilities. Satellite imagery also “indicates possible operation of the radiochemical laboratory and associated steam plant,” it said.
The panel said it continues monitoring uranium concentration plants and mining sites in the country.
It also has “surveyed, confirmed and reported ballistic missile activity sites and found evidence of a consistent trend” by North Korea “to disperse its assembly, storage and testing locations,” the report said.
In addition to using civilian facilities, the panel said North Korea is using “previously idle or sprawling military-industrial sites as launch locations” — some close to, and some up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the assembly or storage sites.
As examples of this trend, it cited the test launch of Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missiles from the Panghyon aircraft factory on July 4, 2017, and a launch from Mupyong-ni 24 days after that. It said Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport, the country’s largest civil-military airfield, was used to launch Hwasong-12 missiles on Aug. 29 and Sept. 15 of that year.
As for trade sanctions, the experts said they continue to investigate two Chinese companies on the U.N. sanctions blacklist — Namchogang Trading Corp. and Namhung Trading Corp. — and associated front companies and their representatives “for nuclear procurement activities.”
The panel said it is also currently surveying the world’s manufacturers of nuclear “choke point” items such as “pressure transducers,” focusing on their end-use delivery verification methods.
The experts said they also were continuing “multiple investigations into prohibited activities” between North Korea and the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad.
These include Syrian nationals reported to be engaged in arms brokering on behalf of North Korea “to a range of Middle Eastern and African states, reportedly offering conventional arms and, in some cases, ballistic missiles, to armed groups in Yemen and Libya,” the panel said. They also include North Koreans working for sanctioned “entities” and for Syrian defense factories, it said.
The experts said a country, which they didn’t identify, had informed them that Iran “was one of the two most lucrative markets” for North Korean military cooperation and that both the Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. and Green Pine Associated Corp. offices in the country “are active.” The unnamed country also indicated that North Koreans in Iran were being used as cash couriers, the report said.
The Iranian government replied to the panel that the only North Koreans in the country were diplomats, and they have not violated U.N. sanctions, the report said.
The panel said it is continuing investigations into “multiple attempts at military cooperation” between North Korea and various Libyan authorities and sanctioned “entities” and foreign nationals working on their behalf.
The experts said they are also continuing investigations into military cooperation projects between North Korea and Sudan, including information on activities involving a Syrian arms trafficker and technology for “anti-tank and man-portable air defense systems.”
(EJERE, Ethiopia) — Ethiopian Airlines has grounded all of its Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft as “an extra safety precaution” following the crash of one of its planes in which 157 people were killed, a spokesman said Monday, as Ethiopia marked a day of mourning and the plane’s damaged “black box” of data was found.
Although it wasn’t yet known what caused the crash of the new plane in clear weather outside Addis Ababa on Sunday, the airline decided to ground its remaining four 737 Max 8s until further notice, spokesman Asrat Begashaw said. Ethiopian Airlines had been using five of the planes and awaiting delivery of 25 more.
Some other airlines around the world were deciding to do the same. Aviation authorities in China and Indonesia along with Caribbean carrier Cayman Airways temporarily grounded their Max 8s.
Red Cross workers slowly picked through the widely scattered debris near the blackened crash crater, looking for the remains of 157 lives. A shredded book. A battered passport. Business cards in multiple languages. Heavy machinery dug for larger pieces of the plane.
The plane’s “black box” of flight data and cockpit voice recorder had been found, Ethiopian Airlines said. An airline official, however, told The Associated Press that the box was partially damaged and “we will see what we can retrieve from it.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak to the media.
Forensic experts from Israel had arrived to help with the investigation, said Ethiopian Airlines’ spokesman Asrat. Ethiopian authorities lead the investigation into the crash, assisted by the U.S., Kenya and others.
“These kinds of things take time,” Kenya’s transport minister, James Macharia, told reporters.
People from 35 countries died in the Sunday morning crash six minutes after the plane took off from Ethiopia’s capital en route to Nairobi. Ethiopian Airlines said the senior pilot issued a distress call and was told to return but all contact was lost shortly afterward. The plane plowed into the ground at Hejere near Bishoftu.
“I heard this big noise,” one local resident, Tsegaye Reta, told the AP on Monday. “The villagers said that it was a plane crash, and we rushed to the site. There was a huge smoke that we couldn’t even see the plane. The parts of the plane were falling apart.”
Kenya lost 32 people, more than any country. Relatives of 25 of the victims had been contacted, Macharia said, and taking care of their welfare was of utmost importance.
“Some of them, as you know, they are very distressed,” he said. “They are in shock like we are. They are grieving.”
Canada, Ethiopia, the U.S., China, Italy, France, Britain, Egypt, Germany, India and Slovakia all lost four or more citizens.
Leaders of the United Nations, the U.N. refugee agency and the World Food Program announced that colleagues had been on the plane. The U.N. migration agency estimated that 19 U.N.-affiliated employees were killed.
Both Addis Ababa and Nairobi are major hubs for humanitarian workers, and some had been on their way to a large U.N. environmental conference set to begin Monday in Nairobi. The U.N. flag at the event flew at half-staff.
The crash was strikingly similar to that of a Lion Air jet of the same Boeing model in Indonesian seas last year, killing 189 people. The crash was likely to renew questions about the 737 Max 8, the newest version of Boeing’s popular single-aisle airliner, which was first introduced in 1967 and has become the world’s most common passenger jet.
Safety experts cautioned against drawing too many comparisons between the two crashes until more is known about Sunday’s disaster.
The Ethiopian plane was delivered to the airline in November. The jet’s last maintenance was on Feb. 4, and it had flown just 1,200 hours.
The crash shattered more than two years of relative calm in African skies, where travel had long been chaotic. It also was a serious blow to state-owned Ethiopian Airlines, which has expanded to become the continent’s largest and best-managed carrier and turned Addis Ababa into the gateway to Africa.
