India and Japan prime ministers meet in Tokyo India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, is meeting his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, in Tokyo to discuss economic and security ties, on his first major foreign visit since winning May's election. Mr Modi is on a five-day trip to Japan to strengthen economic ties with the third largest economy in the world. High on the agenda are plans for greater nuclear co-operation. India is also reportedly hoping for a deal on defence collaboration between the two nations.

FANO Russia will hold a final Expert Session The Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations (FANO Russia), in joint cooperation with RAS, will hold the third Expert Session on “Evaluating the effectiveness of activities of scientific organizations”. The gathering will be the final one in a series of meetings held by the agency over the course of the year, reports a press release delivered to the editorial offices of Lenta.ru. At the third meeting, it is planned that the results of the work conducted by the Expert Session over the past year will be presented and that a final checklist to evaluate the effectiveness of scientific organizations will be developed. In addition, participants at the event plan to discuss the rules for forming an expert panel, which is responsible for evaluating the work of scientific groups, as well as the criteria for carrying out evaluations. The third Expert Session will be the final meeting in a series of events on the formation of a unified approach for all three academies to the evaluation of the effectiveness of activities of scientific organizations. Over the past five months, we were able to achieve this, and the final version of the regulatory documents is undergoing approval. According to the plans for the upcoming session, we should complete the development of procedures for scientometric and expert analysis, and come to an agreement on the stages and timeframes for the evaluation process”, said the Head of FANO’s Expert-Analytical Department, Elena Aksenova. Representatives from more than one hundred Russian scientific institutes will take part in the event. It is expected that a resolution will be adopted based on its results. The meeting will begin at 10 am, Moscow time, on September 16, 2014, at the following address: 14 Solyanka Street, Moscow.

Scientists have found a way to detect related stars Astrophysicists from the University of California, Santa Cruz have studied turbulent mixing and its effect on chemical homogeneity in star clusters. It is expected that the experts’ discovery will make it possible to search for stars that are related to one another, that is to say, those stars that emerged from the same cluster. The authors published the results of their study in the journal, Nature, but one can briefly get acquainted with them on the university’s website. The reason for the homogeneous chemical composition of adjacent stars turns out to be turbulent mixing in the gas clouds where stars are created. Even if the newly formed star later leaves the star cluster, its chemical composition will make it possible to determine its place of birth and the region where related stars were formed. Previously, scientists had doubts that the evolution of a star outside of a cluster could result in differences in its chemical composition compared to related stars in a cluster. The results of the simulations conducted by the astrophysicists prove that such differences should not occur. The experts used a supercomputer in their research to simulate two streams of interstellar gas, which combined to form a cloud. Over the course of several million years and under the force of its own gravitational pull, the object turned into a cluster, in which protostars began to form. The scientists added indicating dye to the original gas streams and determined that the high level of chemical homogeneity was a result of the fast turbulent mixing in the cloud. The astrophysicists believe that their study proves that it’s possible to look for related stars on the basis of chemical composition, as well as to determine the possible regions where these objects were formed.

Karratha police arrest 20-year-old after high speed motorcycle chase A motorcycle has been seized after it was ridden at 125km/h in a 70km/h zone and through bushland to escape police in the Pilbara. Traffic police on patrol in Karratha this morning tried to pull over a blue motorcycle when they spotted it reaching 125km/h as it pulled out of a service station on Bathgate Road. Police say the rider then failed to stop and continued on to Burgess Road before turning into bushland, causing the officers to lose sight of it. The motorcycle and a person matching the description of the rider was then spotted at a house on Walcott Way in Bulgarra. Karratha Police have charged a 20-year-old man with failing to stop and reckless driving. He is due to appear in Karratha Magistrates Court on September 23. The motorcycle was seized and impounded for three months.

The academic school year in the DPR will begin no earlier than October The academic school year in the DPR will not being on September 1, given that only 10% of children are in the region. The Minister of Education and Science for the self-proclaimed republic, Igor Kostenok, reported this. According to him, 11% of school children left for other regions in Ukraine, and 20% for Russia. Instruction in schools within the territory controlled by the DPR will begin no earlier than October 1. However, teachers will start back to work on September 1.

The investigation into the TU-204 accident at Vnukovo in 2012 has been completed The Investigative Committee of Russia has completed its criminal investigation into the Tu-204 airplane accident at Vnukovo Airport in December 2012. The ICRF reported this today. “The Moscow Interregional Investigative Department for Transport of the Investigative Committee of Russia has completed its criminal investigation into charges initiated in relation to the crash of the Tu-204 aircraft owned by Red Wings airline company at Vnukovo Airport on December 29, 2012, for an offense under Paragraph 3, Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: the violation of traffic safety rules and operation of air transport involving negligence that results in the death of two or more individuals”, the agency’s statement reads. The failure of the crew to comply with standard procedures and a high-speed approach on the landing turned out to be the cause of the crash.

George Webster accused of Nairn and Pitlochry hotel rapes A man is to stand trial accused of raping women at two hotels. George Webster, 28, faced the charges during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow. He is alleged to have raped a woman at the Scotland's Hotel in Pitlochry in Perthshire on June 7, 2013. It is claimed Webster attacked her while she was "unconscious, asleep and incapable of giving consent." Webster is then charged with raping a second woman at the Golf View Hotel in Nairn in the Highlands on May 4, 2014. Judge Lady Rae set a trial date for November 17 at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Lavrov: Russia will not “slam the door” in the face of new sanctions and will not leave the WTO Russia will not “slam the door” in the face of new sanctions. This was stated by the head of Russia’s MFA, Sergei Lavrov, while speaking in front of students and faculty members at MGIMO University. I won't even expound on or indulge in fantastical thinking about our counter measures in the event of a new wave of anti-Russian sanctions, because everything should be specifically calculated, he said. And when we understand what our European and American partners are worthy of this time around, that is when we will make a decision about how to respond. It will not be connected with door slamming, or some falsely understood grievances, the minister emphasized. We, first and foremost, will be guided by our interests, interests to protect our economy, social sphere, our citizens, our business sector, and we will draw conclusions from our partners’ actions on the basis of their appropriateness, ability to come to an agreement, and reliability. On the basis of the steps that have been taken in the area of sanctions, it’s possible to soundly judge what our partners are trying to accomplish”, the head of the Russian MFA continued. If they are shouting at the top of their lungs that ‘they will also be sanctions for us, but we have to take such measures in order to punish Russia’, this is probably not very appropriate.” As far as Russia’s leaving the WTO in response to potential new sanctions is concerned, the answer is no. On the contrary, we want to more actively master the WTO instruments, including when the issue concerns trade disagreements, Lavrov stated. We have already used this instrument in order to overcome what we see as discriminatory policies by the EU in the area of antidumping procedures. According to the minister, Russia has been accused of dumping, and, as such, antidumping measures have been taken against sectors of the Russian economy. “We are also prepared to use WTO mechanisms in order to defend our position against introducing the norms of the EU’s third energy package retroactively”, Lavrov said.

How to effectively use lilacs in garden design? Irina Okuneva answers our questions: Since lilacs loose their nice appearance once they have dropped their flowers, it is a good idea to plant them together with other bushes. They fit very nicely with many plants. Moreover, one can and should plant lilacs beside both plants that bloom at different times and those that bloom at the same time as it. Another bonus of lilacs is that they offer so many opportunities to get creative. You can shape them into a standard tree of various heights, an attractive bush, a bush with a wide base, or even into something resembling a garden bonsai tree with a whimsical bent stock. Just pick out the shape that works best with the design of your garden.

A resident of Leningrad Oblast is convicted of passing counterfeit money in Karelia The Republic’s Ministry of Internal Affairs reports that the man conducted his criminal business in the Olonetsky and Segezhsky districts. In addition to Karelia, he committed similar crimes in other regions of the country. Notably, the accused already had managed to leave tracks in Vologda Oblast, where, in the spring of this year, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Later on, the man appeared before the Olonetsky district court. At the end of the investigation into crimes committed in our republic, he was sent via prisoner transport to Segezha. During the process of the inquiry, guilt was established in several instances of passing counterfeit money during the summer of 2013. At the end of June of this year, a criminal case file with an indictment was sent to court. On Friday, August 29, the court announced a ruling to change the term of incarceration to four years served in a standard regime penal colony. The sentence hasn’t taken legal effect. To recall, last week two other individuals who were passing counterfeit money, which was used by them to pay for things in stores in Petrozavodsk, were convicted. The citizens of Azerbaijan also arrived in Karelia from Saint Petersburg. One of them received a prison sentence of five years, and the other, four years. Each of them was ordered to pay a fine of 500 thousand roubles. The sentence has likewise not yet entered into legal force.

The 73rd anniversary of the arrival of the first Dervish Convoy was observed in Arkhangelsk The rally, which was held in the regional centre, was dedicated to the first Arctic convey. The Dervish delivered military aid from the USA and Great Britain to the USSR. The remembrance ceremony in Arkhangelsk took place at the foundation stone for the future monument to participants in the northern convoys, which is located on Sedov Embankment in Solombala. Representatives from Arkhangelsk’s veteran organizations and children from a cadet troupe gathered at the event. The first time we came together was twenty-three years ago when the foundation stone was laid. At the same time, today’s events are not a celebration, but rather a day of remembrance for those who never returned from sea”, noted the Chair of the Council of Veterans for the Northern Shipping Company, Boris Karpov. After that, the city’s military band performed at the event, and members from the cadet troupes presented flowers to the veterans and marched with the Russian flag and the Victory Banner. The rally ended with the placing of flowers at the foundation stone. The convey itself was comprised of five English vessels and one Dutch transport ship, which were loaded with strategically important materials (10,000 tonnes of natural rubber, 1,500 tonnes of regulation boots, tin metal, and wool, and a variety of other gear and equipment). Moreover, military equipment and weapons were also on-board the vessels – 3,800 depth charges and magnetic mines and 15 disassembled Hurricane fighter planes. As such, the convey escort consisted of 16 British navy ships, including two aircraft carriers. The convoy of vessels was not intercepted by the enemies and safely made it to its destination – Arkhangelsk. Of the 848 ships that took part in the operation of these vitally important convoy missions, 126 transport ships and approximately 50 warships were destroyed.

A festival of amateur film will take place as a part of Amur Fall KinAmur, a festival of amateur film, will run from September 10-12, in Blagoveshchensk, as a part of the Amur Fall festival. Local film enthusiasts will be able to take part in workshops and screenings at the festival of theatre and film. On September 10, participants of KinAmur will take part in a workshop on famous directors, creative meetings, and a screening of the shorts: “Goodman” (Chelovek-dobro), “Heading into the Orange” (Ukhodya v oranzhevyi), and “Mother Lynx” (Arys-pole). On September 11, there will be a special showing of “A flame under the board” (Ogon’ pod doskoi), by Amur director, Semyon Rudenko. On September 12, there will be a gala closing of the KinAmur festival, where a summary will be presented and the winners of the festival will be announced. The amateur film competition will have several categories. The first to compete will be the animated films: 3 animated films were chosen for the festival. In total, 11 authors will participate in the festival. Next year the participants plan to be featured on a national level, reports the city administration’s press service.

Reconnecting With the Very American Ideal That Labor Rights Are Human Rights Congressmen Keith Ellison and John Lewis have proposed legislation to protect union organizing as a civil right. "As go unions, so go middle-class jobs," says Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who serves as a Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair. That's why I'm proud to introduce the Employee Empowerment Act with civil rights icon John Lewis. This ground-breaking legislation will give workers the same legal options for union organizing discrimination as for other forms of discrimination - stopping anti-union forces in their tracks Amending the National Labor Relations Act to allow workers who face discrimination for engaging in union organizing to sue for justice in the civil courts - and to collect compensatory and punitive damages - is a sound and necessary initiative. But it in certainly not a radical initiative - at least by American standards. Indeed, the best way to understand what Ellison, Lewis and the cosponsors of their legislation are proposing is as a reconnection with a very American idea. Despite the battering that unions have taken in recent years - in Wisconsin, Michigan and states across the country - Americans once encouraged countries around the world to embrace, extend and respect labor rights. There was a time, within the living memory of millions of Americans, when this country championed democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to organize in the same breath. When the United States occupied Japan after World War II, General Douglas MacArthur and his aides encouraged the country to adopt a constitution designed to assure that Hideki Tojo's militarized autocracy would be replaced with democracy. Fully aware that workers and their unions had a role to play in shaping the new Japan, they included language that explicitly recognized that "the right of workers to organize and to bargain and act collectively is guaranteed." When the United States occupied Germany after World War II, General Dwight David Eisenhower and his aides urged the Germans to write a constitution that would assure that Adolf Hitler's fascism was replaced with muscular democracy. Recognizing that workers would need to organize and make their voices heard in the new nation, the Germans included a provision that explicitly declared: "The right to form associations to safeguard and improve working and economic conditions shall be guaranteed to every individual and to every occupation or profession. Agreements that restrict or seek to impair this right shall be null and void; measures directed to this end shall be unlawful. When former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the International Commission on Human Rights, which drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that would in 1948 be adopted by the United Nations as a global covenant, Roosevelt and the drafters included a guarantee that "everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests." For generations, Americans accepted the basic premise that labor rights are human rights. When this country counseled other countries on how to forge civil and democratic societies, Americans explained that the right to organize a trade union - and to have that trade union engage in collective bargaining as an equal partner with corporations and government agencies - had to be protected. Now, with those rights under assault in America, it is wise, indeed, to recommit to the American ideal that working people must have a right to organize and to make their voices heard in a free and open society. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said fifty years ago: History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them. History remembers, as should we. The formal recognition of labor rights as human rights - and the extension of civil rights protections to prevent discrimination against labor organizing - is long overdue. Keith Ellison and John Lewis are renewing ideals that have historically enlarged America and made real the promise of democracy.

Judge temporarily blocks law that could close all Louisiana abortion clinics A U.S. federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked enforcement of a Louisiana law that advocates say would likely have closed all five abortion clinics in the state. The measure, signed into law by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in June and due to take effect Sept. 1, would require doctors who perform abortions to have patient admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their practice. However, the judge's ruling means that for the time being doctors can continue to perform legal abortions while seeking such privileges. "Plaintiffs will be allowed to operate lawfully while continuing their efforts to obtain privileges," Federal Judge John deGravelles wrote in the decision. A hearing will be scheduled within a month for the judge to make a more permanent ruling on the law. Abortion rights activists applauded the decision, the latest in a string of rulings against similar measures, saying it would give doctors more time to seek hospital privileges. "Today's ruling ensures Louisiana women are safe from an underhanded law that seeks to strip them of their health and rights," said Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued to block the law on behalf of three of the state's five clinics. It was not immediately clear whether the ruling applied to doctors from the two clinics who were not plaintiffs in the suit and have also applied for admitting privileges. Louisiana is among 11 states that have passed similar laws, with courts recently ruling unconstitutional such measures in Alabama and Mississippi. Key parts of a Texas law that would have shuttered most remaining clinics in that state were blocked by a federal judge on Friday. Abortion rights campaigners, along with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, say admitting privileges laws impose medically unnecessary requirements on doctors. Anti-abortion advocates have countered that the measures aim to protect women's health, though some have also lauded their effect of shuttering clinics. Only one doctor who performs abortions in Louisiana has hospital admitting privileges, the Center for Reproductive Rights said. If all other doctors in the state are forced to stop performing abortions, that doctor, fearful for his safety, would stop carrying out the procedure, the group said. In arguing against the ruling, Louisiana officials said they would not punish doctors performing abortions while their applications for admitting privileges were pending.

What will be the effect of the introduction of quotas on domestic goods No less than half of goods of every kind of item available in retail chain stores should be made in Russia, reckons State Duma Deputy, Oleg Nilov, from the, A Just Russia, faction. The parliamentarian has prepared a bill aimed at introducing protectionist measures for domestic manufacturers, writes the newspaper Izvestia. The document will still undergo revision to avoid negative impacts on consumers. It concerns goods that are not manufactured in Russia […]. For other types of goods, those that are manufactured in Russia, retailers will be obliged to make no less than half of their shelves available to domestic producers”, Nilov informed the publication. Along with amendments to the law “On the basis of state regulation of commercial activity in the Russian Federation,” the bill requires the introduction of changes to the tax code, by decreasing the VAT rate to 10% upon the sale of goods produced in Russia. The idea to introduce a 50% quota in retail chain stores is part of a package of stimulus measures for Russian producers. The amount of domestic goods that will appear on store shelves will increase severalfold. However, the initiative may have both a positive and negative effect, experts say. According to Sergei Litvinenko, lawyer for the company, Nalogovik, and a member of Public Duma, an independent expert centre, the effect on the Russian economy, as well as for the domestic agricultural and the food industries, will be positive and will lead to growth. Agricultural producers, farmers, and small stores stand to gain. They will be able to sell more, and that means that their profits will increase. Furthermore, they will receive the right to dictate their prices and conditions to retailers, since retailers will be obliged to buy their goods. Russian producers will be able to increase the scope of their operations and the volume of their sales, which will result in the payment of higher taxes than before. This will increase fiscal revenues and create new jobs, certain industries will start to expand, some will find their feet faster than others, and it will contribute to GDP growth. Russia’s dependence on foreign foodstuffs will decline severalfold, but, of course, not immediately”, the expert notes. Previously, Russian businesses were frequently unable to get their goods onto the shelves of local stores as a result of the high level of competition from foreign competitors. Now, after the introduction of the embargo, this niche has been freed up and it’s possible to breathe a little more easily. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that, after all of the necessary agreements and sanitary inspections have been completed, food commodities produced in Latin America, Turkey, and Serbia will hit the Russian market. In other words, a "moment of calm" is at hand, when the previous players have already left, and the new ones haven’t yet arrived. After almost a month, it is possible to talk about an increased demand for domestic raw materials, as well as higher prices on finished products”, Tamara Kasyanova (PhD Econ.), First Vice-President of the All-Russian Public Organization, Russian Club of Financial Directors, told AiF.ru. Without a doubt, the idea of selling a minimum of 50% of Russian food products in every category will make it possible to secure this sector for local producers. In this case, they will be competing with each other, and not with goods that cost less as a result of subsidies from a different state. In other words, competition for consumers will take place between companies that are doing business according to the same industry laws. On the other hand, Kasyanova notes, Russian producers are far from being able to meet 50% of the domestic needs of their compatriots in all respects. And in a situation like this, retail chain stores will have to “strive” to ensure that at least half of their product assortment is comprised of Russian goods. Accordingly, there is a growing fear that poor quality products will find their way onto store shelves. It’s possible that foreign goods that are relabelled to make them appear as if they were made in Russia will be supplied”, the expert added. Large retail chains will feel a negative effect from the introduction of quotas, especially those who find it advantageous to collaborate with importers. It is logical that, in a situation like this, foreign suppliers themselves will also suffer, since demand for their products will decrease. Litvinenko doesn’t discount that the law on quotas could also have an impact on consumers. The fact is that some Russian-produced goods may be of a lower quality than their imported equivalents, and, as such, stores may jack up the price of the latter products, as if they were scarce commodities. Import substitution, an idea that had been forgotten about since the beginning of the 2000s, was once again being talked about by economists in February of this year, as a result of the relentless devaluation of the rouble. Now, against the backdrop of difficult relations with the West, the issue of renouncing imported goods is becoming ever more relevant. The law is intended to require retailers to reckon with domestic producers when placing orders with suppliers. In this way, we will be on the road to import substitution much more quickly and with greater confidence, and a system for planning the production of essential types of goods will be created in a shorter period of time”, says Deputy Oleg Nilov. The quota mechanism will be especially effective for those agricultural sectors where the potential is particularly great, for example, in the dairy industry, where the share of imports amounted to 25%. Our farmers are entirely capable of wholly filling the shelves of Russian stores. More over, meat production could also receive a powerful boost. As is well known, beef maintains the highest import rate – from 30 to 35%. This means that 65-70% still comes from Russian output”, Kasyanova reasons. Experts support the opinion that the introduction of quotas for domestic goods will contribute to import substitution and may accelerate the process. However, this one initiative on it’s own will not give rise to import substitution, considering that a whole set of measures is needed for that, Litvinenko is certain. In any case, this initiative still allows for 50% of goods sold to be imported from abroad, and that means that wholesale import substitution will not take place, but a significant step in that direction will be accomplished. After all, it’s not enough to establish quotas; we also need to get the production of domestic goods in this country back on track in order to fulfil those quotas. These quotas will in fact provide such guarantees”, the expert asserts.