Exactly eight years ago, an earthquake off the east coast of Japan set a massive tsunami on a collision course with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The wall of water overwhelmed the reactors’ cooling mechanisms and over the next four days the plant suffered three nuclear meltdowns. It became the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. In response, Germany, Switzerland and some others around the world accelerated their plans to ditch nuclear power as an energy source.
Nuclear power is virtually free of emissions. By contrast, we burn coal and gas at industrial scale to make electricity, pumping carbon dioxide and other noxious chemicals into our atmosphere. As a result, our oceans are warming and extreme climate events are becoming more common. Our children are more aware of these changes than we adults are: later this week, on March 15, young people will walk out of their schools in more than 30 countries to protest the scars we are carving into their futures.
There are paths out of this mess. But on March 11, 2011, the world’s course was diverted away from one of the most important. I am talking about nuclear energy.
Traditionally, green opposition to nuclear power has been rooted, above all, in fears of radiation let loose in a reactor accident or from waste leaking out of disposal sites. To use nuclear power and generate radioactive waste, environmentalists argued, was like taking off in an airplane without knowing where to land. However, today several countries are building deep underground disposal sites where they can safely land high level radioactive waste. What are we now to fear most: a gram of plutonium escaping from a deep underground waste disposal site, perhaps in ten thousand years, or billions of tons of carbon-dioxide released from burnt fossil fuels in our time?
Frankly, it is not the waste from existing or expanded use of nuclear power that threatens our planet. One might even say that the nuclear waste is one of the greatest assets of nuclear power, as it is so small in volume that it can be — and is — safely taken care of in its entirety. On the other hand, the waste of fossil fuels, especially carbon dioxide, is so huge that (despite much experimenting) we do not know how to handle it.
Can we responsibly continue to rely on nuclear power after the big accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima? Those were three grave accidents, yes, but accidents in any industry, whether nuclear, aviation or others, lead also to new, safer designs and dedication to safety culture. Plane crashes have not stopped us from flying, because most people know it is an effective means of traveling. They know that risks are rarely zero but also that safety is very high. We must arrive at a similar acceptance of nuclear power.
There was a time, in the early atomic age, when nuclear-generated electricity was expected to be “too cheap to meter” — that it would be more effective, in other words, to provide it for free than to charge. In the end, it did not exactly turn out that way. Nuclear power has never been cheap and today it struggles to be competitive on purely economic grounds with electricity generated by burning natural gas — especially from fracking in the United States. However, the story is very different if we see emissions of greenhouse gases as a cost in themselves. According to a 2011 study, taken on average over the lifetime of an energy plant, the burning of coal results in 979 tons of carbon-dioxide (per gigawatt hour) entering the atmosphere. Gas gives off 550 tons. The figure for nuclear power is just 32 tons.
Some people claim we can manage the world’s great and increasing hunger for energy by using wind and solar power. The call for “renewable energy sources” excludes fossil fuels, but it also excludes nuclear power, which is based on non-renewable uranium resources. It has been a smart but facile message, and we should be grateful that the world’s two most populous countries — China and India — are fast expanding their use of nuclear power as well as of renewables. Solar and wind power are great in many places and have gone down in cost. However, getting rid of technically sound carbon dioxide-free nuclear power plants, to replace them with carbon dioxide-free wind and solar plants, does not make environmental sense. And to reject nuclear power because uranium is not renewable is silly. With modern technology the global resources of uranium and thorium could fuel thousands of years of expanded use of nuclear power. Is it not enough that they are sustainable?
We accept radiation in nuclear medicine, to combat cancer for instance. We accept the radiation of spices to kill pathogens. We lie in the sunshine hoping that the solar radiation will make us healthier. Radiation is a force that can be destructive and dangerous if not used prudently, but it can also be tamed and used to our benefit.
To satisfy the energy needs of a world demanding vastly more electricity for industry, cars and trains, desalination and digitalization, increased efficiency in the use of energy is valuable but not enough. We need innovation: better batteries for storage of electricity, superconductors saving energy and fusion. But before we succeed in these and other exciting projects we need to be rational and practical and make full use of nuclear power, before the world becomes uninhabitable for our children.
An internet expert says he has uncovered an open database in China that details the personal information of more than 1.8 million women, as well as something called their “BreedReady” status.
Victor Gevers, a Dutch researcher with nonprofit GDI.Foundation, tweeted his findings over the weekend.
According to his research, the database stored women’s names, ages and marital status, among other particulars. The youngest member of the database was listed at 15 years old, while the average age was around 32. More than 80% of the women included appear to live in China’s capital, Beijing.
In China, they have a shortage of women. So an organization started to build a database to start registering over 1,8 million women with all kinds of details like phone numbers, addresses, education, location, ID number, marital status, and a ”BreedReady" status? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/fbRKsbNHPJ
In the screenshot Gevers posted, a field called “BreedReady” is last on the list, which also includes columns for “politics” and “education”. It’s unclear what the “BreedReady” term indicates, though Chinese netizens were quick to draw comparisons to the country’s panic over the plummeting birthrate and aging population.
On the Chinese social network Weibo, users called the database a “real-life Handmaid’s Tale,” likening it to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel. Others called it “horrible and absurd”.
China’s declining population has been recognized as an official problem by the government, which in 2015 ended its one-child family planning policy. But the reforms have not made much of a dent in China’s looming demographic predicament, with the country expected to soon enter an “era of negative population growth.”
Gevers told TIME that the database of women was taken offline on Monday afternoon.
“At this moment we have no idea who the owner of the data is,” Gevers said.
It is also unclear who the women are. “We are looking to contact a few persons to see if we can figure out if they signed up for something,” Gevers added.
State media has not responded to the public database revelation.
“To be honest I hope it was just poor English of the developer,” Gevers said of the “BreedReady” terminology. “But we simply do not know this for sure.”
An Ethiopian Airlines plane en route to Nairobi, Kenya crashed just minutes after takeoff Sunday morning, killing all 157 people on board. The tragedy affected families across the world, as the passengers hailed from 35 countries.