Delayed diagnosis and inability to access best treatment mean ovarian cancer kills more in rural areas Angelina Jolie and her brother James have posted a video tribute to their late mother who died of Ovarian cancer in 2007. Women living in rural Australia are at higher risk of dying from ovarian cancer than their city counterparts. Researchers analysed medical records of more than 1100 Australian women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005, finding just 35 per cent lived for five years after diagnosis. Lead researcher Susan Jordan, of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, said those living in regional and remote areas of the state were about 20 per cent more likely to die during the study than those in urban areas. SMALL STUDY: New drugs may slow lung, ovarian cancer The researchers tracked the women's medical journeys across seven years. Dr Jordan said a woman's age at the time of diagnosis, ovarian cancer type, having existing illnesses and socio-economic status also impacted on survival chances. Older women and those whose cancer was more advanced at the time of diagnosis had the poorest survival rates. Those living in regional and remote areas of the state were about 20 per cent more likely to die during the study than those in urban areas. Although the study was not designed to determine why women living outside the city were more likely to die from ovarian cancer, Dr Jordan suggested delayed diagnosis and inability to access best treatment might be factors. "This disease is best treated by gynaecological oncology surgeons and they're mostly based in major cities," she said. Despite improving tele-medicine services to lessen the tyranny of distance, she suggested more fly-in, fly-out services to allow specialists to treat women closer to home and programs to support people in treatment away from their communities could help. Dr Jordan said regardless of geographical status, the study found long-term survival among women with ovarian cancer was poor, reinforcing the need for better treatment and prevention strategies. The research, funded by the Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer cancer, will be published today in the Medical Journal of Australia. In March 2012, at 33 years of age, young Gold Coast mum Elisha Neave was told that she had an aggressive form of ovarian cancer.

The doors to the new rural medical and obstetrical centre in Kuzhenersky district will open in September Construction of the medical facility in the rural community of Toktaibelyak commenced in April of this year and was carried out according to the standard plan. The cost of the project amounted to slightly more than 10 million roubles. As reported by the Communications Department of the Head of Mari El, financing for the construction of the project was administered using funds from the Republic’s budget, in accordance with the targeted investment programme. The total area of the finished prevention and treatment facility amounts to almost 230 square meters. Medical assistance will be provided to the residents of eight residential communities here: the rural community of Toktaibelyak and the villages of Dementevo, Pyuncheryumal, Tunya, Fomichi, Toraibelyak, Shinur and Chashkayal. The new rural medical and obstetrical centre will replace the existing centre; the old building was erected in 1918, and has already long since exhausted its value, in fact, the interior does not meet sanitary requirements. The new facility will open in the near future.

The female resident of Novocheboksarsk who killed her four-month old son in a drunken state will appear in court The female resident of Chuvashia will appear in the dock for the murder of her own son. In Cheboksary, a criminal investigation in relation to the 31 year-old female resident of Novocheboksarsk, who was charged with negligent homicide, has been completed. The investigation found that, on July 26 of this year, the accused and her four-month old son arrived at a birthday party for her godmother’s child in Cheboksary. After a lengthy feast, the female resident of Novocheboksarsk decided to stay the night and put her child to bed. When the baby woke up and started crying in the middle of the night, the inebriated woman put him beside her on the bed in order to nurse him, however, she quickly fell asleep. While she was sleeping, the woman rolled on top of her son, causing him to die of suffocation. The criminal case has been sent to court, reports the press service of the Office of Investigations of the Russian Investigation Committee for Chuvashia.

Inflation has returned from vacation. Will Russian citizens feel a sharp rise in prices Inflation in Russia will accelerate and exceed the government’s earlier forecast, as a result of reciprocal sanctions between Russia and the West, analysts from VTB Capital are convinced. According to experts, the delayed ramifications of the anti-sanctions will lead to inflationary shock in the first quarter of 2015, RBC Daily writes. As per the most recent forecast from the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, inflation in 2014 will amount to 6.5-7.5%, and will be even less next year, at 6.5%. However, according to information from Kommersant newspaper, the MEDT is supposed to make “small, but fundamental” corrections to its macroeconomic forecast up until 2017. According to the publication’s information, the agency may lower the inflation estimate for 2015, which will make it possible to eliminate the expected zero-growth in household incomes. The forecast assumed that Russia’s sanctions on food commodities would last for one year, up until August 2015. How was it possible to anticipate such high inflation in a situation like this? The current situation suggests a one-time shock, but the overall downward trend in inflation remains unchanged,” claims the newspaper’s source in the Ministry of Finance. Economists from VTB Capital do not share the expectations of the government’s financial economic bloc regarding inflation, and forecast an increase in prices of around 8% in 2014. The main impact of the food bans will come into effect at the same time as the possible introduction, in 2015, of a sales tax throughout the Russian Federation, experts are convinced. An inflationary peak of 9% will come in February, after which the annual rate of inflation will start to fall, experts suggest. Incidentally, last week Rosstat summed up the first inflation data since Russia introduced its “measured sanctions”. AiF.ru polled the experts and found out what their expectations are for inflation. Artem Deev, Head of the Analytical Department at the financial company, AForex: A rise in prices can already be seen within the core segment of goods. Moreover, when socially significant goods started to increase in price, the government was forced to enact measures for the systematic monitoring of price stability in order to avert the risk of an unreasonable increase in prices in the short-term. Suppliers and retailers are already reporting to regulatory agencies on a daily basis so that the authorities know precisely who is triggering a rise in prices, when it is happening, and on what grounds. The colossal rate of capital flight, the exorbitant refinancing of the Russian banking sector by Russia’s mega-regulator, domestic conversion as a result of the population’s run on foreign currency, as well as the embargo on the import of foodstuffs from countries that have joined the sanctions against Russia, continue to be key factors in the rising consumer price index. If inflationary pressures had remained under control, then the cost for the minimum basket of goods would not have jumped by 12% in just one quarter. The embargo on the import of foodstuffs provoked a supply shock on the internal market and led to an entirely rational increase in final costs. Since, at this stage, we will not be able to fully implement an import substitution plan or increase the self-sufficiency of the Russian market through domestic production, reciprocal sanctions will continue to carry a risk of increasing inflationary elements. If we then include fiscal factors associated with the lack of confidence in the national currency, as well as the worsening prospects for economic growth, then by the end of this year, inflation could very well exceed 8%. Aleksandr Razuvaev, Director of the Analytical Department at Alpari In the 1990s, inflation sometimes reached 20-30% a month, and, in the 2000s, it was still higher than the current level, but this was quite a different matter given that inflation was offset by rapid economic growth. I think that by the end of the year, inflation will be at 8-8.5%. Platon Maguta, Asset Manager for Maguta Fund management company The external factor, connected with the sanctions against Russia, has so far been contained, but if further pressure is applied, most critically, to the financial sector, then it could lead to significant difficulties and increase the public’s inflationary expectations, which usually, and traditionally, manifest in the purchase of foreign exchange cash in order to safeguard one’s savings. One can expect that the government, the Russian Central Bank, and the Ministry of Finance will attempt to mitigate the continuous weakening of the rouble by using market measures and government regulation. But prices traditionally start to rise after the summer lull, and it is possible that this fall it will become even more perceptible. The target level of 7.5% for consumer inflation in Russia will likely stand, given that the Russian Federation still has financial savings at its disposal.

Garden centres rue fall in homeowners The drop, coupled with a particular decline in the number of homeowners aged under 35, could result in garden centres losing out on tens of millions of pounds a year when today's young consumers reach the "core gardening age group," according to the HTA's study, which was reported by the Financial Times. According to the report, people renting properties spend an average of 55 per cent of the amount that those with their own homes spend on their gardens. It cited the rise in people living in highly urbanised areas with no gardens, the popularity of paving over front gardens for parking and shrinking garden size as other factors threatening the industry, which is worth an estimated £5 billion in sales each year. Greater London, where home ownership has fallen from 61 per cent to 43 per cent in six years, has Britain's lowest spend per household on gardening products. The HTA and Royal Horticultural Society said that renting property or a lack of garden space did not mean people could not grow plants. Guy Barter, chief horticultural adviser to the RHS, said: "Container gardening, for example, is especially popular with renters who can move their plants when they relocate." The HTA report identified the period between 1997 and 2005 as the garden retail sector's 'golden age" as a result of increased home ownership and economic prosperity from the late 1980s to mid-1990s. It also predicted an improved market this year due to better weather following unfavourable conditions in March and April last year.

The Ministry of Agriculture of Bulgaria has conducted a massive purge of the Agriculture Fund Three of the four bosses of the Agriculture Fund had already been replaced by Friday. In total, three of the four bosses of the Agriculture Fund had already been replaced by Friday. The Ministry of Agriculture of Bulgaria only officially reported the removal of Acting Director, Atanas Dobrev, from his position. Lozan Vasilev filled his position. It emerged that two of the three deputy acting directors of the Fund were quietly replaced on Friday. Deputy Acting Director, Tatiana Angelova, who up until that time was responsible for government assistance and the SAPARD programme, was relieved of her duties, reports BGNES with reference to Trud newspaper. I was not a part of the Fund’s Board of Directors, because, according to the law, we are not senior executives, but I was later informed that I had been relieved of my duties. I can’t say why, nothing is mentioned about my dismissal on the Fund’s website. I am currently on vacation. I hope that I can find out more on Monday", Angelova told the publication. Her position will be filled by Ivanka Bagdatova, who previously was the Head of the Investment Loans Unit at the central fund of the Agriculture Fund in Sofia. Deputy Acting Director, Nikolai Dachev, was also relieved of his duties. Up until the present, he was responsible for direct subsidies for fields that were paid for by the EU. His post will be filled by Zhivko Zhivkov, who was Head of the Regional Directorate of the Agriculture Fund in the city of Veliko-Tarnovo until January 2014. Only Deputy Head of the Fund, Atidzhe Alieva-Veli, retained her position. She is currently responsible for the Development of Rural Districts Programme. The official reasons for all of the changes to the agency have not been announced.

Turkey Summons US Diplomat Over Spying Report The Turkish foreign ministry has summoned the most senior U.S. diplomat in the country for clarification of a report about American and British spying in Turkey. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent said the U.S. charge d'affaires and Turkish officials had discussed the report Monday. German magazine Der Spiegel and the online magazine The Intercept said that documents provided by former U.S. National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden show that Turkey was a high priority intelligence target for U.S. and British intelligence services. According to Turkish news wires, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan downplayed the importance of the report, saying that all major countries spied on each other. An earlier report that Germany's main intelligence agency had also targeted Ankara drew a more angry response from the Turkish government.

The largest Chinese companies have joined forces against Alibaba Chinese companies, including the largest developer of commercial real estate in China, Dalian Wanda Group, and the Internet giants, Tencent Holdings (social media, messenger, and others) and Baidu (the largest Chinese search engine), are creating a company that will compete in the online retail market with Alibaba. However, it won’t be easy to catch up with the miracle of the Chinese Internet, which has already surpassed even its American competitors – eBay and Amazon.com. Union of the largest The companies plan to invest 5 bln. yuan ($814 mln.) into their joint venture, of which 70% will belong to Wanda and 15% will belong to each of the Internet companies, a statement by Wanda Group says. It is planned to register the firm in Hong Kong. The joint venture will combine the search services of Baidu with Tencent’s popular social platform, WeChat (the largest social media site in China, with close to 438 mln. users), and Wanda’s infrastructure. In addition to its chain of 40 fashionable hotels, the Wanda Group controls a minimum of 49 commercial real estate facilities throughout China and 40 shopping centres. Last year, the company invested 50 bln. yuan (more than $8 bln.) into the construction of a film studio and a theme park in Qingdao (a city in the east of China on the coast of the Yellow Sea). It is expected that the project will attract more than 1 mln. visitors every year and turn a profit of approximately $960 mln. In addition to this, Wanda owns the American AMC Entertainment Holdings movie theatre chain, making the company the largest movie theatre operator in the world. By 2015, Wanda plans to outfit all of its shopping centres, hotels, and recreational facilities with e-commerce services, the development of which Alibaba, now established as a competitor, will also be engaged in. According to Dun Tse, who heads the new company, as a result of the merger, Wanda will be able to increase the number of users for its e-commerce services from the current 40 mln. individuals to already 100 mln. by next year. The new framework should become the largest online-to-offline platform in the world, notes Dun Tse. The essence of online-to-offline (O2O) commerce is to attract online buyers to go to regular off-line stores or buy other traditional services. A classic example of O2O includes coupon retail services like Groupon or Vigoda.ru. “O2O – is the largest ‘pie’ in online commerce”, stated Chair of Wanda, Wang Jianlin (quoted in Bloomberg). “Currently, no real O2O platform exists in China, and, in a situation like this, everyone’s chances are pretty much equal”, he believes. The Chinese Internet sales market is the largest in the world, and, according to an analysis by McKinsey & Co., its value will grow threefold by 2015 in comparison to 2011, up to $395 bln. The number of Chinese Internet users has grown to 632 mln., information that Bloomberg cites from the official statistics, which is larger than the population of any country in the world, except India. Furthermore, according to forecasts, by 2015 this number already may rise to 850 mln. people. Union of the richest Until recently, the Head of Tencent, Ma Huateng, was the wealthiest person in China, however, according to Bloomberg’s index of millionaires, the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, has already surpassed him by $5.5 bln. Jack Ma’s wealth is valued at $21.8 bln., $11 bln. of which can be attributed to his share of Alibaba. The Head of Baidu, Robin Lee, currently holds third place among the wealthiest people in China, with Wang Jianlin in the fourth spot on the ranking. “It’s really interesting to follow this battle: three of the wealthiest people joining efforts to through down the gauntlet to an even wealthier person,” the Director of the Chinese E-Commerce Research Centre in Hangzhou, Cao Lei, told Bloomberg. But he doubts that the new company will be able to seriously compete with Alibaba immediately following its creation: “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. The fact that Alibaba is not so easy to compete with, not only for new companies, but also for established leaders in global e-commerce, is confirmed by the report published yesterday on Alibaba’s finances for the last quarter. Alibaba is often described as something in between eBay and Amazon.com, but from April to June, the Chinese company earned more than both American companies combined. Alibaba’s net profits for the period are almost twice as high as the similarly summarized figures of their competitors – it rose almost threefold on an annualized basis and amounted to $1.99 bln. “Alibaba still holds huge potential to generate money, thanks, in great part, to its mobile apps,” an analyst from Hong Kong’s Arete Research Service commented in the Bloomberg report. According to Alibaba’s updated prospectus on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, there were 188 mln. active users of the company’s mobile services in July, which substantially exceeds its figures for March (163 mln. people). Moreover, 32.8% of all of Alibaba’s transactions over the past quarter were made through mobile apps. Alibaba will have to set the price of its shares ahead of its IPO. According to the average estimate of 11 analysts polled by Bloomberg, the company may be valued at $187 bln. after the sale of its shares. According to the information of Bloomberg’s sources, Alibaba’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) may happen already on September 16. The company’s roadshow ahead of this event will commence on September 3. It is anticipated that Alibaba’s IPO will set an all-time record on the NYSE and will enable the company to attract around $20 bln. Until now, the record for the largest volume of investment attracted to a US stock exchange belonged to Visa payment system, which first offered its stocks in 2008, making $17.9 bln. on the deal.

No less than half of food products in retail chains should be produced in Russia, reckon State Duma deputies. They have drafted a bill on this issue. The issue at hand concerns the introduction of amendments to Article 8 of the Federal Law “On the principles of state regulation of commercial activity in the Russian Federation” and to the Tax Code. The goal of the document is to introduce protectionist measures for Russian producers of foodstuffs. An important specification, according to the bill, is that no less than 50 percent of every type of good in stores must be domestically produced. However, the document will take into account that there are products that are not produced in Russia, for example, fruits and vegetables in the winter, and, as such, a “rebate” will be applied to them to avoid causing possible discomfort to consumers. The bill will simultaneously introduce changes to Russia’s Tax Code, by lowering the VAT rate to 10% upon the sale of all food products that have Russia as their country of origin, reports Izvestia newspaper. On August 27, a bill, concerning the introduction of amendments to the Federal Law “On retail markets”, was introduced in the lower chamber of parliament, which proposes to reintroduce farmer’s markets in Russia, where small-scale producers would be able to sell their products.

Magaluf police chief charged over corruption The claimants presented proof of extortion by policemen and Calvià Town Hall civil servants at Mallorca's public prosecutor's office on Friday. The head of Calvià police on the holiday island of Majorca has been arrested following corruption claims filed by businessmen and bar owners in the notorious binge drinking hotspot of Magaluf. Chief Inspector José Antonio Navarro has been remanded in custody following corruption claims made against him by several businessmen from Punta Ballena, the street where most of Magaluf's bars and nightclubs are located. According to online daily Mallorca Diario, the claimants presented proof of extortion by policemen and Calvià Town Hall civil servants at the office of Majorca's anti-corruption prosecutor on Friday. Two other local police officers were arrested by Spanish Civil Guards in connection to the corruption claims and will have to be questioned by a judge alongside Navarro. Spanish national daily ABC reported the disgruntled nightclub owners as saying favouritism by authorities was having a serious effect on their businesses. "It's not about making money anymore, it's about surviving," one of the businessmen told the court. You don't mess with our livelihoods. We have nothing to lose. Magaluf made international headlines this summer as a result of a viral YouTube video which showed an 18-year-old British holidaymaker performing fellatio on 24 men during a pub crawl. Island authorities have since attempted to clamp down on the drunk and disorderly behaviour of Magaluf holiday revellers by minimizing numbers on the notorious alcohol-fuelled bar crawls. In addition, the Playhouse club where the fellatio incident took place was forced to shut down for a year, while Playhouse and the bar crawl organizers Carnage were jointly fined €55,000 ($73,000). The tourist resort of Magaluf, mainly popular with young British holidaymakers, has also seen numerous alcohol-fuelled accidents involving the craze known as "balconing," where people jump from one balcony to another or from a balcony into the hotel pool.

First day of spring marked with wet and blustery conditions impacting Adelaide Airport flights SPRING has sprung a wintry surprise on southern South Australia, bringing heavy showers and strong winds that have affected flights at Adelaide Airport. A further 5mm of rain fell on the city in the evening up to 9pm, following the 6.6mm that fell overnight on Sunday. The latest rain came courtesy of a couple of short, blustery showers, including a burst that started just before 8pm that dumped almost 4mm in about 10 minutes. After winter delivered an early dose of spring last week, temperatures dropped again on Monday to a high of just 15.8C in the city. The squally conditions are believed to have contributed to the delayed landing of a Virgin Airlines flight from Melbourne to Adelaide. The plane was scheduled to land just after 7.30pm but was hit by windshear - a sudden change in wind speed or direction over a short distance - and was forced to pull out. Wind gusts were reaching about 50km/h on the ground at Adelaide Airport at the time. Flight data showed the plane had to pull out of second landing and the plane eventually touched down about 8.40pm. That flight's delay caused the subsequent delay of a few other flights, including an Emirates flight from Dubai and a Qantas flight from Sydney. A top of 16C is forecast for Adelaide on Tuesday, with the chance of a shower or two.

The calculation of budgets for construction projects in Russia will be done in a different way The Federal Antimonopoly Service is taking special control of issues related to price determination and regulation of the construction industry, as well as problems connecting to networks. An expert council on the development of competition in the sphere of construction has been created within the AMS. At a meeting, the Head of the Department for the Control of Housing and Public Utilities, Construction, and Natural Resources of the AMS, Vadim Solovev, stated that “the current method for calculating budgets for construction projects is absolutely incomprehensible”. The regulatory framework makes the determination of prices non-transparent and could lead to unsubstantiated construction costs, the AMS reckons. They are suggesting that construction costs for government-owned facilities should be determined at the design stage on the basis of market prices for design concepts instead of the currently employed estimate standards and unit costs for operations. These proposals have been formulated as a “road map”, which is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Construction. “The replacement of traditional cost estimating documents in construction with calculations of structural components should lead to less corruption in the industry, Vadim Solovev explained to RGB. After all, right now every bolt and nut is calculated into the estimate, and it’s not always possible to check it all, and, as such, every now and then, unethical construction companies can bury “a whole tractor” in the documents. The Ministry of Construction is in agreement with the AMS. “The first achievements in the transition to cost calculations of structural components are now ready: methodologies for calculating costs for design concepts and the budgeting process using these indicators have been developed”, the Head of the Department for City Construction Activities and architect with the Ministry of Construction, Elena Zhukova, told RGB. The road construction industry has been chosen to pilot the project. However, experts consider that the problem is much more serious. As the Head of Profi-Invest construction company, Anatoly Demyanko, told RGB, the estimate norms have been out of date for quite some time, but no other mechanism has been offered to businesses thus far. “As for the proposed cost calculation of structural components, it will be difficult to implement in practise, since the construction of buildings often requires the use of totally different technologies”, he declares. It’s no secret that the construction industry is developing in large part thanks to state contracts. According to Ekaterina Lezina, Chair of the Board for the NPO, Expert Community of State Contract Professionals, right now, the state is the most solvent client. Vladimir Malakhov, Deputy Director of Engineering at the Industry Expertise Centre for Capital Projects at Rosatom, drew attention to the fact that today’s market is basically divided into companies that have access to a portfolio of contracts, and those companies that possess a monopolistic area of expertise and refuse to let any competitors into that field. He believes that the creation of a transparent market is only possible under the condition that access to contracts will be fully protected from somebody else’s control. At the Expert Council, it was proposed that the system of government orders be set up so that the same contractor would not be allowed to receive more than one contract valued at more than 1 bln. roubles or several contracts valued at more than 1 bln. roubles. The Ministry of Construction is under the impression that this approach needs to be evaluated from the perspective of its impact on business and the effectiveness of construction management. As Elena Zhukova explained, in a case like this, it would be necessary to entrust the client with the functions of the prime contractor, which would lead to an increased number of staff for the client, as well as an increase in budgetary expenditures to maintain them. Moreover, the client’s specialists would have to possess the knowledge required to assess the quality of work completed by contracted organizations, as well as its safety. Oftentimes, with this type of set-up, it would be necessary to determine who will bear responsibility for the safety of the project as a whole. Furthermore, this approach might lead to an outflow of highly qualified personnel from state procurement contracts as a result of a lack of interest in receiving a state order for only part of a project and a low value contract. Deputy Head of the expert-consulting centre, Public Procurement Institute, Aleksandr Yevstashenkov, believes that, right now, the procedure for state contracts has turned into a professional test of a contractor’s attention to detail. He offered the following example: “upon filling-out an application for tender, a participant must provide ‘concrete indicators’ without using the words: ‘or equivalent’, ‘should be’, ‘up to’, ‘more than’, ‘less than’, ‘analogue’, ‘or’, ‘a type’, ‘a similar type’, ‘not lower than’, ‘lower than’, ‘higher than’, ‘may’, ‘may have’, ‘may be’, ‘earlier’, ‘not earlier’, ‘not higher than’, ‘not permitted’, and so forth. In this way, clients often abuse their right to establish the content requirements for the application given to contracting organizations. Another problem with Federal Law 44, according to Yevstashenkov, was the requirement to once again assess the quality of work at the application submission stage through a “paper” proposal by the participant. But in considering a participant’s application, it is really only possible to assess the contractor’s qualifications, and not the quality of work, which hasn’t even commenced yet, the expert reckons. The quality of work can only be assessed once it has been completed. At the Expert Council, it was also suggested that marginal revenue be transferred from the upper to the lower echelon in order to remove interim contractors. The Chair of the Expert Council, Official Secretary, and Deputy Director of AMS, Andrei Tsarikovsky, believes that this shouldn’t be done, because the general contractor should be in-charge of the project. Otherwise, it will turn out like the line from the famous satirical skit by Arkady Raikin, “At the Tailor’s”: “Do you have a complaint about the buttons?”.

Israeli Children Return to School After Gaza War Thousands of Israeli children in areas near the Gaza Strip went back to school Monday after spending the summer in bomb shelters as rockets and mortars rained on their communities during the 50-day Israel-Hamas war, while schools in Gaza remained shuttered as the territory recovered from the fighting. The start of school brought a sense of joy and excitement to rocket-scarred communities in southern Israel, but the signs of the fighting remained fresh. In the southern city of Ashdod, employees at the "Pashosh" kindergarten, which was struck by a rocket, removed shrapnel marks off the walls and slides ahead of the students' arrival. "We are a little scared but we are excited," said Ronit Bart, a resident of Kibbutz Saad and an English teacher in its school. A lot of children in our area really need to go back to a routine. Her 11-year-old daughter, Shani Bart, said it felt a "little bit weird" to suddenly be going back to school. "There were some difficult times and we didn't leave our houses at all," she said. President Reuven Rivlin visited the kibbutz, which is located close to the Gaza border, to offer his support. Until a cease-fire halted the war last week, thousands of residents of border communities like Saad remained indoors or left their homes for safer areas further away from Gaza to escape rocket and mortar fire. Many residents of Nahal Oz, a community close to the Gaza frontier where a 4-year-old boy was killed by a Palestinian mortar shell, are hesitant about coming back. The Education Ministry said about a dozen families still had not returned. Their children have been placed in alternate schools for the time being. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited a school in Sderot, a Gaza border town that has been hard hit by Palestinian fire. He urged the children to study hard and said "we will make sure to provide you with knowledge and provide you with security." Israel and Hamas agreed to an open-ended truce last Tuesday. The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the fighting but left key issues unresolved, such as Hamas' demand for the lifting of an Israel-Egyptian blockade of Gaza and the reopening of Gaza's air and seaports. Israel wants Hamas to disarm and the return of bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in the war. A new round of indirect talks is expected to begin later this month in Egypt. The war killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, three-quarters of whom were civilians and at least 494 children, according to Palestinian and U.N. estimates. Israel disputes the figures and estimates that at least half of those killed were militants, though it has not provided firm evidence to back its claims. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians, including a Thai worker, were killed. Hamas and other Gaza militants fired 4,591 rockets and mortars at Israeli cities during the fighting, mostly in the south. The Israeli military, meanwhile, carried out more than 5,000 airstrikes and other attacks. The Israeli attacks damaged or destroyed thousands of homes in Gaza, and an estimated 250,000 people took refuge in more than 100 U.N. schools turned into makeshift shelters. With tens of thousands of people still in the shelters and fighting still raging, education officials delayed the start of the school year last week. "I hope the school will open soon to complete our education, just like the world's children and Jewish children," said Mohammad Amara, a 13-year-old boy staying in a Gaza City school.

Housing prices have posted their strongest winter gain in seven years, according to a widely-watched gauge. The RP Data CoreLogic Hedonic home value index of Australian capital city dwelling prices rose by 1.1 per cent in August, RP data said on Monday. The rise brought the total gain over the June, July and August to 4.2 per cent, the biggest rise over the winter months since 2007. Annual growth in prices came in at 10.9 per cent, more than double the gain of the 12 months to August 2013, but the gains were not evenly spread across the country. RP Data research director Tim Lawless said Sydney and Melbourne are driving a two tier market. The RP Data figures show Sydney home prices rose by 16.1 per cent in the past year, while Melbourne's were up by 11.7 per cent. The next strongest markets were Adelaide, Brisbane and Darwin, with price rises averaging between five and six per cent. At the other end of the scale was Canberra, hit by government spending cutbacks, where prices rose by only 1.4 per cent through the year. Mr Lawless said that now spring has begun there would be a rise in listings of properties for sale over the coming few months, which would be a "real test" for the market. "Considering the ongoing high rate of auction clearance rates, a generally rapid rate of sale and the ongoing low interest rate environment, it's likely that dwelling values will rise even further over the next three months," he said.

How people live in the oldest house in Ufa There are 18 apartments in the former home of gold producers and mine owners, Evdokim and his son Ivan Demidov, located at 57/1 October Revolution Street (formerly Bolshaya Kazanskaya). The 18th century home has remained practically unchanged since it was built, except for the disrepair that is. Strangers come here as if on a tour, but the residents suffer more than they are pleased by their privilege: the right to live in the oldest home in Ufa, the walls of which remember the likes of General Aleksandr Suvorov. The exact date of house’s construction is not clear, but historians point to two dates: 1730 and 1737. In either case, it works out that the building is just shy of 300 years. There’s the old courtyard, the always-open door, the creaky staircase. The apartment doorways are close together, the walls have cracked, and the street is visible through the occasional gaps in the crumbling plaster. It seems as if everything is hanging on by a thread. But the local residents insist: “It doesn’t just seem that way to you – it really is that way”. It’s difficult living in a wooden home from the 18th century, says Tatiana Lukyanova, resident of Apartment No.3. The building is on the state’s list of protected structures, but no money has been allocated for its upkeep for several decades, and we feel as if we are pieces in a museum, which the authorities have simply forgotten about. The last renovation took place 40 years ago. The walls are still somewhat holding together, but the foundation has totally rotted out. Many residents still have to go outside to use the toilet, and they wash themselves once a week at the public bathhouse. How could anyone be pleased with these kinds of conditions?! The road runs directly outside of the windows, there isn’t even a pedestrian area. Tatiana moves the curtains to the side. Now it’s possible to see what before was only audible: right outside the windows, traffic rushes past. See, the glass is constantly rattling, we can’t open the windows, but we’ve gotten used to the noise. A person can get used to anything, the good and the bad. Our apartment is actually a shining example, thanks to my husband; he is good with his hands. Moreover, we have two rooms, and there’s just the three of us with my son. But other families live in much worse conditions: on the second floor the ceiling is not much more than a meter and a half high. For the sake of contrast, Tatiana suggests paying a visit to her neighbour from Apartment No. 6, Lyudmila Starostina. The friendly and hospitable woman immediately offers us a cup of coffee and, with a sad smile, recounts: We have a one-room apartment, 14.5 m² for four people – this is how we live: myself and my husband, our daughter and granddaughter. I’ve lived here since I was born, we never had any other living space, Lyudmila gives us a guided tour of the room with her eyes: entresols, two sectional sofas, her granddaughter is sitting with her laptop on one of them. It’s very cramped and hardly differs from the typical domestic interior: only the ceilings are beautiful, “historic”. But the ceilings often leak – the plumbing is in a sore state. Lyudmila speaks in both a mundane and wondrous manner about her apartment, like an Italian whose home stands on Roman ruins. That is to say, combing the very old and the recent, the every-day and the legendary, into one and the same thing: The plumbing was installed around 40 years ago during the time of the last renovation. That was also when they made us a kitchen in the cubbyhole and a toilet from the former closet. We actually live right where Demidov and his family lodged, and the servants lived on the second floor. Our apartment isn’t privatized, but what’s the difference? They say that there is no point in privatizing real estate in the centre of Ufa. We would still only get a one-room apartment; we couldn’t seek any more than that. Just four months ago they promised to relocate us, but it didn’t go any further than just promises. I’m not used to complaining and I won’t do it. A whole dynasty has lived in this apartment (room!): my grandmother and grandfather, my mom and dad, my husband and I, and my daughter and granddaughter. So much has happened during this time. For example, there were ginormous rats that ran all over the kitchen. Look at the walls of the wing – they’re a meter thick! They say that the mixture was made with eggs and that’s why it has been standing for so long. The house was built well, thanks to the Demidovs! It’s probably the only reason why no one yet has been killed by a collapsed ceiling or post. Only the building is still slowly dying right in front of our eyes: the house’s wooden planks and beams are rotting, the floors have caved in several times, we poured cement, but all to no avail – the mixture just seeps into the ground, like pouring it into a manhole. They say that that’s exactly it – underneath our room is a secret passageway and exit to the Belaya River, which was specially built by some old believers who lived here at one time, so that they could take refuge in case of danger. They were being persecuted. Lyudmila Starostina recalls how some historian came and pleaded with them to let him in so that he could start excavations in the apartment. And then he tried to persuade them to give him their apartment in exchange for his one-room apartment on October Avenue. Lyudmila declined the historian’s offer: What would the four of us have done in a one-room apartment? And here there’s at least a glimmer of hope that they’ll give us more spacious accommodations. You have to agree that we would have come out the losers if we had agreed to that exchange. However, the Starostin family hasn’t won anything either. Lyudmila’s biggest dream is to be relocated, and that her daughter with her 16 year-old granddaughter would be given a room of their own. In other words, that the two families are allocated a two-room apartment in place of the less than majestic ruin in which the two generations currently reside. A petite, nice-looking young lady, Olesia Karsakova from Apartments No. 11 and No. 12, shows us the second story of the house. There, in two cramped little rooms called apartments, with a total area of 23 m², lives her large family. Altogether, there are seven of us, two being children. You can see for yourself what conditions are like. The plaster is falling off in chunks and the window frames are just as bad, the walls in the kitchen and other rooms have holes that reach all the way through to the outside. The water from the tap only runs cold all year round. Having walked through the apartments of the oldest house in Ufa, it is evident that the Lavrentev couple from Apartment No. 4 are the luckiest of the lot. They reside in the most spacious rooms on the first floor. You’re right, there’s lots of space! Three people are registered at this 75 square meter premises. We reside in the very same rooms where, as legend has it, Suvorov stayed during his time spent in Ufa, says the head of the family, Aleksandr Dmitrievich Lavrentev. The ceilings are high and spacious. The only downside: everything around us is falling apart at the seams, collapsing, crumbling. The neighbours have probably already told you about this! The biggest bother for us is the floors: the wooden boards are rotten, the soil is literally coming up under one’s feet. I’ve installed props and wedges; the hall isn’t so bad, but when we’re walking in other rooms it’s like we’re riding on the swing, because it’s so shaky. Aleksandr Dmitrievich can talk about the home of the merchant, Evdokim Demidov, better than any tour guide. He treats the gold producer as if he were a relative, and talks about him admiringly. Indeed, this character had a lot going for him: the owner of the Kaginsky and Uzyansk factories built homes, cast canons and bells, and kept the Ural mines. The heirs to the merchant’s real estate take pride in their forefather, but they no longer want to live under one roof with history. I moved here when I was still a child, in the 1940s, said Aleksandr Dmitrievich. Back then there were wooden structures all around, for the carriage, stables, and watch houses, but later on they were knocked down. In 1968, they even wanted to demolish our house, but something got in the way…. History repeated itself in 2014: once again a new home beckoned. We, as if by command, collected all the documents, ran around to all of the necessary authorities, and then, suddenly, we found out that the move was being postponed until 2015 or 2016. There’s something we no longer believe in all this…. Two years ago, Lavrentev went to the Ministry of Culture for the Republic of Bashkortostan in order to find out about the fate of the house. The bureaucrats wouldn’t see the residents. They sent me from one desk to another, and then, as if in mockery, issued me a piece of paper without a signature or a stamp that said: "The Ministry of Culture is not adverse to the resettlement of the residents". I even have the sense that our house hasn’t been in the city plan for quite some time now, after all, at first it was No. 57, and then it became 57 A, and now it’s 57/1. As if they had already torn it down in the 1970s. Russian Planet contacted the Head of the Informational and Analytical Works Section of the Land Resource Department for Ufa, Vladimir Barabash. The house at 57/1 October Revolution Street is included in the programme for the resettlement of dilapidated housing. I can’t answer for the actions of bureaucrats in the 1970s, I only know that back then there was a plan to demolish all the old houses, regardless of their historical importance. Thankfully, this didn’t happen, and there is a decree from the current authorities to restore all of the historic buildings on October Revolution Street that have architectural merit, which is being successfully implemented. It is planned to resettle the residents in new apartments in the near future. According to Barabash, Italian specialists, who participated in the restoration of buildings in Venice, will restore the Demidov House. Right now, in Italy, an architectural biennial is underway, and the "Old Ufa" project is being represented there along with others. I hope that, by 2016, all of the former Staraya Kazanskaya Street will be fully resorted, the bureaucrat says. The homes will be given an appropriate appearance that corresponds with what they would have looked like before, three centuries ago. The Demidov House will most probably become a museum that will be open to the public. Furthermore, a decision has been made at the government level to make the street a pedestrian zone on weekends. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work during the week, as the city’s streets are too congested. Vladimir Barabash promises that the resettlement of those people living in the future museum will happen in 2015. However, it’s unlikely that they will end up being satisfied: their new apartments will be the same size as their current ones. However, they’ll be from a different epoch.

A forest fire has erupted in Primorye as a result of thunderstorms A dry thunderstorm caused the start of a forest fire within the territory of the Okhotnichy local forest area in the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai. The organization of a task force and resources is underway at the site of the conflagration. According to information from authorities at the regional special state-funded organization, Primorsky Airbase, conditions on the ground created by the fire require the use of airpower. Vasily Medvedev, Deputy Head of the airbase: An observer pilot on-board an An-2 patrol aircraft detected a fire, which began in a hard-to-reach area, over an area of 3 hectares. Woody debris is burning on the remnants of the old scorched forest. The overwhelming amount of debris in the area and a slope gradient of more than 45 degrees, as well as the absence of a suitable area for firefighter-troopers to land, are creating significant obstacles to putting out the fire. An Mi-8 helicopter is needed. The delivery of forces has been seriously hampered by the fact that the airbase only has an Mi-2 helicopter and an An-2 plane at its disposal. Following the detection of the fire, 4 firefighter-troopers were strategically dropped at the fire suppression site. The specialists’ main task is to put out the fire and prepare the area for the delivery of additional forces and firefighting resources. Around lunchtime, a helicopter additionally delivered 3 firefighter-troopers to the area around the village of Okhotnichy. As soon as the helicopter landing site in the area of the fire is ready, specialists will be redeployed to the fire suppression site, according to the website of the Primorsky Krai administration.