This is the second time a brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 has mysteriously crashed in less than six months, prompting questions about the safety of the U.S. plane maker’s latest model.
Here’s what we know about the ill-fated flight so far.
What do we know about the crash?
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 took off from Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport at 8:38 a.m. local time on March 10 and lost contact with ground control six minutes later. The plane crashed around Bishoftu, which is about 40 miles southeast of Ethiopia’s capital.
The state-owned airline, which has a good safety record, confirmed that pilot Yared Getachew had “commendable performance” and extensive experience, having logged more than 8,000 flight hours. At just 28 years old, he was reportedly the youngest Ethiopian Airlines pilot to captain a Boeing 737.
The plane, which was only four months old, had flown in from Johannesburg earlier the same morning and had undergone safety checks, according to The Washington Post.
Why did it happen?
It remains unclear why the plane plummeted amid clear skies and may take years for the final cause of the wreckage to be determined. But the flight’s erratic path and sudden decent bear remarkable similarities to another wreckage of the same aircraft off Indonesia’s coast in October.
Data from Ethiopian Airlines showed an “erratic flight path, with the plane first ascending then descending, then ascending sharply before it fell from the sky,” says the Post. It is also reported that the aircraft’s speed was faster than normal takeoff speed.
“The pilot mentioned he had difficulty and he wanted to return, so he was given clearance to Addis,” the airlines’ CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told the Post.
The crew of the downed Lion Air Flight 610 had likewise requested permission to return to ground shortly before it crashed, killing all 189 people on board.
According to investigators, the nose dive in the Indonesia case may have been prompted by updated Boeing software intended to prevent stalls, but which can cause a plane to rapidly descend instead, reports the New York Times. According to the Times, pilots may not have been properly notified about the software issues, and it is not clear if updates to the problematic software had been made since the accident in Indonesia.
“Indications are these two accidents were not caused by human error, but were caused by mechanical error and transfer of information from cockpit to the pilot,” Bijan Vasigh, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told TIME in an earlier interview.
Safety experts have cautioned against drawing too may comparisons between the two recent 737 crashes however, as neither have a definitive cause.
What do we know about the aircraft?
Boeing’s 737 MAX is the latest version of its popular, single aisle aircraft, which has become the world’s most common passenger jet, according to the Associated Press.
Ethiopian Airlines announced a delivery of the new 737 Max fleet in July. According to Boeing, the company has received 4,700 orders from more than 100 customers for the new aircraft.
Ethiopian Airlines has confirmed that it will ground the aircraft as a safety precaution. China also asked its domestic carriers to temporarily ground the model.
In a statement, Boeing said it was sending a technical team to help assess Sunday’s crash site.
Who was on board Flight 302?
According to the airline, there were 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board Flight 302.
Passengers represented 35 nationalities, including 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Chinese, eight Italians, eight Americans, seven French and seven British citizens.
The United Nations confirmed on Twitter that 19 staff were among those killed. Some of the U.N. employees worked for the World Food Program.
AP reports that a Georgetown University law student, a Nigerian-Canadian scholar and the wife and children of a Slovakian lawmaker were also among the victims. The Russian Embassy in Ethiopia confirmed the name of three victims on Twitter.
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IVANKA TRUMP and her husband Jared Kushner were repeatedly rejected when they asked to fly on Air Force jets but the White House advisers devised a cunning scheme to use the government-funded flights, a new book has sensationally claimed.
WORLD War 3 simulations conducted by an American nonprofit have revealed US forces would be completely "wiped out" when confronted with Chinese and Russian military.
RUSSIAN defence minister Sergei Shoigu addressed the Russian State Duma on Monday, explaining to legislators how the country's armed forces have improved since Russian President Vladimir Putin's election in 2012.
A JAGUAR attacked an Arizona woman after she climbed over a safety zoo barrier to take a selfie - but will the wild cat from the "near threatened" species be put down?
CANADA prime minister Justin Trudeau has faced massive backlash following claims his government has lost its moral compass and pressure is now mounting for the 47-year-old to resign.
16.90 lakh voters in Mandya, 24.56 lakh in Bengaluru Rural Lok Sabha seats With the model code of conduct coming into force for the upcoming general elections, measures are being put in place across Mandya and Bengaluru Rural
Job crisis just went from bad to worse for India's engineers CHINCHWAD: Santosh Gurav gained a bachelor's degree in technology from a mid-tier college in western India last year, specialising in electrical engineering and hoping to land a job in industrial automation.Six months on, the 27-year-old repairs mixer-grinders, table fans and other household appliances at a cramped shop in the western city of Pune. On better days, he picks up broken LED lights from scrap dealers, fixes them, then sells them. He earns about $50 a month, just enough to cover the rent for the room he shares with two others as his home."I haven't even started repaying my education loan," said Gurav, referring to the nearly $4,000 he'd borrowed for his undergraduate study.He is one of hundreds of thousands of engineers - studying everything from computer code to civil engineering - that India's education system churns out each year, many with large loans and little prospect of finding a job in their field.They highlight Prime Minister Narendra Modi's difficulty in fulfilling a promise he made weeks after coming to power in 2014: creating millions of jobs by boosting manufacturing under a flagship 'Make in India' project launched with much fanfare."Come, Make in India, we will say to the world, from electrical to electronics," Modi said in his maiden Independence Day speech as prime minister, pledging to create up to 100 million new jobs by 2022.NO ECHOES OF CHINA BOOMFour years on, the programme's impact on job creation is unclear and growth in the manufacturing sector has been sluggish, partly due to a lack of land and labour reform.India's unemployment rate rose to 7.2 per cent last month, up from 5.9 per cent in February 2018, according to data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) think tank. The figures are more recent than government data and many economists regard them as more credible.The data, which is an estimate based on household surveys, shows 31.2 million people were actively looking for jobs in February this year, said Mahesh Vyas, the CMIE managing director. It did not have a breakup for engineering or technology graduates.With more than half of India's population under 25 years of age, critics say the votes of jobless youth could hurt Modi's chances of securing a second term in the upcoming general election to be held in April-May.The increasing use of automation in industry, the massive number of young Indians coming onto the job market, and the regulatory hurdles that companies still face if they want to set up shop in India, are all big issues for those without work.The manufacturing boom that helped China in the past 40 years will not wash up on India's shores. Companies can no longer afford to just rely on cheap labour: they need skilled labour and better infrastructure to drive technological innovations and increase productivity.Employers often complain about the lack of skilled engineering and technology graduates, said Varun Aggarwal, an electrical engineer and co-founder of the skills assessment firm Aspiring Minds. Its surveys show over 80 percent of the engineers India produces are not employable. The employability has not improved in seven years, Aggarwal said."The numbers have just not budged," he said. "Many can't even write basic code.""We need to start there, at the beginning of the education system," said Aggarwal.The IT industry had long been seen as a gateway to the middle class in India, but a move to robotics and artificial intelligence has replaced some positions. The business process outsourcing industry – seen as a stable provider of "offshore" jobs – added the least number of employees in seven years in 2017-18 (April-March), according to the trade body Nasscom.LACK ENGLISH SKILLSAt a recent job fair organised by a college in the town of Chinchwad in western India, Gurav was among hundreds queued up to apply, including dozens of engineers, even though most companies were hiring for marketing and finance positions.Many came from rural areas where they studied in regional languages, and lacked strong English skills – another gap that recruiters say India's education system needs to address.Ankush Karwade, 22, who travelled 80 miles (130 km) to reach the fair, said his father was a farmer and the family couldn't fund him to earn an undergraduate degree. He did a shorter and cheaper diploma course in engineering."I watch some English movies and read the newspapers to improve, but most employers want graduates," he said. "They (also) want English speaking skills, which I don't have."Gayatri, a 24-year-old woman who goes by one name, gained a master's degree in engineering four months ago, under pressure from her parents. She said she had wanted to continue her education in Indian classical music."My father wanted me to do engineering, so I did it. Now there are no jobs," she said. A company at the fair offered her a customer service position that would pay about $140 a month."Can you believe it?" she said. "I didn't get this degree to sit at a call centre."Jobless engineers are not a new problem and "miniscule" in comparison to the millions of farmers dissatisfied over weak crop prices, said Himanshu, an associate professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University who also uses one name.Still, they represent a lot of untapped potential.Fixing household appliances is not what Gurav expected to do as a graduate. "I could find work at a call centre, but it's not what I want to do," he said. He may soon be forced to reconsider though as his father is due to retire next year and the family will need the money.For now, Gurav plans to continue to do the repairwork – but is too ashamed to tell his friends about it, he said, and refused to be photographed at the shop."If people see me working there they might think I'm unskilled. But I have skills. I am passionate about this field." Source: ET
Where BJP already left Congress miles behind After months of meeting, holding rallies and supping together, Opposition parties are still grappling to craft a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) to take on Narendra Modi and BJP in the April-May Lok Sabha elections.While the announcement of the election schedule has spurred efforts to seal deals in not-so-contentious areas like Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Maharashtra, one key Union territory and one key state continue to pose problems for a one-on-one fight across the country. One is Delhi, where Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress have locked horns on seat-sharing. The other is Uttar Pradesh, where Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance are staring each other down in a war of nerves.Both Delhi and UP are critical to the Opposition's fortunes. UP has numbers and gave BJP a sweeping victory in 2014 when it won 73 of the state's 80 seats. Delhi has only seven seats, but it punches above its weight because it's the seat of power, and whatever happens here grabs eyeballs nationally. The two regions form the bedrock of a unified Opposition challenge. If the Opposition seems to be in disarray on polleve, it's because players here have failed to sink their differences, as of now.BJP could not have hoped for a better start to the long election campaign ahead. Not only has it found a narrative after the February 14, Pulwama terrorist attack, but also the Opposition is divided in key Hindi heartland states, the latter being a definite advantage. Multi-cornered contests tend to favour BJP as recent elections have shown, most notably the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the 2017 UP assembly elections, where the ruling party did handsomely.The Opposition's inability to get its act together is perplexing, especially after BJP went full throttle with the 'nationalism' plank to snuff out troublesome bread-and-butter issues that were dominating the discourse and had put the ruling party on the defensive. It was always going to be difficult to stitch up a unified opposition front of parties with long-standing rivalries and bitter state-level enmities. But as late BJP stalwart and prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi proved in recent years, it's not an impossible task.No Progress With CongressSmaller regional parties have emphasised time and again that the onus for stitching up an opposition front rests with Congress. It is, after all, the largest opposition party with a national footprint. It may or may not be acknowledged as the leader of the front, but it most definitely has to be its pivot simply because of its size and pan-Indian presence.Crafting a coalition needs skill, pragmatism and a large heart. Rahul Gandhi's Congress seems to lack all three. It's understandable that the Congress president feels compelled to fight for space to revive his decaying party. Unfortunately, the Grand Old Party seems unable to shed its Big Brother attitude towards regional players. Its recent victories in three BJP-ruled states have only reinforced its inflated perception of its ground strength.Consider how much Vajpayee stepped back in 1999 when he built a NationalDemocratic Alliance (NDA) coalition of 24 vastly different parties for the Lok Sabha election that year. He was at the peak of his popularity at that