Lenny Henry: My father never hugged me. Never said "I love you" Henry was one of seven children born to Jamaican immigrants in Dudley in the Midlands in 1958. His father, who died when Henry was 19, worked in a factory and their relationship was limited. Henry is rehearsing a comedy, Rudy's Rare Records, which is based in part on an imaginary conversation with his father and has grown out of the Radio 4 series. The soundtrack is a mix of reggae and rap and the tunes are upbeat. But Henry has had to work through some difficult memories of childhood. There was "a lot" of therapy after his mother died and Henry is reflective about his relationship with his father. He was very unknowable. You never saw his face, you just heard his voice: 'Stop the noise. Leave your sister alone. Move! I want to watch the cricket. My older brothers Seymour and Hilton - who were grown-up when I was a kid - went to the pub with him and talked about things like the shape of the beer glass, the beauty of the stroke in cricket. I never had a conversation with him like that. He was this unsmiling bloke in the corner, reading the paper for a lot of my life. Recently Henry opened a foundry in Dudley and, although conditions were better than in his father's day, he got a snapshot of what life must have been like for him. It's a bit brighter now but they're dark, smoky, Stygian labyrinthine depths with bursts of flame and smoke and lots of soot. My dad used to get in the bath and just lie there and you'd hear him slowly start to sing to himself because he would wash the foundry off him. When I walked round it, I realised that he had done that for years and years to put food on the table, and my estimation of him went up. None the less, Henry emerged from a childhood stripped of parental affection. My dad never did hugging, never said, 'I love you'. It wasn't until my mum was poorly near the end of her life that we started saying 'I love you, I love you, I love you. Having a daughter of his own, Billie, with Dawn French, enabled him to share the love he missed as a child. Could you stop with the "I love you"? Just stop hugging me! Dad, I'm 22! With Dawn French. Why wouldn't I be friends with her? She's a great mum He's still very good friends with French, to whom he was married for 25 years. Dawn's a good person. Why wouldn't I be friends with Dawn? She's a great mum. Henry's own mother was diabetic. It was one of the things that killed her. So when I became very, very overweight and started getting diabetic symptoms, my doctor said, 'You've got to be radical. So I went on a big fitness thing, and I also had to go on a drastic diet to reverse the symptoms. It's very hard. And it's tedious. Nobody likes eating carrots. Henry's change in career trajectory is, perhaps, reflected in his distinguished, close-cropped beard. Since he won critical acclaim for his Othello, he has become engrossed in the theatre. Comedy of Errors followed, as did Fences by August Wilson. It's a different experience from the sitcoms and comedies that have upholstered his busy working life. He started out when he was just 16 and working at a factory. A DJ spotted him on stage doing impressions and wrote to New Faces about him. His TV career was launched in the mid-Seventies: "For quite a long time I was the only black impressionist/comedian on telly." He learnt on the job. Not only did I have to grow up in the public eye, I had to learn how to be an efficient joke-delivering mechanism between 1975 and 1985, whilst being a star, being on television and it was really difficult. Lenny on New Faces in 1975 Because his manager owned the stage rights to The Black and White Minstrel Show, a light entertainment programme in which people "blacked up," Henry found himself performing his comedy in it for five years. My family were very uncomfortable about it. I sort of wish it had never happened, but I don't regret that I did it. Although it was a weird, reprehensible position to be in, I was working in huge venues and learning how to work a crowd. But what was an "award-winning light entertainment staple of British television for years and years" was also a "grotesque parody of black people." Introducing characters who both lampooned and celebrated black British culture, Henry worked on the alternative comedy circuit in the Eighties. The first series of The Lenny Henry Show aired in 1984, and in the Nineties he was known as, among other things, chef Gareth Blacklock in the comedy series Chef!. Advertisements, documentaries, TV series and parts in films consumed his next decade but after his 2008 BBC series, LennyHenry.tv, he thought: "What are you going to do next, Len, because it all feels a bit like you're marking time or you're slightly going sideways." What came next was a Radio 4 documentary series called What's So Great About...? The first was on Shakespeare. I had a real allergy to Shakespeare. I wasn't really taught it at school properly and thought it was very much the reserve of middle-class white people with tights and a cabbage down the front. So I was very frightened of it. Everybody we interviewed on that show, Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn, Adrian Lester, Judi Dench, said, 'You should try it. Don't slag it off if you don't know what you're talking about. Get some of the words in your mouth and then you'll understand why we all love Shakespeare so much. Henry delivered 20 lines of Othello's last speech for the documentary and he was hooked. It gave me the feeling that I could do it. It's almost like I had my head put on straight for me. 'This is what it's about, it's a serious thing, take it seriously, learn your lines, do some research. So the rehearsal process was brutal and I was reading that play for months and months before we did it. And it was a success. They seemed to expect a car crash and it didn't quite happen. Soon he was starring in Comedy of Errors. Suddenly I'm at the National Theatre and I just couldn't quite believe it. There was one moment where I thought, 'Oh, you've changed."" There was a technical fault and Henry instinctively felt that it was his job to keep the audience entertained. "A little voice inside me said, 'You're going to have to do 10 minutes while they fix the computer."" Instead, the stage manager announced the performance would resume as soon as the problem was resolved. I walked off the stage and something in me went, "Oh, thank God". It's not my responsibility. I can let somebody else sort it out. 'You're in a play, stay in character."" Henry appearing in Fences at the Duchess Theatre Learning his lines for Fences was challenging. Panic's quite good, it stiffens the sinews. That was well received too, so it's like a big sign from the gods, saying, 'This is what you should be doing."" He says this, of course, in a BOOMING voice. So I'm sticking with it. I'm really loving it. I love being in a rehearsal room. Henry still has a comedian's brain, though - throughout, our conversation is broken with flashes of his humour as he slips in and out of impressions. I'm just choosing not to do stand-up because that thing of getting instant gratification from a room full of strangers I guess is kind of dangerous. If you're constantly seeking that it can lead to a brick wall. I do Live at the Apollo sometimes when I want to, but generally it doesn't float my boat like it used to. I ask whether he'll ever do another stand-up tour. The joy of sitting in a room with a director who is helping to shape a beginning, middle and end of a journey - I don't think I'll ever want to give that up. So this is his new incarnation? I think so. I like being an actor. It's good fun. You're always telling a story and that's a great place to be. I love stories. People love stories.

Kenya registers civil servants to target 'ghost workers' Kenya has started biometrically registering all civil servants in an attempt to remove "ghost workers" from the government's payroll. Employees who failed to register over the next two weeks would no longer be paid, a government statement said. The government suspects that thousands of people continue to receive salaries after leaving the civil service. President Uhuru Kenyatta pledged to curb corruption in the public service after taking office in 2013. An audit earlier this year found that at least $1m (£700,000) a month was lost in payments to "ghost workers" and other financial malpractice. The government suspects that salaries continue to be deposited into bank accounts, even after a person dies or leaves the public service, reports the BBC's Wanyama Chebusiri from the capital, Nairobi. All public servants are required to present themselves over the next two weeks at identification centres to ensure their data is captured through the biometric registration exercise, a government statement said. Anyone who failed to do so without a valid excuse would be eliminated from the payroll, it said. "This exercise will contribute significantly to the rationalization of the public service by determining the actual numbers of public servants and will also be used to cleanse the payroll at both levels of government- hence bring a stop to the issue of 'ghost workers'," said Anne Waiguru, the cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Devolution and Planning.

Tens of Turkish Policemen Arrested over 'Plotting' against Gov't A total of 33 police officers have been detained in Turkey on suspicions of 'plotting against the government', local media outlets say. Police officials have not immediately commented. Among the detainees were 14 high-ranking officers, according to Hurriyet Daily News. Some of them were involved in last December's corruption probes targeting government officials, including four government ministers. In July a number of Turkish policemen were arrested for allegedly having set up an organized criminal gang and having tapped phone number. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who was Prime Minister back then) described their actions as part of activity conducted by Islamist cleric Fethullah Gullen against him and others in power.

Not all children back to school in Ukraine Schools across most of Ukraine reopened their doors on Monday (September 1), after the summer holidays. The day is traditionally a big one for families, and like thousands of other Ukrainian parents, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk took his daughter to school. While there, he told waiting journalists that not all schools had reopened, but that he was committed to defending the country for future generations: The first of September ceremony was not held in every school. There is not a peaceful sky over every part of Ukraine. We must fight for a peaceful sky. The whole of Ukraine, a huge joint Ukrainian's people's front, must fight for a peaceful sky. Aleksan Pastukhov, the head teacher of Slaviansk School, attended by Yatsenyuk's daughter, spoke in Russian. We hope that peace will finally be established here and that children will receive knowledge that will be useful in their future lives. The first day back at school is traditionally celebrated by children wearing embroidered shirts, carrying balloons and giving flowers to their teachers.

In Rona Fairhead, the BBC may have found the formidable chief it needs She comes trailing clouds of glory from the world of banking, media management and the inner conclaves of the Tory party. Indeed, she has had frontline experience of her own. Her career began at global management consultants Bain and Co, then progressed via Morgan Stanley, Bombadier, ICI and the media world of Pearsons. She was chief executive of the Financial Times for seven years, resigning when the top job at its parent company Pearson's went to a junior male colleague. Her pay-off is said to be close to £1 million. Her political rating is sturdy, too. She was recommended to David Cameron by Lord Browne, the former head of BP, when he was looking to bring private expertise into Whitehall: she became a cabinet office adviser. Her husband is a former Tory councillor. Back in May, I described the chairman's job as a poisoned chalice. Not only is the BBC a vast and complex entity at the heart of public life, but there is an inner paradox to its structure. The trust faces in two directions: inwards as the upper tier of the BBC's own management hierarchy, but also outwards as the voice of public concern and disquiet when things go awry. This is an almost untenable duopoly calling for complete root-and-branch reform. But what incoming chairman would risk coming in, crashing around and dismantling an institution as complex as a Chinese dynasty in case they put themselves out of a job in the process. It's a difficult call. If that weren't tough enough, plenty of people are keen to see the BBC cut down in size - its power, its finances and its status overhauled. As competitors circle ever closer and new technology challenges cosy old certainties, the imminent negotiation of the licence fee is fraught with especial danger for the BBC. For the modest sum of £145.50 a year, the British public buys into what is surely the greatest media enterprise in the world. The BBC tells a good story: it claims that its output reaches 96 per cent of households, and costs each one of them just 40p a day. What's more, apparently the Beeb's popularity is rising: 53 per cent support today as against 31 per cent 10 years ago. Patterns of watching and using the BBC have changed: I receive news headlines on my mobile phone these days, and catch up on missed programmes with iPlayer. But it remains a much-loved and formidable institution. It needs a formidable chairman - I hope it has found one.

Texas' Perry Says Disparaging Tweet Unauthorized A tweet from Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry's verified account on Sunday night included a disparaging image of the Democratic district attorney who is at the center of his criminal indictment on charges of abuse of power. The tweet was later deleted, followed by another from Perry's account that disavowed the post. A tweet just went out from my account that was unauthorized. "I do not condone the tweet and I have taken it down," the later post said. Perry aides did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Although the tweets were sent from Perry's verified account, it was unclear who does the actual posting for the feed. The earlier tweet posted an unflattering mock image of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who was convicted of drunken driving in April 2013. Perry vetoed funds to her office when she refused to resign, which led to a grand jury in Austin this month indicting Perry - who is a potential 2016 presidential candidate. The caption on the tweet reads: "I don't always drive drunk at 3x the legal blood alcohol limit ... but when I do, I indict Gov. Perry for calling me out about it." I am the most drunk Democrat in Texas. Lehmberg's office did not lead the grand jury investigation against Perry. It was handled by Michael McCrum, a San Antonio-based special prosecutor who was assigned by a Republican judge. Perry has pleaded not guilty and called the charges a political ploy. His high-powered legal team has asked the judge overseeing the case to dismiss the indictment, claiming that the law being used to prosecute the longest-serving governor in Texas history is unconstitutionally vague. Perry cut off $7.5 million in state funds to the state's Public Integrity Unit - which is based in Travis County and prosecutes public corruption in Texas - when Lehmberg refused to resign. That veto drew a formal complaint from a left-leaning watchdog group. Perry's verified account is updated frequently - and sometimes famously. After finishing in fifth place in the Iowa caucuses during his 2012 presidential campaign, Perry addressed speculation that he might call it quits with a tweet of a photo of himself jogging near a lake, and the words, "Here we come South Carolina!"

Berkeley says housing market back to "normal" One of London's most prominent property developers has warned that the housing market in southeast England has "reverted" to normal levels of activity. Homes in the capital have been the subject of red-hot demand and surging prices, with widespread fears of a credit bubble prompting the Bank of England to impose limits on mortgage borrowing in June. Tony Pidgley, founder and chairman of upmarket housebuilder Berkeley, on Monday said: "Since the start of the current financial year, the market has reverted to normal transaction levels from the high point in 2013," adding that this offered a "stable operating environment." London's property market fared well during the downturn as foreign buyers piled into the capital. Prices in the city have leapt 18.5 per cent in the past year alone, according to Land Registry data, far outstripping the 6.7 per cent average for England and Wales as a whole. Average selling prices on Berkeley's private, affordable and student schemes have risen by about a fifth in the past year, reaching £423,000 at the end of April. However, a strengthening pound has in recent months made London property less attractive to foreign buyers - some of whom have also been deterred by the introduction of new property taxes and political rhetoric around a potential "mansion tax" ahead of the general election next May. London estate agent Foxtons last week warned that April's Mortgage Market Review, which introduced tougher lending rules, would also spark lower rates of market growth in both property sales transactions and prices during the second half of the year. Fresh data from the Bank of England on Monday showed a drop in the number of mortgage approvals in July, further suggesting the housing market is cooling. Hamptons International, another estate agent, has cut its 2015 forecast for London property price growth to 3 per cent on the basis that house price sentiment is already starting to weaken. Transaction volumes have meanwhile dropped by a quarter year on year in London's most expensive postcodes, such as Chelsea, Mayfair and Kensington, according to agent WA Ellis. Still, appetite for homes in the capital has been a boon to Berkeley, pushing up cash due on forward sales to more than £2.2bn. Mr Pidgley added: "Demand for the right product with good design in the best locations has remained resilient and, reflecting this, forward sales have been maintained." In June the company reported it had sold 3,742 new homes in the year to the end of April - almost a third more than the pre-crisis peak in 2007. Annual pre-tax profits rose 40 per cent year on year to £380m, on revenues up 18 per cent to £1.6bn. Speaking on Monday ahead of the company's annual meeting, Mr Pidgley said Berkeley's earnings for the year were anticipated to be in line with current market expectations. Analyst consensus is for full-year pre-tax profit of £450m. Berkeley shares were flat at £23.96 in afternoon London trading.

Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence leaked online by hacker Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the 85th annual Academy Awards. Nude photos of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence have been leaked online by a hacker who claimed to have a "master list" of images of 100 other starlets. A representative for the star of "The Hunger Games" confirmed the photos of Lawrence were real and blasted the hacker for "a flagrant violation of privacy." The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence. The photos, which originally were posted on the image-sharing site 4chan, were purportedly obtained through a weakness in Apple's iCloud online storage system, and a purported "master list" of the hacking victims includes the names of dozens of female stars, including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Mary-Kate Olsen, according to BuzzFeed. It is not clear how many of the images are authentic, though "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" star Winstead took to Twitter to denounce the hack as well. "To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves," Winstead tweeted. However, Victoria Justice, of the Nickolodeon series "iCarly" and "Victorious," denied that the photos were of her, tweeting, "These so called nudes of me are FAKE people. Let me nip this in the bud right now. *pun intended*. Buzzfeed reported late Sunday that a spokesman for pop star Ariana Grande denied that purported photos of her were authentic.

Exclusive extract from Howard Jacobson's acclaimed new novel about love and the letter 'J' They dissolved, that was the best way of putting it, they gradually came apart like a cardboard box that had been left out in the rain. Just occasionally a woman told him he was too serious, hard-going, intense, detached, and maybe a bit prickly. And then shook his hand. He recognised prickly. He was spiny, like a hedgehog, yes. The latest casualty of this spininess was an embryo-affair that had given greater promise than usual of relieving the lonely tedium of his life, and perhaps even bringing him some content. Ailinn Solomons was a wild-haired, quiveringly delicate beauty with a fluttering heart from a northern island village more remote and rugged even than Port Reuben. She had come south with an older companion whom Kevern took to be her aunt, the latter having been left a property in a wet but paradisal valley called, felicitously, Paradise Valley. No one had lived in the house for several years. The pipes leaked, there were spiders still in the baths, slugs had signed their signatures on all the windows, believing the place belonged to them, the garden was overgrown with weeds that resembled giant cabbages. It was like a children's story cottage, threatening and enchanting at the same time, the garden full of secrets. Author's view: Howard Jacobson, whose novel "J" is longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014. The shortlist is announced next week Kevern had been sitting holding hands with Ailinn on broken deckchairs in the long grass, enjoying an unexpectedly warm spring afternoon, the pair of them absent-mindedly plugged into the utility console that supplied the country with soothing music and calming news, when the sight of her crossed brown legs reminded him of an old song by a long-forgotten black entertainer his father had liked listening to with the cottage blinds down. Your feet's too big. On account of their innate aggressiveness, songs of that sort were no longer played on the console. Not banned - nothing was banned exactly - simply not played. Encouraged to fall into desuetude, like the word desuetude. Popular taste did what edict and proscription could never have done, and just as, when it came to books, the people chose rags-to-riches memoirs, cookbooks and romances, so, when it came to music, they chose ballads. Carried away by the day, Kevern began to play at an imaginary piano and in a rudely comic voice serenade Ailinn's big feet. Ailinn didn't understand. "It was a popular song by a jazz pianist called Fats Waller," he told her, automatically putting two fingers to his lips. This his father had always done to stifle the letter j before it left his lips. It had begun as a game between them when he was small. His father had played it with his own father, he'd told him. Begin a word with a j without remembering to put two fingers across your mouth and it cost you a penny. It had not been much fun then and it was not much fun now. He knew it was expected of him, that was all. He had to explain what jazz was. Ailinn had never heard any. Jazz, too, without exactly being proscribed, wasn't played. Improvisation had fallen out of fashion. There was room for only one "if" in life. People wanted to be sure, when a tune began, exactly where it was going to end. Wit, the same. Its unpredictability unsettled people's nerves. And jazz was wit expressed musically. Though he reached the age of 10 without having heard of Sammy Davis Junior, Kevern knew of jazz from his father's semi-secret collection of old CDs. But at least he didn't have to tell Ailinn that Fats Waller was black. Given her age, she was unlikely to have remembered a time when popular singers weren't black. Again, no laws or duress. A compliant society meant that every section of it consented with gratitude - the gratitude of the providentially spared - to the principle of group aptitude. People of Afro-Caribbean origin were suited by temperament and physique to entertainment and athletics, and so they sang and sprinted. People originally from the Indian subcontinent, electronically gifted as though by nature, undertook to ensure no family was without a functioning utility phone. What was left of the Polish community plumbed; what was left of the Greek smashed plates. Those from the Gulf States and the Levant whose grandparents hadn't quickly left the country while WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED was happening - fearing they'd be accused of having stoked the flames, fearing, indeed, that the flames would consume them next - opened labneh and shisha-pipe restaurants, kept their heads down, and grew depressed with idleness. To each according to his gifts. Having heard only ballads, Ailinn was hard pressed to understand how the insulting words Kevern had just sung to her could ever have been set to music. Music was the expression of love. "They're not really insulting," Kevern said. Except maybe to people whose feet are too big. My father never insulted anybody, but he delighted in this song. He was saying too much, but the garden's neglect gave the illusion of safety. No word could get beyond the soundproofing of the giant cabbage-like leaves. Ailinn still didn't comprehend. Why would your father have loved something like that? He wanted to say it was a joke, but was reluctant, in her company, to put two fingers to his lips again. She already thought he was strange. "It struck him as funny," he said instead. She shook her head in disbelief, blotting out Kevern's vision. Nothing to see in the whole wide world but her haystack of crow-black hair. Nothing else he wanted to see. "If you say so," she said, unconvinced. But that still doesn't explain why you're singing it to me. She seemed in genuine distress. Are my feet too big? He looked again. Your feet specifically, no. Your ankles, maybe, a bit... And you say you hate me because my ankles are too thick? Hate you? Of course I don't hate you. That's just the silly song. He could have said, "I love you," but it was too soon for that. "Your thick ankles are the very reason I'm attracted to you," he tried instead. I'm perverse that way. It came out wrong. He had meant it to be funny. Meaning to be funny often landed him in a mess because, like his father, he lacked the reassuring charm necessary to temper the cruelty that lurked in jokes. Maybe his father intended to be cruel. Maybe he, Kevern, did. Despite his kind eyes. Ailinn Solomons flushed and rose from her deckchair, knocking over the console and spilling the wine they'd been drinking. Elderflower wine, so drink wasn't his excuse. In her agitation she seemed to tremble, like the fronds of a palm tree in a storm. "And your thick head's the very reason I'm perversely attracted to you," she said... Except that I'm not. He felt sorry for her, both on account of the unnecessary unkindness of his words and the fear that showed in her eyes in the moment of her standing up to him. Did she think he'd strike her? She hadn't spoken to him about life on the chill northern archipelago where she had grown up, but he didn't doubt it was in all essentials similar to here. The same vast and icy ocean crashed in on them both. The same befuddled men, even more thin-skinned and peevish in the aftermath of WHAT HAPPENED than their smuggler and wrecker ancestors had been, roamed angrily from pub to pub, ready to raise a hand to any woman who dared to refuse or twit them. Thick head? They'd show her a thick fist, if she wasn't careful! Snog her first - the snog having become the most common expression of erotic irritation between men and women; an antidote to the bland ballads of love the console pumped out - snog her first and cuff her later. An unnecessary refinement in Kevern's view, since a snog was itself an act of thuggery. Ailinn Solomons made a sign with her body for him to leave. He heaved himself out of the deckchair like an old man. She felt leaden herself, but the weight of his grief surprised her. This wasn't the end of the world. They barely knew each other. She watched him go - as at an upstairs window her companion watched him go - a man made heavy by what he'd brought on himself. Adam leaving the garden, she thought. She felt a pang for him and for men in general, no matter that some had raised their hands to her. A man turned from her, his back bent, ashamed, defeated, all the fight in him leaked away - why was that a sight she felt she knew so well, when she couldn't recall a single instance, before today, of having seen it? Alone again, Ailinn Solomons looked at her feet. A score or so years before the events related above, Esme Nussbaum, an intelligent and enthusiastic 32-year-old researcher employed by Ofnow, the non-statutory monitor of the Public Mood, prepared a short paper on the continuance of low- and medium-level violence in those very areas of the country where its reduction, if not its cessation, was most to have been expected, given the money and energy expended on uprooting it. "Much has been done, and much continues to be done," she wrote, "to soothe the native aggressiveness of a people who have fought a thousand wars and won most of them, especially in those twisted knarls and narrow crevices of the country where, though the spires of churches soar above the hedgerows, the sweeter breath of human kindness has, historically, been rarely felt. But some qualities are proving to be ineradicable. The higher the spire, it would seem, the lower the passions it goes on engendering. The populace weeps to sentimental ballads, gorges on stories of adversity overcome, and professes to believe ardently in the virtues of marriage and family life, but not only does the old brutishness retain a pertinacious hold equally on rural communities as on our urban conurbations, evidence suggests the emergence of a new and vicious quarrelsomeness in the home, in the workplace, on our roads and even on our playing fields. "You have an unfortunate tendency to overwrite," her supervisor said when he had read the whole report. May I suggest you read fewer novels. Esme Nussbaum lowered her head. I must also enquire: are you an atheist? "I believe I am not obliged to say," Esme Nussbaum replied. Are you a lesbian? Again Esme protested her right to privacy and silence. A feminist? Silence once more. "I don't ask," Luther Rabinowitz said at last, "because I have an objection to atheism, lesbianism or feminism. This is a prejudice-free workplace. We are the servants of a prejudice-free society. But certain kinds of hypersensitivity, while entirely acceptable and laudable in themselves, may sometimes distort findings such as you have presented to me. You are obviously yourself prejudiced against the church; and those things you call "vicious" and "brutish," others could as soon interpret as expressions of natural vigour and vitality. To still be harping on about WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED, as though it happened, if it happened, yesterday, is to sap the country of its essential life force. Esme Nussbaum looked around her while Rabinowitz spoke. Behind his head a flamingo pink LED scroll repeated the advice Ofnow had been dispensing to the country for the last quarter of a century or more. Smile at your neighbour, cherish your spouse, listen to ballads, go to musicals, use your telephone, converse, explain, listen, agree, apologise. Talk is better than silence, the sung word is better than the written, but nothing is better than love. "I fully understand the points you are making," Esme Nussbaum replied in a quiet voice, once she was certain her supervisor had finished speaking, "and I am saying no more than that we are not healed as effectively as we delude ourselves we are. My concern is that, if we are not forewarned, we will find ourselves repeating the mistakes that led to WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED, in the first place. Only this time it will not be on others that we vent our anger and mistrust. Luther Rabinowitz made a pyramid of his fingers. This was to suggest infinite patience. "You go too far," he said, "in describing as "mistakes" actions which our grandparents might or might not have taken. You go too far, as well, in speaking of them venting their "anger" and "mistrust" on "others." It should not be necessary to remind someone in your position that in understanding the past, as in protecting the present, we do not speak of "us" and "them." There was no "we" and there were no "others." It was a time of disorder, that is all we know of it. "In which, if we are honest with ourselves," Esme dared to interject, "no section of society can claim to have acquitted itself well. I make no accusations. Whether it was done ill, or done well, what was done was done. Then was then. No more needs to be said - on this we agree. And just as there is no blame to be apportioned, so there are no amends to be made, were amends appropriate and were there any way of making them. But what is the past for if not to learn from it - The past exists in order that we forget it. If I may add one word to that - Luther Rabinowitz collapsed his pyramid. "I will consider your report," he said, dismissing her. The next day, turning up for work as usual, she was knocked down by a motorcyclist who had mounted the pavement in what passers-by described as a "vicious rage." Coincidences happen.