time, having just won the Kargil War against Pakistan. His main opponent, Congress, was wracked by dissensions with stalwarts like Sharad Pawar and Purno A Sangma leaving on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin.Yet, Vajpayee insisted on adding new allies to NDA, although it meant that BJP had to sacrifice 44 seats to accommodate them. His generosity paid off. NDA swept to victory.In 2004, Sonia Gandhi took a leaf out of Vajpayee's book as she geared up to fight a triumphalist BJP armed with the 'India Shining' slogan. She not only walked across to Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Ram Vilas Paswan's residence to persuade him to join the Bihar alliance, but she also put aside years of suspicion about Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its links to Rajiv Gandhi's assassins, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to join hands with the south Indian party in Tamil Nadu.The alliances she forged changed the course of the Lok Sabha election that year. Vajpayee's BJP lost and Congress was back in power at the head of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government after eight years in political wilderness.Coalition to Demolition ManIt is ironic that while Rahul Gandhi's Congress seems to be reluctant to learn from history in a high-stakes election, Modi has shown no such inhibitions. He has sealed alliances wherever possible with an alacrity that flies in the face of the perception that he is not a coalition man. Like Vajpayee before him, he has made the BJP sacrifice seats for its allies. And with ruthless pragmatism, he has ignored past insults heaped on him by Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar and Shiv Sena boss Uddhav Thackeray to stack up numbers for NDA.Optimists in the Opposition camp continue to cling to the hope that all is not lost, and that Congress will eventually come around under sustained pressure from drivers of opposition unity like Pawar, Mamata Banerjee and N Chandrababu Naidu. Perhaps, the last word rests with Sonia Gandhi. Source: ET
SBI under fire for hiding RCom's real picture Mumbai: An appellate tribunal slammed the lenders of Reliance Communications (RCom), especially the State Bank of India, for painting a rosy picture of the Anil Ambani-owned telco's asset sale plan, which had turned out to be false, and questioned why action shouldn't be taken against the joint lenders group.The two-member bench of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), headed by Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya, Monday said, "You have failed. JLF (Joint Lenders' Forum) has failed. No sale took place". Further, the bench asked as to why "proceedings against them (lenders) should not be initiated" for misleading the tribunal by giving a "golden outlook" to recover around Rs 37,000 crore from sale of assets – to Reliance Jio Infocomm – but no such sale has taken place. 68367111 "You clapped with RCom and claimed that you would recover around Rs 37,000 crore from sale of assets to Reliance Jio...," said the bench. The bench reacted sharply to SBI's refusal to release income-tax refunds received by RCom to clear the Rs 453 crore that the operator needs to pay Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson by March 19. SBI said it can't release the funds till it gets clearance from all lenders."Why not give effect to the orders of the Supreme Court? Sending someone (Anil Ambani) to jail will not solve the problem before us," the bench observed. The Supreme Court on February 20 held RCom chairman Anil Ambani in contempt for not paying Ericsson its dues worth Rs 571 crore, including interest, despite having the money to do so and directed the telco and its units to pay the operational creditor the money in four weeks. Failing this, Ambani would go to jail for three months. RCom has already deposited Rs 118 in the apex court.Arguing for RCom in the NCLAT on Monday, senior counsel Kapil Sibal said that the telco needs to pay Ericsson its dues by March 19 and the income tax refunds of around Rs 260 crore held by SBI should be deposited to the Swedish company directly. Sibal was assisted by lawyer Mahesh Agarwal.But SBI refused to do so, prompting the bench to say that after failing to get money from sale of assets, the lenders are now trying to recover Rs 260 crore from the refunds.NCLAT will next hear the matter on March 12. SBI is the lead banker in a consortium of 37 banks and financial institutions which are seeking to recover their dues from RCom. Ericsson is an operational creditor.SBI, which didn't respond to ET's emailed queries, was represented by senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul. Ericsson, which too was present in court on Monday, was represented by senior advocate Anil Kher.RCom, under a debt of over Rs 40,000 crore, is simultaneously battling another case with HSBC Daisy and other minority shareholders of tower unit Reliance Infratel, which have filed a contempt petition against Anil Ambani over unpaid dues of Rs 232 crore.The top court on Monday disposed the petition on the grounds the matter is already pending in the NCLAT. The appellate tribunal is scheduled to hear the matter on March 27. Source: ET
Make every Delhiite pay Yamuna cess: Vijay Dev Chief secretary Vijay Dev has asked Delhi Jal Board to start the process of levying environmental compensation of Rs 100-300-500 per household. In a meeting of the National Green Tribunal-appointed monitoring committee on Yamuna, the top bureaucrat of the city government "expressed displeasure at the delay and directed the CEO DJB to pursue levy of sewage charges by following the most feasible alternative without further loss of time".In 2015, holding every Delhi resident responsible for polluting the Yamuna, the NGT had ordered every household to pay a certain amount each month as environment compensation ranging between Rs 100 and Rs 500. However, not a single penny has been collected as authorities are yet to initiate the collection process."It was informed by the members of the monitoring committee that levy of environmental compensation (EC) under Polluters Pays Principle was a direction of National Green Tribunal for all households, irrespective of whether they lived in a sewered or unsewered area. However, the Delhi Jal Board is yet to comply with the said directions issued in 2015," minutes of the meeting held last week states.According to the monitoring committee, merely because subsidy for sewage treatment has been subsumed in the water subsidy cannot be a ground that households pay nothing for the treatment of sewage generation and avoid paying anything."This was happening even in the case of upscale colonies, which could not be the intention of the policy. Besides, DJB had reported that the Delhi government had decided to levy flat charges of Rs100/300/500 sometime in 2015 but this was not given effect to because a conduit for collection of the sewage conveyance charges was not decided," it said.The committee informed Dev that NGT had already been apprised of the reluctance of DJB to implement this direction, and this would become an important issue for recording non-compliance of the tribunal's orders when the next report is sent in early May. Source: ET
L&T bags orders worth Rs 1,000 cr- Rs 2,500 cr from power T&D projects Larsen & Toubro's construction arm has bagged orders worth Rs 1,000 cr- Rs 2,500 cr for power transmission and distribution projects, the engineering major said on Tuesday. L&T Construction will execute these engineering, procurement, and construction orders in India and abroad.The orders include construction or substations and transmission lines connected to the ring network being implemented to ensure uninterrupted power supply for Andhra Pradesh's new capital city, Amaravathi.It also won orders from the 2nd phase of Bangalore Metro for building a substations and infrastructure to connect it to the grid station. L&T bagged another order to execute the power sypply system and SCADA works for Mumbai Metro Line 7 project. The company also bagged an order from the foalting solar power project at Visakhapatnam Smart City, and another order from a solar power generator in Tamil Nadu. In the United Arab Emirates, an order has been bagged for the construction, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of a 132/11kV Substation and its associated works, the company said. Source: ET
PE Baring nears deal to buy NIIT Tech, values co at $1.2 billion BENGALURU: Buyout investor Baring Private Equity Asia is nearing a deal to acquire NIIT Technologies at a slight premium to the prevailing market value. Baring has lined up financing support from four global banks as it looks to clinch the deal, valuing NIIT Technologies at over Rs 8,500 crore (or $1.2 billion).NIIT Technologies' promoters Rajendra Pawar and Vijay Thadani hold 30.8 per cent stake in the IT firm that includes 23.5 per cent held by its parent entity NIIT Limited. The Pawar and Thadani family trusts own 3.5 per cent each in NIIT Tech.The transaction would trigger the mandatory open offer to buy an additional 26 per cent from public shareholders, taking the deal size to well over $600 million. 68367082 Baring's offer is likely to come in a range of Rs 1,300-1,380 a piece after the promoters upped the asking price following a robust set of quarterly numbers. This is an 8 per cent to 15 per cent premium over NIIT Tech's sixmonth weighted average price of Rs 1,200 a share. The share closed at Rs 1,328 a piece on the BSE on Monday — up 1.1 per cent in a rising Mumbai market, with mcap at Rs 8,200 crore.Baring, which wants to play the role of consolidator in the mid-tier IT services space, is forging ahead after evaluating a recent bid to buy into Mindtree. The Asian buyout specialist already owns Hexaware Technologies. With NIIT Tech's stock running up 21 per cent in the past three months, the deal looks imminent. Baring has initiated the due diligence process, sources said.When TOI contacted NIIT Tech on the matter, the company said it doesn't have any comments to offer and there is nothing to report. Baring did not offer any comments either.Baring, a Hong Kong-based private equity major, could explore synergies between Hexaware and NIIT Tech. The latter gets 27 per cent of its business from travel and transportation, while the former gets 40 per cent of its business from banking and financial services.Several mid-tier companies in IT services have been targets of private equity investors and strategic suitors in recent years. Blackstone bought Mphasis, HCL acquired Geometric and Baring bought Hexaware. L&T is expected to soon announce the buyout of Mindtree.Mid-tier IT firms, with their focus on domains and platform-led capabilities, have generally outperformed their larger peers. In the December quarter, these firms clocked 15.2 per cent y-o-y growth compared to 7.8 per cent by larger peers. Source: ET
Better-than-expected power tariff policy to give NTPC a boost ET Intelligence Group: The new Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) tariff regulations for the period 2019 to 2024 are better than what the Street anticipated. NTPC, India's largest power producer, would be the biggest beneficiary given that it has the maximum share in the country's power agreements.Analysts expect NTPC earnings to rise up to 8 per cent FY20 onward against earlier concerns of earnings downgrades if the regulations were not in favour.NTPC shares have gained 15 per cent in the past one month in anticipation of positive regulations after the draft proposal was made in December.Shares of Power Grid and NHPC have also gained 10 per cent and 6.3 per cent, respectively, in the same period. While the new regulations are only marginally positive for power transmitters, the Street is relieved that the new proposals do not contain major negatives.From all the regulations, the most prominent and impactful regulations include no reduction of equity for older plants, permission to allow pass through of coal handling losses, incentives on making higher power generation during peak hours, and higher allowance on the operational and maintenance expenses.According to the previous guidelines, power plants that surpassed their useful life (generally 25 years) had to reduce their equity to the extent of depreciation. Given that power is charged at a tariff arrived by considering a fixed return on equity, reduction in equity would lead to lower realizations for the generator. As the oldest power producer, NTPC has more than 20 per cent plants that are beyond useful life, according to analysts.The regulator also allows recovery of O&M expense of 8-10 per cent, for both power generator and transmitter, also a positive for Power Grid. The producer will also get incentives of up 65 paise per unit in peak hours and 50 pasie on nonpeak hours if the capacity utilization is more than 85 per cent.Another positive is that the regulator has allowed the loss of 85Kcal per gross calorific value coal between unloading and firing point. Earlier, the generator had to bear the loss on fuel damage from unloading to firing point leading to under recoveries.While there are certain negatives too, the positives far outweigh them. For instance, NTPC alone will save Rs 700 crore to Rs 900 crore annually from FY20 onward, according to the analysts.On Monday, stocks of three state owned power companies NTPC, Power Grid Corp of India and NHPC closed at Rs 151.3, Rs 194.4 and Rs 25.3. Consensus target prices for these stocks are Rs 187.3, 226.7 and 27.6, according to Bloomberg. Source: ET