Lesotho military says no coup planned; PM stays in South Africa Lesotho military officials denied staging a coup to overthrow the government, saying they were acting against police suspected of trying to arm political fanatics. Prime Minister Thomas Thabane fled the country, saying the country's military had surrounded his official home and seized government buildings in the capital of Maseru. The premier took his family to neighboring South Africa after saying he received an assassination threat. Military spokesman Major Ntlele Ntoi said there was not, in fact, a coup, but that the military was responding to a threat from "political fanatics" whom police were attempting to arm. "What happened this morning was that the command of the Lesotho Defense Force was acting after receiving several intelligence reports that amongst the police service, there are some elements who are actually planning to arm some of the political, party political youth fanatics who were on the verge of wreaking havoc," he told Voice of America. South African government spokesman Clayson Monyela said the military's actions had the appearance at an overthrow. "Although no one has claimed to have taken over government through the use of force, by all accounts the activities of the Lesotho defense force thus far bear the hallmarks of a coup d'etat," he said. Lesotho military officials said soldiers returned to their barracks Sunday and there was calm in the capital. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing in control of the government in Thabane's absence. Thabane said he believes he is being targeted due to his attempt to fight corruption in the country. Tensions have been high in Lesotho since June when Thabane suspended parliament sessions due to feuding in his unity government. He said his actions have not undermined the government, despite allegations otherwise.

Chelsea midfielder, Marco van Ginkel, will spend the upcoming season on loan to Milan, reports Milan Channel. The 21 year-old Dutchman will arrive in Italy in the next few hours to undergo a medical examination. Last season he only walked out onto the pitch as a part of the London club three times. To recall, Milan previously leased striker, Fernando Torres, from Liverpool.

Eurozone manufacturing at 13-month low Manufacturing growth in the eurozone slowed to a 13-month low in August, according to a closely-watched survey. The final Markit's Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) dipped to 50.7 in August, down from 51.8 in July. A figure above 50 indicates expansion. New orders dwindled and factories suffered amid rising tensions between the EU and Russia over Ukraine. The figures come ahead of the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting on Thursday. Markets will be looking for a clear plan from the bank to deal with a stalled eurozone recovery, as well as the threat of deflation with inflation standing at just 0.3%. There is speculation that ECB boss Mario Draghi could offer further indications later this week that he is considering a quantitative easing scheme for the eurozone, similar to those taken by the UK and US during the financial crisis. "Although some growth is better than no growth at all, the braking effect of rising economic and geopolitical uncertainties on manufacturers is becoming more visible," said Rob Dobson, senior economist at Markit. The factory PMI for Germany, Russia's biggest trade partner in the EU, fell to an 11-month low of 51.4. Meanwhile, in the bloc's second-largest economy, France, the PMI fell to 46.9. France remains a real concern, as does Italy's descent from solid expansion to stagnation. Signs that growth impetus waned in the key industrial engine of Germany, and in Spain and the Netherlands too, is also less than reassuring," Mr Dobson said. The slowdown in industry is likely to add further fuel to the fire for analysts expecting additional monetary or fiscal stimulus to be implemented. One positive note was from the Republic of Ireland, which saw its PMI grow to 57.3, its highest level since the end of 1999. Howard Archer, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, said: "The best that can be said for the August eurozone manufacturing purchasing managers' survey is that it indicates that the sector is still growing." He added: "Eurozone manufacturers are clearly finding life very difficult at the moment as current heightened geopolitical tensions - particularly related to Russia/Ukraine - add uncertainty to still challenging conditions in many countries. This heightened uncertainty has clearly hit business - especially, and consumer confidence, and it is likely causing some orders to be delayed or even cancelled, particularly big-ticket orders. He said it was looking "ever more likely" that the ECB would ultimately have to undertake some form of QE, "although we suspect that it will be limited."

Residents of Mariupol have setup a human chain against the rebels Everything was calm in Mariupol up until last week – no one was eager to set up a Mariupol People's Republic – people in the city on the Azov Sea were busy working and living. Now residents wait in terror for the “rebels” to arrive. According to political analysts, the separatists are descending on Mariupol in order to access the Azov Sea – the city of Novoazovsk, which was also not previously a part of the self-proclaimed republics, was recently captured. Residents of Mariupol decided that although the Ukrainian army would defend them its strength was no match against the well-equipped representatives of the DPR and LPR, and so they decided to help out their soldiers. They are digging trenches and building roadblocks and reinforcements. On Saturday evening, several thousands of residents arrived at the eastern boundary of the city and stood there as a human chain while singing Ukraine’s national anthem. They are preparing to do the same in the case of an attack. Volunteers are collecting and delivering munitions and foodstuffs, collecting medicine, and distributing newspapers. Gradually, throughout the city, stores are closing and banks and ATMs are shutting down.

The Beslan survivors' decade of hell: Ten years since the horrific school siege, how the children caught up in it are still suffering Ten years ago over 1,000 people were taken hostage by Chechen militants at a school in Beslan, southern Russia More than 330 people, more than half of them children, were killed in the three-day ordeal that shocked the world We went back to Beslan to find some of the victims who cheated death in the classroom atrocity Exactly a decade after the appalling Beslan school siege in which 334 perished, including 186 children, the heroic survivors warned last night of a new apocalypse in Ukraine. When fanatic Islamic terrorists kidnapped and killed children and parents on 1 September 2004, at the start of a new term, it seemed like the nadir of all evil. The tragedy united east and west in revulsion, which amazingly then turned to action and hope for the future in the direst misery. Ten years on, we went back to Beslan in southern Russia to find some of the victims who cheated death in the classroom atrocity. We discovered amazing young people, who have defied adversity, though the memory of this terrorist hell will live with them forever. Their greatest hope? That the war now scarring Ukraine - in which children like them are dying - will now stop. The girl pictured trying to climb back inside the blitzed school gym She was famously snapped by top Russian photographer Dmitry Beliakov wearing only her underwear as tried to climb back inside the blitzed school gym after a mine exploded. Bewildered, Aida was desperately searching for her mother, Larissa, now 40. Both were feared dead, but in fact they survived. 'A woman told me to run for my life but I couldn't,' said Aida at the time. My legs were covered in blood. I got up and climbed back in to look for my mum. A soldier plucked her to safety. After a series of surgeries, she thought she had totally recovered but said yesterday: 'Three months ago, the pain came back. I fear I may need more surgery. Some shrapnel pieces are still in my knee. Her aim now is to become a dentist, to help people as she has been aided by medics. 'This tragedy changed my life but it surely did not break it,' she said defiantly. 'It happened to me and you can't change this fact. Once a year I always go to the gym to recall those who remained there. My friends and I try not to talk about it on other days. The pain is too much. My best friend and my classmate-to-be Dzera Gapoeva was killed there. We played together when we were small and dreamed of going to school together. 'I don't want to marry until I finish my studies and start my career. I will think about a family later. She says the siege remains with her though memories fade a little each year. I am pleased that many people in the world still remember our troubles and we are so grateful for the help we got from people in Britain and everywhere. When I see online the photograph of me climbing into the school window, I think that many people will see it for the first time, understand about our disaster, and stop this from happening any more. The boy who fled through a hail of bullets believing his mother to be dead He was on his first day at school (Russians start school aged 7) and survived the three day siege hugging his mum Tamara. Then seven he said: 'Mummy told me to lie down if there was an explosion and hold her hand.' After one explosion he thought she was dying. She told him: 'Run'. Fearing she was dead, he fled and on his way he saw a crying toddler, grabbed the child by the hand, and fled through a hail of bullets. His dad Vladimir, who scooped up his son outside, said: 'Damir told me his mother had died. He said: 'I couldn't save her'.' In fact, Tamara had stumbled free and was in hospital with leg wounds, in turn believing her son had perished. After their reunion she said: 'I wept with joy. I couldn't believe it. He ran in and hugged me. Damir was later flown to London (by the now defunct News of the World newspaper) to be crowned a Barnardo's Children's Champion by then premier Tony Blair and wife wife Cherie. 'This horror comes back to you every day, but I wish I could stop recalling it,' he said yesterday. Still I can say that in my mind it is fading. I remember right afterwards, I threw away all my toy guns. But now I can play computer games with shooting and it is not a problem for me. 'I'm not scared to go back in the gym but I don't think about myself. I remember those kids I used to play with in the yard who never got out. We never say they were killed or dead. We say they stayed in the gym. I remember my trip to London so well, specially the toy shop where I was allowed to pick anything I wanted, and riding in an open top car. But now he fears for places like Ukraine where wars cause the kind of misery he and his friends suffered. This horror comes back to you every day, but I wish I could stop recalling it 'I feel so sorry for all those who suffer from these horrors,' said Damir, who was last week doing voluntary work at a nunnery. I want to help so much. I want to serve in the police one day and hope they enrol me to the training academy next year. His mother Tamara, 48, said: '37 kids were killed in our neighbourhood, can you imagine? I remember terrible silence right after the siege, there were just no children to shout and run around, and that silence lasted for many months. She vividly recalls her trip with Damir to London. People in London were crying when I told our story. I realised then how folk on the other side of the world can understand our feelings, can show their support. She was grateful to 'Cherie Blair and her foundation for that award and the opportunity to go to London in autumn 2004. I wish I could call Cherie and just say it myself that 10 years have gone but I still remember meeting her and her husband in London, and how that helped Damir and me. I remember when Damir wanted to eat borsch soup, they called all the local Russian restaurants. I remember how he was playing with waiters in a restaurant, Damir was shooting at them from his water pistol and they ran away and played with him. And we were just one month away from our horror then. I was amazed that the British people were so ready to share our pain and to support us. She said: 'I keep thinking this world did not get better within these 10 years. Now in Ukraine the war goes on, people are dying every day, and I believe many children were killed and will be killed. They are just the same children, like ours. I think for many people the war is a news report they listen to when they are bored or busy with something else. I just know what those people feel, the horror of it. And I can't stop feeling it. Nothing has changed, people still want to kill each other and it is so sad. Damir grew up and became a very gentle and calm boy, he is not at all aggressive or angry. He is not seeking revenge for example, he is not preoccupied with this past horror. I know that he does not like to recall it but he is very close with six classmates and they go to the gym from time to time and light candles there. When he was smaller he suffered from it - I remember he used to lie down on the sofa with his face turned away from us, for hours at a time. Not sleeping, his eyes were open. I also remember how he threw away all his guns and other army-type toys.Damir is 17 now, taller than me, nice looking, clever and healthy. I can hardly believe that for some hours I was so sure he was dead and I'd never see him again. When I managed to recover after the explosion and got on my feet I looked around, I saw the hell around me, when body parts were lying everywhere. I was absolutely sure that there was no way my little boy could have survived in this hell. 'I remember I was shouting to him 'Damir, run, run away' but again I was so sure he had not heard me. But he did hear, and he did run away. So life goes on for us unlike for so many. Georgy Ilyin, 17 The boy whose shocking image after the siege came to define the horror of Beslan Comfort: Beslan survivor Georgy Ilyin with his mum Fatima after the siege in 2004, while on the right is Georgy today His bloodstained face was etched with fear as he ran for his life as Chechen terrorists gunned down his classmates. His picture was one of the most shocking symbols of the barbarity at Beslan. His mother Fatima, 54, a senior GP, had dropped him for his first day at school before rushing to take her elder son Vladimir to university. 'I left two minutes before the terrorists rushed into the yard, so my little boy was left there alone for three days of horror,' she recalled. Not completely alone, we had a family of relatives there but all of them were killed. Only my Georgy managed to survive. The closer this date is, the harder it is to think and talk about it. There is no single day when we do not recall this tragedy. We do not feel it was long ago, I think it happened yesterday, some scenes from those days come to my mind all the time. Nobody will ever forget, I promise you. Haunting: The image of Georgy (left) was one of the most shocking of the attack and has been immortalised in a statue (right) I remember Georgy so much wanted to go to school on that day, he said he wanted to hug his teacher. I only got to know he was alive when I saw him TV. And now there is even a statue to crying Georgy in San Marino. Georgy does not like to look at this picture and it is hidden it in the bookcase in our home. I understand, but I also think that thanks to this picture people from all over the world feel our pain. Georgy says now: 'It's important this can never happen again. 'I doubt we'll ever know the truth. People keep investigating such tragedies and never know the truth. Now they are investigating this Boeing crash in Ukraine. Will we ever know what caused it? This world is moving to something very bad. 'I can't understand how it happens, because if you ask people, no-one wants a war, so how does it happen? Ten years is nothing for such pain. We need dozens of years to pass in order to forget it a little. It affected my health and I still feel it. For about three or four years I had some nightmares because of the siege but then it got better. I got back to school later in 2004, I was very scared every day. I was thinking about my friends and classmates who were killed. This is why I keep going to the gym as each 1 September approaches. I want to pay tribute to my old childhood friends. It is hard for me to go inside the gym but I must do it. I do not feel myself a victim, this story is the part of my past now. I will not forget it but I do not feel sorry for myself. My life goes on. I finished school this year entered a medical university in Vladikavkaz. I will learn to be a heart surgeon. My first choice was to go in the army. I wanted to be a military man, but my health did not let me. I wanted to fight for my country but it will not happen. Georgy Farniyev, 20 The boy who survived despite having been trapped at the feet of a murderous terrorist Miraculous: Georgy Farniyev was trapped at the foot of a murderous terrorist during the siege but still managed to survive As the siege was underway, he was pictured trapped inside the gym, sitting next to a bomb at the foot of a murderous terrorist. It is truly a miracle he was not killed. 'We feel as if it was just yesterday,' said Georgy, who wanted to train as an intelligence officer in the FSB, but was unable to because of damage to his health in the siege. It is still with me, this is not something I left behind. I am older now and people use to say children easily cope with bad experience - I must say this is not true. 'In 2006 I worked with psychologists and I did feel a bit better afterwards but I can't forget it. And I would like to forget. 2005 - the year after - was the first and the last time when I went inside the gym again. I lost consciousness. I would never ever go there again and please don't ask me to show where I sat in that well-known picture. Survivor: Georgy Farniev pictured today, with a photograph of him in hospital follwoing the siege on his laptop My pain is enormous and I carry it with me every day. My friends know that I do not like to think or discuss it and they never asked me about the school. In terms of physical condition I am well. I should be careful with my knee which was injured but I walk fine now. Still my health did not let me go and study in FSB secret service academy in St Petersburg as I wanted. I sent my documents, including medical papers, and they replied it was not possible. My second passion was animals, so I went to the veterinary institute. I have completed two years there. He is learning to treat all animals 'from cats to cows'. He said: 'I know I would never tell my children about my experience. This is not something children should know about, and of course not something they should experience. His mother Marina, 42, said: 'This pain never leaves me. It is in my soul, worse when the anniversary gets close. I will go and attend ceremonies being held to mark it. I know Georgy won't go. It must be even stronger for him because he was there and I was not. I was waiting for him at home, not able to help. I am so grateful to God that he was returned to me.Here in Beslan the imprint is on everyone. It stays with us. Georgy is an adult now but that horror is still with him. It is hard to accept it when something so terribly unfair happens to you. He is a boy, he likes sports but he can't take part because of his knee. He had several surgeries, he walks but cannot exercise. I would say he 50% overcame this horror, but one can never completely overcome and forget it. This horrible experience will stay with us. Many friends and neighbours were killed in the siege, and it only adds to my pain. I lost many people I knew well and they were dear for me. My son is with me and this is the greatest gift God could do for me but my heart aches about those killed. I know families where new children were born, but also widows who never married again. It is hard to accept that life goes on, even if you do not want it. I will never forget my heart jumping out of my chest at the moment I saw him in hospital. Now I look at what is going on in the world - wars in different regions. What are those people fighting for? Why are they killing each other? The war is very close to our country now and I can hardly believe it. We used to be one friendly country in the past, how did it happen that we are fighting now? People and children are suffering, I am sure many children were already killed in Ukraine and many will be killed. If we could only grab all the rebels and throw them away - as far away as possible. Alyona Tskaeva, 10 The baby who was carried poignantly to safety by a special forces commando Saved: Alyona Tskaeva is carried to safety by a Russian special forces commando (left). She is now ten (right) and has no memory at all of the atrocity The world gasped in 2004 when baby Alyona was carried out of the Beslan siege cradled in the arms of a Russian policeman. Terrorists let her go but cruelly kept her 30 year old mother, ten year old older sister Kristina, and brother Makhar in the school gym. Makhar, then three, escaped, but Alyona's mother and sister died in the murderous carnage. Her father Ruslan has since remarried and with his new wife Svetlana he has a baby girl, who he named Kristina after the daughter he lost. Alyona, now ten, has no memory of the siege and has blossomed into a bright and happy girl, say neighbours. 'They are a big happy family now and Alyona and Makhar are both great kids,' said a close friend. Ruslan is a fantastic dad and wants to get them away from all the memories as the tenth anniversary is marked. You can understand why.

Midfielder, Shinji Kagawa, returning to Borussia Dortmund from Manchester United, notes that he can’t wait to return to the pitch wearing the German club’s uniform. According to him, this transfer is a joyful event in his career. Of course, I am very happy that I will once again play for Borussia”, Bild cites Kagawa as saying. I feel very good. I am full of positive emotions and can’t wait to return to the pitch wearing the Borussia uniform. To recall, Kagawa was transferred to MU from Borussia, in the summer of 2012, for 16 million euros. However, he couldn’t quite find a place for himself in the English club, appearing in only 38 matches in the English League Championship over two seasons, scoring 6 goals and 8 assists.

Man accused of knocking down girl on Fife pelican crossing A 78-year-old man is to stand trial accused of running over a three-year-old girl on a pelican crossing in Fife. Gordon Stewart is alleged to have knocked down the girl on a crossing in Pittenween in East Neuk. Prosecutors said Mr Stewart drove his Audi Q3 without due care and attention and knocked the girl down to her injury. Stewart, 78, from Anstruther, denied the charge at Dundee Sheriff Court. Sheriff Charles Macnair QC set a trial date in January.

There’ll be no shopping spree for Obama, Merkel, and Hollande in Vladivostok The Duty Free shop at Vladivostok’s airport put up a sign prohibiting several world leaders from making purchases in the store. They won’t be able to stock up on perfume, vodka, and cognac. The store’s management decided that US President, Barack Obama, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, French President, François Hollande, Vitali Klichko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Japan’s Prime Minister, and several other famous comrades will not be allowed to stock up on vodka, cognac, and perfume in their store. And so, they posted an applicable sign on the door. Earlier, Obama received an entry ban from a place he’d be even less likely to visit given his position: Moscow State University’s Dietetic Dining Halls, as reported on the institution’s food services website. It is unclear whether or not the American President ever entertained the idea of eating at a dietetic dining hall in Russia, but the authors of the bans clearly consider themselves to be terribly witty.

Will there be cheese after the embargo: Medvedev advised agrarians Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, believes that, under the conditions of the embargo, Russian agrarians should adopt new technologies in order to produce the range of cheeses demanded by consumers. The advice was given during a visit to the Yugptitseprom factory owned by the Agrokompleks company. The head of government also advised restaurateurs to switch to Russian meat, which meets all necessary quality standards. The year-long embargo on the import of foodstuffs was introduced in Russia on August 7.

Head Trainer for Team Russia, Valentin Maslakov, is pleased with results at the DecaNation tournament. According to the specialist, third place is a good result considering the lack of targeted preparations for the competitions. Our athletes performed right on target, Ves Sport reports Maslakov as saying. Third place is confirmation of the considerably high level of our team. It’s nice that the French and even the Americans only have a slight advantage over us. It needs to be taken into account that we did not prepare for these competitions. The season is over and we didn’t want to compel our top athletes to compete in the DecaNation meet. Over the past few years, we have come in second at this tournament, but this year, we have a brand new team. The French, on the other hand, came into it with a battle-worthy team, including 13 European champions. They didn’t hide their intention to win this year, speaking about it publicly on several occasions. But even a host team of such calibre couldn’t stand up to the Americans. This is why I suggest that the Russians, given the competition, performed at a good level. But results in certain categories were a level lower than those at the Diamond League. The season is over. Obviously, the result isn’t that important to the athletes anymore, especially in the team competitions. The most important thing here is the ranking. Looking at the results, one has to agree, things reached a point of absurdity, when in the 1,500m race, the men got so carried away with the tactical intricacies of running, that the final results fell below the average…for women’s races.

4 tips for better underwater photos and video If you're interested in shooting photos or video underwater, you have a variety of equipment choices. The cheapest option is a waterproof point-and-shoot, such as the Nikon Coolpix AW120 or an action cam, such as the GoPro Hero3+ Silver Edition, which both go for around $300. I shot these photos at a family party using several cameras, all priced under $350. No matter what gear you use, a few rules apply for getting the best results. Double-check your gear. Even if you have a waterproof camera, make sure that the camera's battery and other compartments are tightly closed. Also, set your camera to match the type of photos or video you'll be shooting. Some cameras and camcorders have scene or shooting modes that will optimize the exposure for dim undersea settings. And before you jump in, know how deep your equipment can go. Some cameras are rated to only 5 feet, others to 50 or 60 feet. Check out our buying guide and Ratings for digital cameras for both conventional and waterproof models. Take multiple shots - because many of them won't work. Point-and-shoot cameras have LCDs to help you compose photos, while action cams generally don't. Even if you have an LCD, it's going to hard to see it underwater, and composing your shot will be a hit-or-miss process. So shoot multiples. Also, if your camera has a bracket mode, which shoots a burst of shots at slightly different exposure settings, take advantage of it. Stay near the surface. Light falls off dramatically the deeper you dive underwater. If possible, stay close to the surface when you shoot in a pool, a lake or the ocean. This will also allow you to capture more color in your photos; the deeper you go, the less color you'll see. Get close to your subjects. This is great advice for shooting on dry land, but it is even more important underwater because of the dim lighting conditions. It's particularly important if you're shooting with an action cam: These devices often have a fixed, wide angle lens, which means you have to get closer to your subjects if you want them to fill the picture frame.

The 2012 Olympic Games bronze medallist in freestyle wrestling, Bilyal Makhov, may switch to Greco-Roman wrestling. This was reported by Sazhid Sazhidov, Head Trainer of Freestyle Wrestling for Team Dagestan. The expert didn’t exclude the possibility of the athlete’s participation in the World Championship in Tashkent in September 2014. Currently, Bilyal Makhov is a part of the "classical" team’s roster, R-Sport reports Sazhid Sazhidov as saying. As a matter of fact, Bilyal competed in both styles at the junior level. At the Junior World Championship in 2005, he won the freestyle tournament and took third place in the Greco-Roman competitions, and made a decision to concentrate on freestyle wrestling. There has long been talk that the next step in the career of our heavyweight would be a move to Greco-Roman wrestling. I'll go even further: Makhov might even compete at the World Championship in Tashkent if he wins at try-outs. But the final word will always go to the coaching staff, headed by Gogi Koguashvili.

Andrew Lawson was the kind of man whose force of personality could shake things up, even in a gargantuan organisation like the NHS. A consultant anaesthetist, he devoted his career to sparing the sick both the agonies of illness and the torments of treatment. Among those who sought him out, his wife remembers, was an MI6 officer who had to live with the crippling after-effects of torture. Lawson understood that while doctors are captivated by diagnoses and diseases, those being treated are overwhelmingly concerned with something else entirely: pain. One day in 2007, however, he was the one who began to suffer. "I have not felt myself," he wrote in May that year. I've had difficulty in energising myself. Struggling with flu-like symptoms, he found himself impatiently berating his wife, Juliet. "I want everything to happen sooner rather than later," he noted. When Juliet went away on business for a week, Lawson found himself unusually, and unaccountably, upset. Something was up. He got a colleague to perform a chest X-ray. Just two weeks earlier he had been skiing in the French Alps. The results of the X-ray came back. He had mesothelioma, an incurable cancer that affects the pleura, or lining of the lung. With most cancers, it is hard to know the exact cause. Though some smokers get lung cancer, for example, not all lung cancer sufferers have smoked. But mesothelioma is different. In almost every case, the cause is exposure to asbestos - a fibrous building material once dubbed "miraculous," but now known to be mortally dangerous. For most of us, mesothelioma has been an easy disease to ignore. Asbestos, after all, is a product of the past. The most dangerous type of asbestos has not been used in Britain since the 1960s, when a voluntary industry ban came into effect. Even when it was used, only people in specific industries worked closely with it - pipe laggers, builders, carpenters and shipyard workers, for example. An industrial toxin from another era, it hardly seems cause for concern today. But such complacency is misplaced. Britain, it turns out, is today at the peak of a mesothelioma epidemic. There are more mesothelioma deaths here than in any other country on the planet. With an annual toll of about 2,500, more than twice as many people die of the disease as die in accidents in motor vehicles. Mesothelioma annual deaths since 1980 and projected future deaths in Great Britain The reason that we are feeling its deadly effects now is that, though asbestos use has been illegal for years (all types of asbestos were eventually banned by law in 1999), it usually takes decades for mesothelioma to develop. And the mesothelioma scourge is not confined to veterans of industrial building jobs. Asbestos has been, and in many cases still is, embedded in the homes we live in, the offices we work in, the schools we are educated in, and the stores we shop in. As a result, mesothelioma is no respecter of class, wealth, occupation, or age. The bastions of privilege, from smart London department stores to public schools, have proved no refuge. The Houses of Parliament are riddled with asbestos. Even the hospitals that are meant to make us better have been reservoirs of this deadly carcinogen. Andrew Lawson was not old. Nor was he a pipe lagger. In fact, he struggled to think where he might have come into contact with asbestos. Then he put his finger on it. "It seems that there may have been a lot of asbestos in the tunnels at Guy's Hospital where I spent six years training," he wrote. Everybody - students, nurses, doctors and porters - used the tunnels. One wonders how many of my contemporaries will get the same disease? It was a question to which, sadly, he was able to provide a partial answer. "Of four doctors who trained at Guy's Hospital and who subsequently developed mesothelioma in the past five years," he noted in a letter in 2010, "I am the only one left alive." How many of us will get this disease? Andrew Lawson was diagnosed with mesothelioma when he was 48. When he died, on February 17 this year, he was 55. To survive so long is unusual. Fifty per cent of mesothelioma sufferers are dead 8 months after diagnosis. It is always fatal. So now we can only echo Lawson's question: "How many of us will get the same disease?" According to Britain's leading expert on mesothelioma, Professor Julian Peto, our best guess is that between 1970 and 2050, when the asbestos epidemic in Britain should have played itself out, some 90,000 people will have died. Most currently have no idea that they will die this way. An asbestos mine in Quebec, Canada Alamy A quick glance at the reports from the courts, where those affected often turn for compensation, shows how far the scourge of mesothelioma has spread. This June, for example, Marks & Spencer admitted negligently exposing Janice Allen to asbestos. She worked for the chain for nine years, from 1978 to 1987, supervising clothes sections at two sites - one of which was the flagship store on Oxford Street. Mrs Allen was only 18 when she started working at M&S. Now she has two children in their 20s. "Before this happened," she says, "I had never heard of mesothelioma, I barely knew about asbestos. I never would have dreamed that I would be affected by it. Few people do know much about asbestos. In fact, asbestos describes not one substance but a group of six minerals. They get their name from the word "asbestiform" - which describes the fibrous structure which endows them with strength and flexibility. Of the six, three have commonly been used in the building trade. Chrysotile, commonly known as White Asbestos, is by far the most frequently found in buildings today. It was used in roofing panels, floor tiles, pipe insulation, boiler seals, even brake linings in cars. It is less lethal than other forms of asbestos, but it's still considered a "major health hazard" that can kill by the EU and WHO. More dangerous, however, are Brown Asbestos (amosite) and Blue Asbestos (crocidolite). Britain was once the world's largest importer of Brown Asbestos, and experts suggest that "there is strong but indirect evidence that this was a major cause of the uniquely high mesothelioma rate [in the UK]." A Marks & Spencer employee was exposed to asbestos at its flagship store in Oxford Street, London Alamy Janice Allen may not have thought of herself as a typical victim of mesothelioma, but Julian Peto's work suggests that her story is far from uncommon. He has produced a study of sufferers which suggests that "a substantial proportion of mesotheliomas with no known occupational or domestic exposure were probably caused by environmental asbestos exposure." Much of that exposure, he says, is due to "normal occupation and weathering" of our buildings. No one, it seems, can be sure that they are safe. A report from Goddard Consulting, which looked at the Palace of Westminster, shows how people, even in the heart of government, might have been exposed unawares. In 2009 Goddard reported that service shafts and piping ducts behind Parliamentary committee rooms were contaminated with asbestos, whose lethal fibres could be disturbed by something as innocuous as "strong currents of air." MPs are frequently accused of looking after their own interests, but in this case it seems the opposite may have been true. While the Parliamentary Works Services Directorate insisted that the Palace of Westminster had been given "a clean bill of health," it is now accepted £1bn of work lasting several years is required to overhaul Parliament, upgrading electrics and removing asbestos, and that after the 2015 general election MPs may sit in the nearby QE2 Conference Centre rather than on the Green Benches at Westminster. The Goddard report noted that "the presence of asbestos has not been managed in accordance with the various regulations." It is impossible to know if this mismanagement will cost lives. All anyone can do now is wait. One person who has never been able to pinpoint his exposure to asbestos is Graham Abbott, a GP. Like Andrew Lawson, Abbott, 50, suspects that he was exposed to asbestos while working in hospitals. "I have worked at a hospital where positive asbestos claims have been made," he says, "But I can't prove it in my case. It's so hard to remember all the places one has worked in, and the dates. What he remembers clearly is the day early in December in 2009 when he was overcome with what felt like a fever. He was 45, and in the middle of a late evening surgery. Suddenly I started feeling shivery. It came on very quickly. I felt dreadful. I didn't think I was going to be able to drive all the way home. Being a doctor, Abbott knew that the pain was coming from the pleura, the lining around his lungs. But like Janice Allen, he simply had no reason to suspect mesothelioma. He ended up spending a month off work. Puzzled doctors gave him chest X-rays, and administered pleural catheters to draw off fluid from the lungs and send it for assessment. Yet the condition went undiagnosed. Slowly his health improved and he went back to work. But from time to time the same symptoms returned, often after he took exercise and was breathing hard. In 2011, one of Abbott's patients arrived at his GP's surgery with similar symptoms to him, and was subsequently diagnosed with mesothelioma. But even then Abbott didn't make the connection with his own case. After all, his patient was decades older, and had worked directly asbestos. The link in that case was clear. In September 2011, Abbott's condition worsened again, and his consultant took his CT scans and X-rays to a panel of experts. In December 2011, exactly two years after Abbott started feeling unwell, a probe, equipped with a camera, was fed into the cavity between the lining of his chest and the lining of his lung. I'm an optimist. I tend just to plod along," he says. I hadn't worried about it too much to be honest. But Rachel, my wife, was worrying. The result of the biopsy came in the week between Christmas and New Year: "I was told it was mesothelioma." Graham Abbott: diagnosed with mesothelioma Suddenly Abbott was plunged into meetings with Macmillan nurses, one of whom suggested that he should get in touch with a lawyer. That was when he realised the scale of the epidemic. "It turns out that asbestos was widely used, particularly in big public buildings which quite often had asbestos lagging on the pipes," he says. People who were exposed to asbestos in those buildings are now coming down with the disease. So mesothelioma is now affecting younger people not in the typical professions. The most dangerous asbestos-lagged pipes in hospitals were below ground level, so patients are unlikely to have been affected. But many staff, walking in pedestrian tunnels to get from one building to another (like Andrew Lawson), or eating in basement canteens (as Graham Abbott frequently did) almost certainly did come into contact with the toxic substance. For several decades after the war, it turns out, hospitals were potentially life-saving places for patients, but life-threatening places for the doctors who treated them. It is still being removed today. Pupils perched their Bunsen burners on asbestos mats And it is not just hospitals. Asbestos was frequently used in offices, shops, libraries and town halls for its marvellous insulating and flame-retarding properties. Schools too. In fact many people will have been first exposed to asbestos in the classroom. Up and down the country, in myriad chemistry lessons, pupils have perched their Bunsen burners on asbestos mats. Websites have sprung up to address the issue of asbestos in schools. Meanwhile, in our homes, items as innocuous as floor tiles or shed roofs have routinely contained asbestos. "It's an industrial poison built into large amounts of our housing stock," notes Andrew Morgan, the lawyer who represented Andrew Lawson in his case against Guy's Hospital. In one case the only contact the woman sufferer could think of was pulling down a garden shed in the 1970s. So be careful how you pull down the garden shed. The impact of diagnosis, knowing that the disease is incurable, is huge. "It takes a while to sink in," says Graham Abbott. I went back to work and tried to carry on but realised that I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing. I was at the surgery for two weeks. Then I realised that I would have to leave and sort myself out. Well, I won't see Christmas again One of the hardest things was moving from the position of doctor to that of patient. Like countless patients before him, he remembers feeling bewildered by the amount of information to get to grips with. "It was hard to take everything in," he says. "I asked my consultant "How long do I have?" I was quoted about 12 months. I remember thinking "Well, I won't see Christmas again. That's it."" Mesothelioma is particularly pernicious, because it is the mechanics of how we stay alive - the very act of breathing - that causes the cancer that kills. Most Mesothelioma cases are caused by exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is made up of tiny fibres. When the asbestos is disturbed and the fibres are inhaled, they can become embedded in the pleura, the lining of the lungs. Asbestos fibres irritate the pleura and can cause cell mutations. "The problem comes from inhaled needle-shaped fibres of asbestos," Professor Tom Treasure, a cardio-thoracic surgeon who moved in 2001 to Guy's Hospital. The very hospital where Andrew Lawson suspected he was exposed to asbestos is now, ironically, a leading centre in treating mesothelioma. Treasure knew Lawson, and treated some others who are likely to have been exposed while training at the hospital. Once the asbestos needles get into the lung tissue, says Treasure, "the act of breathing pushes them on the periphery, which is where the lining is. It is by its nature invasive from the very beginning. The normal options for treating other forms of cancer work less well with mesothelioma. The effectiveness of surgery, for example, is hotly debated. Some feel it is worth trying. Treasure disagrees. "You can't excise the pleura," he says. You can't get your knife round it. Meanwhile the cancer "is not very responsive to chemotherapy," which "has an effect" but does not cure. "Every now and again you get long survivors," says Treasure. But in the end they all die. Happily, some patients do live far, far beyond expectations. The author Stephen Jay Gould died 20 years after diagnosis. Two-and-a-half years after his own diagnosis, Graham Abbott is still battling on. After contacting mesothelioma Abbott was put in touch with Andrew Lawson, who, four years after his diagnosis, had become a one-man support and advice bureau for fellow sufferers. "Hello, Cancer Central," he would announce cheerily when they called. "He was very positive," says Abbott. He had been diagnosed 4 years before and was still very active. Initially, Abbott had been offered six cycles of chemotherapy that would take four months, and likely prolong his life by just one month. "I felt desperate," he says. I felt like giving up. Lawson, however, "managed to put a slightly better tint on things." After seeing several consultants, Abbott decided to pursue his treatment with Prof Loic Lang-Lazdunski, professor in thoracic surgery at Guy's. "We had an advantage in that I didn't have to be referred, I just rang them up and they saw me," Graham admits. The average patient would have to get a referral and have funding approved. Money is crucial for those with mesothelioma to pursue the best available treatments. But when those treatments eventually, inevitably, fail, many sufferers are faced with another financial worry - about the future of the families they will leave behind. And so they turn to the courts in pursuit of compensation. Andrew Lawson contacted Andrew Morgan, from Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP. "It has been known that asbestos is noxious to health since 1898," says Morgan. But what changed in the 1960s is that it was realised that even very low levels could be a risk to health. That is where company negligence came in. Andrew Lawson and Guy's hospital eventually settled their case, but it was not what Morgan calls a "full-value settlement" since Lawson could not prove definitively that his mesothelioma was down to asbestos exposure at Guy's. After the inquest into his death, a spokesman for Guy's did confirm, however, that "the asbestos in the basement area concerned was removed in the 1990s." That was too late for Andrew Lawson. How to remove asbestos In fact, pinning lethal asbestos exposure on one company or place of work - usually decades after the fact - has proved a huge problem for mesothelioma sufferers seeking compensation. Many of their former employers have changed hands or gone out of business. Insurance records may have been lost. And those defending themselves from claims know they have time on their side, which the claimants certainly do not. In response, this year has seen major new legislation which makes it easier for those with mesothelioma to claim compensation even if their former employers can no longer be traced. The law has created a £350m pot of money, funded by the insurance industry, for those diagnosed after July 2012 who can prove exposure but have no one to sue. In these cases sufferers will be awarded 80 per cent of what a court might have awarded in a normal compensation case - about £120,000. About 300 successful claims to the scheme are expected each year. Andrew Morgan, like many involved with mesothelioma sufferers, thinks that £350m represents "a very good job" for the insurance industry. "It's a deal written by insurers for insurers" he says, suggesting that the sum is a quarter of what insurers would have had to pay if the passage of time had not intervened, and mesothelioma sufferers were able to track down companies and sue them in the normal way. Even Mike Penning, then Works and Pensions minister, admitted that the law was "not perfect." But both Penning and Morgan admit that, with seven victims dying each day, quick action was needed. "People are suffering so much, and need help today," said Penning during the Mesothelioma Bill's second reading in December last year. By then, Graham Abbott had been in the hands of Prof Loic Lang-Lazdunski for 19 months. After their initial consultations, Lang-Lazdunski advised surgery which, in contrast to Tom Treasure, he believes has a positive effect. This was followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy - a tri-therapy for which Lang-Lazdunski can boast five year survival rates as high as 40 per cent. Abbott felt empowered. "That of course is one of the most important things," says Abbott. You see it in patients all the time. There is some drive that keeps you going. When you give up you can deteriorate very quickly. Graham Abbott went in for surgery in March 2012. By the end of August he had completed the last of his six cycles of chemotherapy. Follow-up scans revealed no sign of the disease. Then I had my scan in March [2014]. There was multiple spotting [of cancer] around my chest. I was just about to turn 50. It's not life threatening. It's life ending. Once again Abbott put himself through six cycles of chemotherapy. Now there is no sign of the tumours. But the process is both physically and emotionally gruelling. You have to think about practical things - about the finances when I'm gone for example, or showing my wife how the boiler timer works. When you get bad news you start getting negative. You have to look forward. As the father of Ellie, 16, and Tamsin, 14, that is not always easy. "It's hard as a parent," he says. It is difficult to know what to say and how much to say. When I was first diagnosed I told the girls that I had a condition that meant I wasn't going to become old. They reacted very differently. Tamsin is very sociable and boisterous. She told her friends and we got lots of calls very quickly. Ellie was more reserved. She didn't say much. Such conversations are something that all cancer patients must face. But for mesothelioma sufferers such discussions are not leavened by hope, by even a glimmer of a possibility of survival. The disease carries with it (even as it did, eventually, for Stephen Jay Gould) a grim certainty. As Andrew Morgan says, "mesothelioma is not life threatening. Bodies of embalmed Pharaohs wrapped in asbestos cloths. Asbestos fibres used to strengthen cooking pots and provide greater heat resistance. Pliny the Elder describes asbestos. A linen has now been invented that is incombustible. I have seen napkins made of it glowing on the hearths at banquets Modern commercial asbestos use begins in Italy, where it is used to make paper (even bank notes) and cloth. Major asbestos mines open in Canada and South Africa, and soon after in America, Itlay and Russia. It is an ideal insulator for the steam engines and and turbines of the Industrial Revolution. Global asbestos production rises to more than 30,000 tons annually. Statisticians with Prudential identify premature mortality among those working with asbestos, who are subsequently refused life insurance. Nellie Kershaw dies in Rochdale. Dr William Cooke testifies that asbestos particles in the lungs "were beyond reasonable doubt the primary cause of death." It is the first case of its kind. Kershaw's employers, Turner Bros Asbestos, do not admit liability. No compensation is paid. World War Two sees intensive shipbuilding, one of the deadliest occupations for asbestos exposure. Voluntary industry ban on the import of Blue asbestos Court of Appeal confirms the first successful personal injury claim in Britain as a result of asbestos exposure. Global asbestos production rises to more than 4,213,000 tons annually. UK imports 139,000 tons. Health and Safety Executive in Britain requires all contractors working with asbestos to be licensed. Import and use of Blue and Brown asbestos banned by law in Britain. All asbestos use banned in Britain. Mesothelioma Act passed in the UK. A £350m compensation scheme is announced. Asbestos is banned in more than 50 countries, but white asbestos is still used as a cheap building material in many parts of the world. Global production hovers around 2m tons annually.