Managing Risks: The bank-able isn't always invest-able By Somnath MukherjeeThe IL&FS default in September 2018 brought the issue on the frontburner. Issues with Loans Against Shares (LAS) bonds of the Zee and Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADAG) group promoters since the beginning of 2019 kept the fires burning. The appropriateness of mutual funds (MFs) investing in illiquid corporate bonds has been pulled into sharp glare, yet again.This has been seen several times before – in recent years with MF investments in Amtek Auto, several NBFCs, certain housing-finance companies etc.Over the past few years, the government and regulators have been trying to diversify sources of systemic credit away from traditional sources like banks (and NBFCs). MFs have been a resounding success story of that effort. Fixedincome MFs manage over Rs 11lakh crores in AUM today, and offer a significant alternative to corporate borrowers.There is a fundamental issue though – what is bankable credit need not necessarily be "investable" instruments, because banks are fundamentally and structurally different from mutual funds.CAPITAL MISMATCH ISSUEIt is important to understand the basic issue around MFs donning bank hats while making investment decisions. To start with, banks are heavily capitalised institutions (compared to MFs). For every ?100 loan extended, it has to upfront set aside ?9 as capital.Further, loan loss provision norms start kicking in the moment the loan starts developing material signs of stress. As a result, banks tend to have capital cushions and buffers to handle loan losses when they happen, which also gives them the flexibility of evergreening loans should they think the stress is merely situational and temporary.Conversely though, MFs have no such capital buffers. When they invest in a bond, it is out of unitholders money parked with the fund. Consequently, if there are delays or defaults in any bond, the net asset value (NAV) of the fund needs to be marked down to reflect the economic reality.However, post a delay or default, if an MF decides not to mark down the NAV appropriately, but evergreens the bond (bank-style), it is leaving open multiple questions of appropriateness and fairness.Without provisions or capital buffers, evergreening represents hope of a future resolution. If the resolution does not come through and finally the fund has to take an NAV markdown, investors who exited the fund till the markdown happened would end up being subsidised by investors who decided to keep being invested in the fund.THE LIQUIDITY MISMATCH ISSUEBank loans are structurally and inherently illiquid.On the other hand, bank deposits (including fixed deposits) are almost fully liquid and available on call at all times.To manage this liquidity mismatch, banks have structural buffers built in – permanent capital (in the form of equity), central bank reserves (in the form of Cash Reserve Ratio), minimum levels of risk-free securities (in the form of Statutory Liquidity Ratio).These allow banks to continue honour reasonable "calls" from their depositors while maintaining an otherwise illiquid loan book.MFs, on the other hand, have no such buffers. Open-ended MFs are available on call to its unitholders for redemptions. If investments made by the MF are in illiquid assets, claims by unitholders (redemptions) during periods of even a very minor stress could be difficult to meet.Selling liquid parts of the MF portfolio to meet redemptions leave existing investors even more vulnerable to future shocks. Above all, even at AAA/AA levels of the corporate bond market, liquidity tends to dry up very quickly during periods of stress.This means there are significant risks of snowballing impact of even minor unitholder exits during a stress situation.VALUATION ISSUESBecause of the illiquid nature of the corporate bond market, the fundamental variable of the MF, its NAV often rests on nebulous estimates of bond prices.First, many corporate bonds are thinly traded, which means that the traded prices are not an accurate reflection of the real price that would be discovered by an investor if/when she hits the market with a meaningful (to her) order.Second, for many other bonds, even an imperfect market price is absent. This leaves MFs to value those bonds according to theoretical valuations provided by ratings agencies. Like any mark-tomodel exercise, this exposes the MF to significant tail risks in price discovery – models seldom manage to price in real price impact during periods of macro (or micro) stress.The issue again is posited against the open-ended nature of the MF instrument. Unitholders have a call on the MF for daily liquidity basis a specific published price (the NAV), while the price itself stands on very nebulous legs.Fundamentally, not all risks that can be underwritten by banks (or lending institutions) can be invested into by MFs. Long periods of benign credit environment, high fund inflows have forced certain types of perhaps-bankable-but-not-investable investments into the MF universe.In his classic The Master and Margerita, author Mikhail Bulgakov says that absurdities will always exist, and putative cures might themselves have absurdities that are worse than the original condition.Thankfully, in this case the cure need not have the same absurdities as the condition – SEBI's "sidepocketing" rules, eg, provide a good regulatory solution to some of the issues.It is important for all stakeholders to be vigilant though, in order to ensure, paraphrasing Bulgakov again, that Manuscripts don't burn – manuscripts being investor confidence in this case!(Author is Managing Partner, ASK Wealth Advisors. Views expressed are personal) Source: ET
PE Baring nears deal to buy NIIT Tech, values co at $1.2 billion BENGALURU: Buyout investor Baring Private Equity Asia is nearing a deal to acquire NIIT Technologies at a slight premium to the prevailing market value. Baring has lined up financing support from four global banks as it looks to clinch the deal, valuing NIIT Technologies at over Rs 8,500 crore (or $1.2 billion).NIIT Technologies' promoters Rajendra Pawar and Vijay Thadani hold 30.8 per cent stake in the IT firm that includes 23.5 per cent held by its parent entity NIIT Limited. The Pawar and Thadani family trusts own 3.5 per cent each in NIIT Tech.The transaction would trigger the mandatory open offer to buy an additional 26 per cent from public shareholders, taking the deal size to well over $600 million. 68367082 Baring's offer is likely to come in a range of Rs 1,300-1,380 a piece after the promoters upped the asking price following a robust set of quarterly numbers. This is an 8 per cent to 15 per cent premium over NIIT Tech's sixmonth weighted average price of Rs 1,200 a share. The share closed at Rs 1,328 a piece on the BSE on Monday — up 1.1 per cent in a rising Mumbai market, with mcap at Rs 8,200 crore.Baring, which wants to play the role of consolidator in the mid-tier IT services space, is forging ahead after evaluating a recent bid to buy into Mindtree. The Asian buyout specialist already owns Hexaware Technologies. With NIIT Tech's stock running up 21 per cent in the past three months, the deal looks imminent. Baring has initiated the due diligence process, sources said.When TOI contacted NIIT Tech on the matter, the company said it doesn't have any comments to offer and there is nothing to report. Baring did not offer any comments either.Baring, a Hong Kong-based private equity major, could explore synergies between Hexaware and NIIT Tech. The latter gets 27 per cent of its business from travel and transportation, while the former gets 40 per cent of its business from banking and financial services.Several mid-tier companies in IT services have been targets of private equity investors and strategic suitors in recent years. Blackstone bought Mphasis, HCL acquired Geometric and Baring bought Hexaware. L&T is expected to soon announce the buyout of Mindtree.Mid-tier IT firms, with their focus on domains and platform-led capabilities, have generally outperformed their larger peers. In the December quarter, these firms clocked 15.2 per cent y-o-y growth compared to 7.8 per cent by larger peers. Source: ET