China refuses to give Hong Kong right to choose leaders; protesters vow vengeance China's parliament decided Sunday against letting Hong Kong voters nominate candidates for the 2017 election, despite growing agitation for democratic reform. The move is likely to spark long-promised protests in Hong Kong's business district, as activists began planning and mobilizing within hours of the announcement. The decision by China's National People's Congress essentially allows Communist leaders to weed out any candidates not loyal to Beijing. "It's not unexpected, but it is still infuriating," said legislator Emily Lau, chairwoman of the Democratic Party. This is not what Beijing promised. They've lied to the people of Hong Kong. And it's clear we are dealing with an authoritarian regime. Defending China's ruling, Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said allowing public nominations in the election for Hong Kong's leader would be too "chaotic." Since 1997, when Britain handed control of Hong Kong back to China, Beijing had promised to allow the region's residents to vote for the chief executive beginning in 2017. Chinese leaders presented the Sunday ruling as a democratic breakthrough because it gives Hong Kongers a direct vote, but the decision also makes clear that Chinese leaders would retain a firm hold on the process through a nominating committee tightly controlled by Beijing. And, according to a new clause, only candidates who "love the country, and love Hong Kong" would be allowed. The ruling comes after a summer that has featured some of the largest and most high-profile protests in Hong Kong in years. Behind much of the pro-democracy campaign in Hong Kong is the Occupy Central With Love and Peace movement, whose organizers have threatened to shut down the financial district if Beijing does not grant authentic universal suffrage. On Sunday night, within hours of the announcement, hundreds of Occupy Central supporters had assembled in the rain outside the Hong Kong government's headquarters. At the demonstration, organizers said that their movement was entering a new stage of civil disobedience and that they would mount waves of protests in the coming weeks. However, they did not give details, apparently looking to avoid problems with authorities. In an online statement, organizers said the movement "has considered occupying Central only as the last resort, an action to be taken only if all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and there is no other choice. We are very sorry to say that today all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and the occupation of Central will definitely happen. Authorities in Hong Kong have been preparing for Beijing's announcement for days, and security was tight Sunday at the government headquarters, with police and barricades deployed. Driving the unrest is a sense among many in Hong Kong that they are slowly losing control over their city. An influx of mainlanders is fueling competition for products and services. There is also growing fear that Hong Kong's values, such as democracy and freedom of speech, are beginning to bend under increasing pressure from Beijing. Some have criticized the Occupy Central movement, saying its demonstrations put business - the lifeblood of Hong Kong - at risk. "The protest they are talking about, it could result in much economic damage, depending on how many are involved and for how long," said legislator Regina Ip, who has long criticized the movement. We don't want concern to spread that Hong Kong is getting out of control. This is a perception that is bad for investment. China's state-run media also has run stories in recent days painting Hong Kong's democracy activists as agents of subversion directed by Western powers. This summer, activists organized an unofficial referendum on voting rights that drew 780,000 participants - more than a fifth of Hong Kong voters. And in July, tens of thousands turned out for one of the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in the region's history.

US prom culture hits university life with freshers offered private jet entrances We're excited to be answering this demand by launching the UK's first luxurious travel service for the students of today. To make the maximum impact arriving at university, the company also offers transport options including private jet, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Aston Martin or McLaren P1. Mr Stewart also claimed the service had a safety aspect. The service is an ideal alternative for students who would usually have to haul their belongings across the country in a dangerously overloaded car. Paired with our new VIF options, we're looking forward to ensuring this year students reach university with minimum fuss and maximum luxury. A spokesman for the company said that because the service has just launched there have been no bookings yet but added that "students will be booking the service over the next few weeks." The company also said that despite students facing tuition fees of £9,000 a year, it still expected to find a market for the service. Students of today are quite different in terms of expectations and aspirations, compared to students 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago - it's more important than ever to make a great first impression and VIF is just the way to do that. However, the National Union of Students criticised the service as out of touch. Megan Dunn, NUS vice president for higher education, said: "This scheme seems incredibly out of touch with the lives of the majority of students. Many students starting university this month are facing a cost of living crisis, with available financial support in loans and grants failing to keep pace with spiralling bills for basic essentials, before they can even start thinking about forking out thousands of pounds for something as simple arriving at their halls of residence.

Feminists take on race and police conduct post-Ferguson The unarmed teenager was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., earlier this month. Attendees hold their hands up while chanting, "Hands up, don't shoot," as they wait in line before the funeral. After two weeks of protests in Ferguson, Mo. over the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, blogger Miriam Zoila Perez noticed a shift in the online conversation among white feminists. In her experience, white feminist commenters prioritized gender above race when it came to pushing forward reproductive rights and income inequality. But as tensions rose in the Midwest and drew nationwide coverage, Perez saw responses from white women that centered 100 percent around race. Compared to the responses of black women soon after the shooting on August 9, the personal essays with titles like "thoughts on ferguson as a white woman" and "Feminism Is Not Just About Women's Oppression" came relatively late. But to Perez, it demonstrated a significant shift. "In feminism, I don't think you get a lot of people talking about whiteness and privilege in such a high level way," she said. People felt called to voice something about what happened. It's very emblematic of the crisis we face and because [the situation in Ferguson] is so racialized, they have to call that out. For Ohio State University English professor Koritha Mitchell, Ferguson brought to light issues that black American women face every day but that aren't seen as "women's issues" in the cultural sphere. "I can post something funny on Facebook about what's going on with me and my partner and it will get 150 likes from all over the place," said Mitchell. When I post something about how people of color are under siege in their own country, the silence is deafening. "How is it safe for women to speak publicly about relationships but not about safety in the public sphere?" she asked. For black women like Mitchell who have studied race, gender and sexuality in U.S. history, there is no dichotomy between issues regarding race and gender. To her, black women have not had the luxury of neatly separating the issues; they live the combined reality every day. While white women are now combining issues of race and gender in mainstream feminist spheres, Angela Hattery, women and gender studies professor at George Mason University, says their predecessors did the opposite. "Between 1865 and 1890, at least 10,000 black men were lynched and the justification was almost always the rape of a white woman," said Hattery. You needed the white woman to be complicit in the narrative to justify the lynching. To Hattery, the breakdown between white and black women came when white suffragists like Susan B. Anthony surveyed the landscape in the late 1800s and saw that the fight for voting rights would only work for one group at a time: women or blacks. "They made the decision to put their eggs in the basket for votes for women and votes for Blacks would come later," said Hattery. To look back at things like that gives us a powerful perspective on why women of color don't trust white women. We haven't done a good job. We haven't helped black women protect their husbands and sons ever. Even after women won the right to vote in 1920, it took a decade for white women to organize against lynching as the Association of Southern Woman for the Prevention of Lynching. The group came nearly 40 years after black women originally asked for assistance, said Mitchell. To Mitchell, the upswell of white feminist responses to the issues raised by Ferguson - police conduct, racial discrimination - reflect the times white feminists have had to play "catch up" to issues black women have grappled with for generations. "Wouldn't it be great if the activists who have those [traditional feminist] platforms took as seriously the right to raise a child as they did their right to have birth control?" posed Mitchell. Second wave feminists who made careers out of fighting for reproductive rights and access to birth control are now figuring out what that means. Noted white feminist activist Gloria Steinem took to Facebook two weeks after Michael Brown's shooting to post a pointed column by Guardian columnist Rebecca Carroll that demanded more protest from white Americans on the issue of racism. "I hope women, who have a different but parallel reason for understanding a danger that is located in the body - and racial opinions that are measurably different in public polls - will lead the change," Steinem wrote. Although Steinem has vouched for a more intersectional feminism that includes issues of race as well as gender, her comments on race in America still puzzle some. American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Sommers, author of "Who Stole Feminism?," told She The People that young men in the United States, especially young men of color, are "far more vulnerable than their sisters," but Steinem's remarks on Ferguson counter the criticism she has launched in the past. We now have hundreds of special programs for girls and young women, but almost nothing for boys. But when the White House recently initiated a small program, My Brother's Keeper, to help vulnerable black and Hispanic young men, there was an angry reaction from many feminists, including Gloria Steinem. Police relations with the black community is not the only issue pushing to the forefront of mainstream feminism. After U.S. border patrol apprehended nearly 63,000 unaccompanied minors at the country's southwest border this year, immigration reform surfaced once again - this time as a women's issue. Andrea Mercado, co-chair of We Belong Together, an organization mobilizing women for immigration reform, said that in order to rebrand the issue as essential for women, all she needed to do was share immigrant women's stories. "They speak for themselves," Mercado said. When the vast majority of employment visas are given to [male immigrants], the women who come with them are left in a position vulnerable to domestic violence and exploitation. "These stories resonate with women's organizations," she said.

Ipswich 'pig in residence' house for sale A picture for a house for sale in Suffolk was removed by estate agents when it emerged it showed a large pig at rest in the living room. On sale for £120,000, the detached one-bedroom property sits on a private road in Ipswich. The particulars featured a picture of the living room of the house - which included a pig with its head resting on a settee. Estate agents Connells said the pig in the photo was the home owner's pet. "However, the photo was put up in error and has since been removed," a spokeswoman for the company said. In the particulars for the property, Connells described the former meeting house as a "unique one bedroom detached house." Although the agency has removed the image from its website, it still appears in publicity material. The house sale has sparked interest on social media, where some have enquired whether the pig is included in the sale.

Russian tennis player, Maria Sharapova, who lost to Caroline Wozniacki in a fourth-round match at the US Open, considers that she didn’t have enough consistency. According to the athlete, she wants to finish off the year well and try to reach a new level, reports Vasily Osipov from New York. How would you assess your results at the Grand Slam tournaments this year? Of course I am happy that I managed to win at Roland Garros. But as far as the other three tournaments are concerned, I didn’t have enough consistency, especially towards the end of some of the matches. Right now, of course, I’m upset. After all, I didn’t even make it to the quarterfinals. What goals have you set for yourself for the rest of the season? After this bitter defeat, I have huge motivation to attain a new level. I have something to work toward, and I intend to do everything possible to finish off the year well. The Asian series of tournaments starts in just a couple weeks.

Member of the State Duma Committee for Physical Culture, Sport, and Youth Affairs and former world champion, Nikolai Valuev, has proposed offering bonuses, upon entering an institute of higher learning, for achieving “Ready for Labour and Defence” (GTO) standards. According to him, the targets will be generally the same as they were during Soviet times: individuals will have to pass a qualifying standard in pull-ups, running, and other exercises. To recall, 12 Russian territorial subjects will start to introduce GTO standards in their regions starting on September 1. I also proposed offering schoolchildren, who passed GTO, bonuses upon entering an institute of higher education, Valuev noted. For example, a few points could be added to their Unified State Exam. There is also a proposal to offer extra vacation days to those in the workforce who complete the same sports examination.

SW town of Harvey has fresh millionaire after Lotto win A Harvey lotto player is in the month. The search is on for a new millionaire in Perth's south-west, with one lucky person taking home nearly $1.1 million from Saturday night's lotto draw. A Harvey newsagency struck gold in the division one draw for the second time in five years, the last being $1 million in November 2009. However the lucky winner has yet to come forward. Owner of the store Steve Forward said the win was creating a buzz around the small town in Perth's south west. It's the talk of the town and everyone is pretty excited. We thought a win like this might be close. Eight WA winners have celebrated division one wins last month, capping off a lucky few weeks for the state's players. Last week a Canning Vale player became one of five August millionaire's, following a Belmont couple's massive $7.5 million win only a few weeks prior. The winning couple had played the game for twenty years and said the win gifted them the opportunity to travel the world and buy a new house. The Harvey millionaire brings WA up to 59 division one winners for the year, totalling in nearly $85 million.