India's engineers struggle for work as job crisis worsens CHINCHWAD: Santosh Gurav gained a bachelor's degree in technology from a mid-tier college in western India last year, specialising in electrical engineering and hoping to land a job in industrial automation.Six months on, the 27-year-old repairs mixer-grinders, table fans and other household appliances at a cramped shop in the western city of Pune. On better days, he picks up broken LED lights from scrap dealers, fixes them, then sells them. He earns about $50 a month, just enough to cover the rent for the room he shares with two others as his home."I haven't even started repaying my education loan," said Gurav, referring to the nearly $4,000 he'd borrowed for his undergraduate study.He is one of hundreds of thousands of engineers - studying everything from computer code to civil engineering - that India's education system churns out each year, many with large loans and little prospect of finding a job in their field.They highlight Prime Minister Narendra Modi's difficulty in fulfilling a promise he made weeks after coming to power in 2014: creating millions of jobs by boosting manufacturing under a flagship 'Make in India' project launched with much fanfare."Come, Make in India, we will say to the world, from electrical to electronics," Modi said in his maiden Independence Day speech as prime minister, pledging to create up to 100 million new jobs by 2022.NO ECHOES OF CHINA BOOMFour years on, the programme's impact on job creation is unclear and growth in the manufacturing sector has been sluggish, partly due to a lack of land and labour reform.India's unemployment rate rose to 7.2 per cent last month, up from 5.9 per cent in February 2018, according to data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) think tank. The figures are more recent than government data and many economists regard them as more credible.The data, which is an estimate based on household surveys, shows 31.2 million people were actively looking for jobs in February this year, said Mahesh Vyas, the CMIE managing director. It did not have a breakup for engineering or technology graduates.With more than half of India's population under 25 years of age, critics say the votes of jobless youth could hurt Modi's chances of securing a second term in the upcoming general election to be held in April-May.The increasing use of automation in industry, the massive number of young Indians coming onto the job market, and the regulatory hurdles that companies still face if they want to set up shop in India, are all big issues for those without work.The manufacturing boom that helped China in the past 40 years will not wash up on India's shores. Companies can no longer afford to just rely on cheap labour: they need skilled labour and better infrastructure to drive technological innovations and increase productivity.Employers often complain about the lack of skilled engineering and technology graduates, said Varun Aggarwal, an electrical engineer and co-founder of the skills assessment firm Aspiring Minds. Its surveys show over 80 percent of the engineers India produces are not employable. The employability has not improved in seven years, Aggarwal said."The numbers have just not budged," he said. "Many can't even write basic code.""We need to start there, at the beginning of the education system," said Aggarwal.The IT industry had long been seen as a gateway to the middle class in India, but a move to robotics and artificial intelligence has replaced some positions. The business process outsourcing industry – seen as a stable provider of "offshore" jobs – added the least number of employees in seven years in 2017-18 (April-March), according to the trade body Nasscom.LACK ENGLISH SKILLSAt a recent job fair organised by a college in the town of Chinchwad in western India, Gurav was among hundreds queued up to apply, including dozens of engineers, even though most companies were hiring for marketing and finance positions.Many came from rural areas where they studied in regional languages, and lacked strong English skills – another gap that recruiters say India's education system needs to address.Ankush Karwade, 22, who travelled 80 miles (130 km) to reach the fair, said his father was a farmer and the family couldn't fund him to earn an undergraduate degree. He did a shorter and cheaper diploma course in engineering."I watch some English movies and read the newspapers to improve, but most employers want graduates," he said. "They (also) want English speaking skills, which I don't have."Gayatri, a 24-year-old woman who goes by one name, gained a master's degree in engineering four months ago, under pressure from her parents. She said she had wanted to continue her education in Indian classical music."My father wanted me to do engineering, so I did it. Now there are no jobs," she said. A company at the fair offered her a customer service position that would pay about $140 a month."Can you believe it?" she said. "I didn't get this degree to sit at a call centre."Jobless engineers are not a new problem and "miniscule" in comparison to the millions of farmers dissatisfied over weak crop prices, said Himanshu, an associate professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University who also uses one name.Still, they represent a lot of untapped potential.Fixing household appliances is not what Gurav expected to do as a graduate. "I could find work at a call centre, but it's not what I want to do," he said. He may soon be forced to reconsider though as his father is due to retire next year and the family will need the money.For now, Gurav plans to continue to do the repairwork – but is too ashamed to tell his friends about it, he said, and refused to be photographed at the shop."If people see me working there they might think I'm unskilled. But I have skills. I am passionate about this field." Source: ET
Two held for running job racket, promising jobs in Mahindra & Mahindra The arrested duo has been identified as Vipin Yadav (19) and Mohit Yadav (21), both residents of Rohini in New Delhi and natives of Uttar Pradesh.
Maharashtra: 27-yr-old farmer tries to commit suicide outside Mantralya The victim, identified as Vinayak Balasaheb Vedpathak, hails from Osmanabad district.
Dream for 'House for All' in Ahmedabad delayed by 2 to 3 months In the proposal, more than 6800 units are planned to construct under different categories at the cost of more than Rs 500 crore
Shiv Sena sees members coming in, going out On Monday, Sharad Sonawane, the lone MLA of the rival Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) jumped ship to the Shiv Sena.
DNA EXCLUSIVE: Prashant Kishor prepares Shiv Sena's roadmap for victory in 23 seats Kishor's agenda is to give a detailed plan citing weaknesses and strengths of the saffron party in 23 seats and suggest measures to fill the gaps, focus on its strengths and expand its base.
"25 years and no compensation in hand. Is it a joke?", says 1993 blasts survivor Ajmera has written to the prime minister, chief minister of Maharashta, the state home department, chief secretary and local political authorities.
Ahmedabad: Man steals jewellery worth Rs 19.43 lakh from uncle's shop The complainant, Bhavarlal Soni, told police that his nephew, who used to work with him, stole the valuables and fled to Rajasthan
Juhu, Khar to get respite from floods this monsoon The BMC had already appointed a new contractor after the previous contractor was shown the door over delays.