The Ministry of Economic Development wants to accelerate growth of the electric vehicle market This week the Ministry of Economic Development will introduce a plan to the government for the development of environmentally friendly transport in Russia, Deputy Director of a Department at the Ministry, Oleg Pluzhnikov, said at a roundtable organized by Vedomosti at a Moscow car dealership in 2014. The plan was drafted by order of the government and one of its main goals is reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. It is expected that the document will be adopted at the end of September or the beginning of October, Pluzhnikov says, the proposed measures deal with electric vehicles and hybrids – a development plan for transport vehicles that use natural gas motor fuel already exists in Russia. The plan (Vedomosti has a copy) is intended for 2014-2017. The development of assessment criteria for electric and hybrid transport vehicles and a decision on how to stimulate the use and production of environmentally friendly transport vehicles still lies ahead. The report to the government, which will include tax and customs measures to support electric transport, will be prepared by December 2014; a plan for preferential financing and preferential leasing will emerge by April 2015; and proposals on price reductions for cars, stimulus for localization, and the creation of service infrastructure will be prepared by October 2015. In 2014-2015, it is expected that changes to laws and regulation will be introduced to simplify conditions for the construction of charging infrastructure (in parking lots, at gas stations, and so on). Moreover, federal civil servants intend, over the course of 2015, to formulate proposals for regional authorities, so that they can also stimulate the use of environmentally friendly transport – in terms of providing such types of transport with preferential treatment on the roads and for parking; and by February 2016, proposals on the expansion of state procurements of this type of transport. Finally, the Ministry of Economic Development, already by October 2014, will introduce a list of criteria to assess the activities of regional authorities, reflecting the effectiveness of support for the production of environmentally friendly transport and the development of charging infrastructure. The electric vehicle market in Russia is only just developing – in 2013, around 100 electric vehicles were sold throughout the entire country. At the beginning of 2014, the import duty on electric vehicles was reduced to zero, and, as such, sales will amount to approximately 500 units, predicts Chief Executive Officer for Mitsubishi Motors in Russia, Andrei Pankov. But even a fivefold increase won’t make electric vehicles anymore noticeable: according to data from the Association of European Business, 2.78 mln. light motor vehicles and light commercial vehicles were sold in Russia in 2013. So far, only Mitsubishi Motors imports electric vehicles into Russia. Renault is preparing to start imports – the company is focusing primarily on corporate clients, says the Director of Strategic Planning and Partnerships for Renault in Russia, Nikolai Remiz. The majority of other producers of electric vehicles have taken a wait-and-see position as concerns Russia. Even Russian producers have developed electric vehicles – GAZ – but output is pitiful. For example, according to ASM Holding’s data, between January and July, 2014, AvtoVAZ produced 30 electric vehicles. Demand is low because of the high cost of electric vehicles, admits the Director for Engineering at AvtoVAZ, Sergei Amanov, without state support there will be no breakthrough in this segment…. Development of the Russian market of electric vehicles, in addition to the high cost of the cars (the electric vehicles that are sold in Russia are, on average, twice as expensive as their counterparts with internal combustion engines), is being constrained by the underdevelopment of charging infrastructure (charging stations are few and far between), sighs General Director of Avtostat, Sergei Tselikov. Owing to the high cost and slow rate at which production costs are declining, electric vehicles will remain a niche segment over the next 3-4 years, forecasts the Editor-in Chief of AvtoReview, Mikhail Podorozhansky, and Tselikov agrees with him. Auto producers, on the other hand, say that certain models of electric automobiles are already close in price to regular ones. The Russian market for electric vehicles has good prospects, the most important thing is to instil confidence in consumers that the electric vehicle is a reality; this will in part be accomplished by the appearance of all the new charging stations, emphasizes the President of BMW Group in Russia, Wolfgang Schlimme. Such infrastructure projects are already being implemented, for example, by state company Rosseti: in Moscow several stations have already been built, and soon there will be another 80 or so. Negotiations on the construction of a network of charging stations are currently underway in other regions. According to the Director of a Department at Rosseti, Vladimir Sofin, the company believes in the electric vehicle market and is ready to build charging stations throughout the country, but there are some problems: the small amount of electric automobiles in the country and the absence of a universal charging standard for all brands of electric vehicles. Moreover, as a distribution company, Rosseti doesn’t have the right to sell electricity, and the possibility of doing so in terms of charging electric vehicles is still being worked out. Pankov believes that the most effective state measure to support the development of an electric vehicle market in Russia is the removal of customs duties. The zero duty rate will be in place until the end of 2014, and the possibility of its extension, as well as an extension of the subsidy list, are being worked out. The replacement of the transport tax with an environmental one (the idea is being discussed and would concern all vehicles) will also support the market, but not as substantially as customs preferences, Pankov reckons. The transport tax in Russia isn’t very high, says Pankov, in contrast with Norway, for example, where a lowering of the tax resulted in rapid growth in the sales of electric vehicles – they now account for 12% of the market. In Russia, stimulus measures are also needed for automobile owners; for example, free parking in the centre of the city (as has already been done in Moscow), Pankov is certain, or the ability of electric automobiles to travel in a specially-designated lane, which is something Russia still doesn’t have.

A private plane has crashed in Colorado The single-engine Piper PA-46 airplane crashed in the American state of Colorado. Three of the five people on-board died, ITAR-TASS reports. The survivors have been sent to hospital. The accident occurred several kilometres from the runway at the airport in the city of Denver. The causes of the tragedy are currently being established.

Captured fighters from the Donbass battalion are being dealt with in Donetsk Oblast. The assailants were encircled outside of Ilovaisk. Their own commanders betrayed them, and dozens of security forces were killed under fire. They say that those who survived wouldn’t have gone to fight if they had known about the actual situation in the southeast of Ukraine. You might call the 108 captives lucky. The assailants from the Donbass battalion were still alive after the “bloodbath” they stumbled into outside of Ilovaisk. They spent several days surrounded by fighters from the Donetsk People’s Republic army, basically abandoned by their commanders and authorities in Ukraine. When command headquarters announced that it was possible to leave the “ring” through an allegedly granted corridor, the column made a move. But after just a few minutes, the sound of shells and bullets could be heard from all directions. “Judging by the information that they gave me, we had a corridor that they were going to let us leave by”, recalls the Temporary Deputy Commander of the battalion, who goes by the nom-de-guerre, “Lermontov”. But when we started to descend between Mnogopolye and Chervonoselsk, the cross-fire coming from anti-tank guided missiles, "zushka" rocket-propelled artillery systems, 30mm grenade launchers, BMD automatic guns, and small arms began. There were four vehicles travelling in front of me and three behind, but when it was all said and done, there were only two vehicles left. The officer calling himself “Lermontov” recalls how, almost immediately, no fewer than 60 people were killed, dozens were wounded, many of whom later died. The surviving fighters are currently receiving medical treatment from the very ones who came to kill them. Now, the captives are surprised that these so-called “terrorists” are treating them well, giving them food and medicines. Whereas, in contrast, their own commanders essentially deceived them, sentencing them to a certain death. We were quite simply betrayed, they say. The column, the whole battalion, was sent to the slaughter. Aleksei, like many of his comrades, volunteered to join the Donbass battalion, given how Ukrainian news was describing the atrocities that were allegedly being caused by the “separatists” in Southeastern Ukraine. Here, Aleksei finally saw a very different picture. His mother was killed in Luhansk, not just by anyone, but by Ukrainian soldiers. A friend phoned me, and told me that a mortar attack was underway, and that it was most likely the Ukrainian armed forces, recounts one of the soldiers, Aleksei. After that, I wanted to leave the battalion. They wouldn’t let us leave Ilovaisk, they said that we were surrounded. I had already come to an agreement with my commander, and had already written a discharge report. They transported the whole lot of us straight from Zurakhovo to Ilovaisk. According to the captives, 300-350 people were stuck in the “trap” outside of Ilovaisk. Now, some of the survivors admit that if they could turn back time, they wouldn’t have joined the counterinsurgency battalion under any circumstances. The rebels handed over all of the captives to DPR security forces. Each of them is being checked for their participation in war crimes.

A head office for the restriction of prices on foodstuffs has been created in the region In Krasnoyarsk Krai, a head office has been created that will restrict rising prices on foodstuffs in the regional market in the event that such actions become necessary. The order concerning the creation of this structure has already been signed. The head office is composed of members of the regional government and representatives from government and supervisory agencies. They will collectively keep an eye on the prices of agricultural goods in the region.

Vesti Economics— Will Kiev reimburse Rosneft for the $140 mln. in losses? Head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, announced that the company assesses the damages from the shelling of the Lisichansky oil refinery plant in Ukraine at $140 mln. He spoke about this in an interview with Spiegel. “We assess the damages to be $140 mln. and we will be carrying out negotiations with the Ukrainian government regarding the payment of compensation”, Sechin announced. According to him, a modernization of the Lisichansky oil refinery plant was planned for 2014. However, part of the plant was destroyed by Ukrainian artillery. “There were no battles in the area, there were no ‘entrenched rebels’, but Ukrainian artillery destroyed a part of the industrial facility. Furthermore, the process oil that had been pumped into the pipeline was lost”, he stated. To recap, on July 18, two oil storage tanks were burnt down and two storage buildings were destroyed in connection with the shelling of the Lisichansky oil refinery plant. The Lisichansky oil refinery plant is the main petroleum refinery in Ukraine, the first phase of which was put into operation in October 1976. General output for the Lisichansky oil refinery plant amounts to almost 7 mln. tonnes of oil stock per year. The plant is capable of producing Euro-4 standard fuel as well as batches of Euro-5 diesel fuel. In March 2012, the delivery of oil to the Lisichansky oil refinery plant was halted due to its unprofitability. It was decided to begin renovations at the facility. After a year, Rosneft received the Lisichansky oil refinery plant along with TNK-BP’s other Ukrainian assets.

The DPRK carried out a launch of a short-range missile towards the Sea of Japan. According to Southern Korean media, it happened at around 10:30 am local time from the direction of Chagang province, which is located on the border between North Korea and China. Interfax was told by the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff that the missile presumably fell into the Sea of Japan after it had flown approximately 220 kilometres.

The rouble falls amid geopolitical pressure The dollar rose by 3 kopecks to 37.15 at the opening of the Moscow Exchange; the rouble has weakened against the bi-currency basket amid geopolitical tension. Trading of the dollar for the single trading session started off with transactions in the range of 37.11-37.2 RUB/$1, with the average exchange rate over a two-minute period being recorded at 37.16 RUB/$1, which is 4 kopecks higher than the level of the previous closing. The euro exchange rate amounted to 48.79 roubles per euro, which is 3 kopecks higher than the level of the previous closing. The price of the bi-currency basket rose by 3.5 kopecks and amounted to 42.395 roubles. The US dollar is trading at 23 kopecks higher than the official exchange rate, the euro at 16 kopecks higher than the official exchange rate. On August 29, the Russian market continued its precipitous decline, however, this time around, there was no sign of panic. The rouble continued its devaluation and even reached a new historic low against the dollar. Right now, investors are preemptively betting on a deterioration of the geopolitical situation and the possibility of new sanctions against Russia. However, for the time being, it seems more like an artificially manufactured hysteria being fanned by the media, especially the Western media. There are not very many options for introducing new sanctions against Russia. TeleTrade “At the opening of the Moscow Exchange, the rouble continued its steep decline against the bi-currency basket. The geopolitical backdrop remains a driving factor. However, if we don’t see any new negative factors emerge in the near future, Russian indices and the position of the national currency may correct themselves.

Orenburg Airlines will sue Ideal Tour Orenburg Airlines has filed a lawsuit against Ideal Tour for a total of 4.7 billion roubles. The issue concerns two cases, the hearings of which will begin in October. The cases will be presided over by different judges. Interfax reports that the first lawsuit was filed on August 14. Its amount is slightly higher than 425 million roubles. The hearing for this case is scheduled for October 7. The second lawsuit was filed on August 18. Its amount is 4.24 billion roubles. The hearing for this case is scheduled for October 2. The Russian Union of Travel Industry informed journalists that separate judges were appointed to each case. In July, information appeared in the media about Ideal Tour’s debts to Orenburg Airlines in the amount of 1.5 billion roubles. The airline’s General Director, Viktor Zyukin, says the amount is 1.6 billion roubles. Aeroflot’s General Director, Vitaly Savelev, names an even larger amount of two billion roubles.

Twitter has tried to become more interesting to new users The microblogging service, Twitter, has changed the process for registering users in order to more quickly engage new participants in active interaction with the platform. This measure should lower the number of people abandoning their microblogs. Now, new Twitter users will see a large number of accounts recommended by the service during registration, in order to immediately create their reading circle. The recommendations are created on the basis of interests selected during registration. Additionally, Twitter automatically ticks the add subscription boxes for all automatically selected accounts. As a result, the user will have to manually unclick the boxes in order to not read what is uninteresting to him or her. If before, users of the microblogging service only saw a user pic of recommended users, now Twitter will include an example of one of the blogger’s most popular tweets to help create an impression of that person. This is the biggest change to Twitter’s registration page in the past three years. Lately, Twitter has been actively working to modernize its service. This activism is primarily related to the on-going efforts to try and reach a break-even point. In 2014, the microblogging service was hit by slowed growth in the size of its user base and a drop in reader activity. Currently, the company desperately needs a large number of more loyal consumers, who, having logged in one time, decide to stick around for the long haul. This is the only way to ensure a steady stream of advertising.

The Day of Knowledge will be chilly and wet in Moscow It will be cold and rainy all day on the first of September in the Moscow region, meteorologists report. The air temperature in Moscow will be between 16-18°C, and between 13-18°C throughout greater Moscow. There will be pockets of rain mixed in with broken clouds, and a rather weak wind from the eastern quadrant – just 3-8 metres per second.

The vehicle scrappage programme will resume on September 1 On September 1, the activities of the vehicle scrappage programme in Russia will resume. By December 31, 2014, 10 billion roubles will have been allocated for this purpose. As the Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, explained, the money will be allocated from funds that have already been transferred to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, through redeployment from other support areas. The programme will apply to all motor vehicles that are more than six years old. The amount of compensation will range from 40 thousand for a light motor vehicle up to 350 thousand for a cargo vehicle. Previously, a similar vehicle scrappage programme operated in Russia. The main difference with the current project, the minister explained, is that vehicle scrappage is not only offered in order to receive a subsequent rebate, but there is also the opportunity, if the vehicle is more than six years old, to buy a new one at a discount when the old one is traded-in at a dealership, Interfax reports. The previous federal scrappage programme ran from January 1, 2010 through to December 31, 2011 and cost more than 16 billion roubles. As a result of the programme, the output level of light motor vehicles in 2010 amounted to approximately 1.2 million units (up 101.4% compared to 2009).

The inventor of Coming Out Simulator will release a game about modern journalism Game designer, Nicky Case, known for the Coming Out Simulator, has decided to release a game about modern journalism. He spoke about his project in an interview with Kill Screen. Case began working on the game several weeks ago, but it only became widely known about just now. Inspiration for the game came from the events in Ferguson, where protests, which began after a police officer killed an unarmed black teenager, are currently underway. The focus of the project, which, as of yet, has no title, will be about how news coverage of stories influences their consequences. The game’s main character, a citizen journalist, will need to photograph events in areas where confrontations between police and the population are underway. The main character can photograph what is happening in different ways, which will impact how events unfold. If they shoot the scene in a way that makes the police look like the heroes and the protesters like bandits, then the police will start to treat them better and allow them into places a normal person isn’t allowed to enter. If they present events in a different manner, their photographs can turn peaceful protests into a massive riot. Points in the game will have to be earned using the main character’s Twitter account, which will attract new subscribers if the photographs posted there turn out to be popular. The game, as of yet, has no title. The release date and the platforms it will be available on are unknown. Case, however, published an image showing how an event can change depending on how you take and process a photograph of it. In the interview with Kill Screen, Case explained how he came up with the idea for this game quite a while ago, however, he had originally wanted to base it not on protests in the USA, but on events in the Gaza strip. After starting to collect information for the game, the game designer admitted that he didn’t have enough knowledge or expertise to portray the history of the region. However, when he saw how the media was presenting the events in Ferguson, he decided to make a game based on the incident. Nicky Case is an independent designer who produces browser games. Coming Out Simulator, which was released in 2014, became his is best-known project. This game, which addresses events from Case’s own biography, focuses on how a bisexual teenager attempts to tell his homophobic parents about his relationships.

Heletey drags Ukraine into a continuation of bloodshed With an appeal to prepare for the next “tens of thousands” of victims, Ukraine’s Minister of Defence, Valery Heletey, drags the people into a continuation of bloodshed, reads a statement from the Russian MFA. “In Moscow, of course, we took note of the statements made by the head of the Ukrainian military agency, Valery Heletey, who spoke about the ‘completion of operations to liberate the East of Ukraine from the terrorists’ and about the beginning of a ‘Great Patriotic War’, the losses of which would be counted in the ‘tens of thousands’. The degree of appropriateness of the head of the Ukrainian military agency, who published the aforementioned post on his Facebook page, is a subject for analysis by specialists outside of the military sphere”, reads the statement by Russian diplomats. They find it hard to believe that the minister of defence of a civilized state could make such statements. On Monday, Ukraine’s Minister of Defence wrote the following on his Facebook page: “According to unofficial channels, the Russian side has already threatened several times to use tactical nuclear weapons against us if we continue to resist”. Moreover, he stated that “the operation to liberate the east of Ukraine” was complete.

Perez Hilton deleted all intimate shots of celebrities and apologised Today more than 60 Hollywood stars were struck with horror. Hackers managed to break the weak passwords for iCloud (a data storage service) on smartphones, after which their intimate photos appeared on the website of blogger Perez Hilton. Although, not for long. To recap, the official spokesperson for the star of The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, already reported the theft of photographs from her mobile phone, and also confirmed that all of the shots that are “blowing up” the web are, in fact, genuine. Perez Hilton, the founder of the eponymous tabloid site, offered an apology to the actress, Jennifer Lawrence, and to her fellow colleagues, for the publication of their explicit shots, The Independent writes. No, nobody compelled me to do it. Their agents did not approach me. But now I will delete the explicit photos of Jennifer Lawrence and Victoria Justice”, the blogger wrote on Twitter. However, all the explicit photographs of the stars have already been spread all over the Internet.

David Beckham got into a motor vehicle accident while trying to hide from the Paparazzi David Beckham got into an accident on a motorcycle while trying to save himself from the Paparazzi. It happened in Los Angeles on the corner of Sunset Boulevard. The British footballer got off easy with just a concussion and a sprained right hand. Beckham left a tattoo parlour where the Paparazzi were camped out waiting for him. While trying to escape their pursuit on a motorcycle, he lost control on a corner and fell, writes TMZ, with reference to sources close to the footballer. All in all, Beckham received a concussion, a sprained right hand, and scratches.

Tony Stewart crashes in return to track Tony Stewart's return to the track has ended only a little over halfway through his race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Stewart hit the wall for the second time after his right front tire blew out on lap 172, ending his night. Stewart drove his battered car to the garage and then exited without speaking to reporters. His crew chief Chad Johnston said the 14 team was disappointed, but will now start focusing on next weekend's race in Richmond, Virginia. "I wish we could have had a better effort and a better finish for him," Johnston said. We'll go on to Richmond and hope we can do better there. Stewart first went into the wall earlier in Sunday night's race following a collision with Kyle Busch, requiring work to the right side of his car. "I went into today with some pretty good hopes of finishing well," Johnston said, adding, "It just didn't work out." Not long after the second crash, Stewart's car was loaded onto the hauler and the team was packed up and ready to leave. Stewart skipped three NASCAR Sprint Cup races after his car struck and killed a fellow driver in a dirt-track race in upstate New York. He decided to return this week, needing to win either at Atlanta or the next race at Richmond to claim a spot in the Chase. He returned to work as an investigation into the tragic incident that resulted in the death of 20-year-old Kevin Ward Jr., who had stepped on the track to confront Stewart during a race. Authorities said Friday that the probe into the cause of the crash will last at least another two weeks. No decision has been made about whether Stewart will face charges. The three-time champion received a big cheer when he was introduced before the race. Starting in the 12th spot, Stewart ran in the top 10 early in the race, getting as high as fourth. Then, on lap 122 after a restart, Busch's No. 18 machine got loose coming out of turn 2 and banged into Stewart, sending both cars against the wall. Stewart carried on but dropped back to 21st.

Sobchak and Vitorgan have a breakfast of cigarettes with Zhvanetsky in Odessa Ksenia Sobchak and Maksim Vitorgan are currently in Odessa, a fact the television host didn’t forget to mention on her Instagram account. However, one photograph shocked and utterly bewildered the couples’ fans. The shot was taken at Zhvanetsky’s place. “During breakfast at Mikhail Mikhailych Zhvanetsky’s place, Maksim explains what exactly Instagram is :)) #odessa”, Ksenia Sobchak wrote underneath the photograph. However, aside from cigarettes, there was nothing on the table. No coffee, no rolls, no butter, nothing of the sort… The couple’s fans decided that Ksenia must also be a smoker, and they judged her for it. “But whose cigarettes are those?”, “Smoking kills!”, “Some kind of a cigarette breakfast )”, “Supposedly it’s a breakfast, but there are only cigarettes on the table )))”, “Ksenia, do you smoke too?” – her blog subscribers were all-worked up about their favourite person. To recall, Sobchak recently boasted about how delicious the very first dinner that Maksim Vitorgan ever prepared in his life for her was. “Happiness is arriving at the dacha and your husband has already prepared dinner so that it is ready for you when you arrive (it’s the first time he’s done this in our married life together, but what a delicious dinner it was. The most important thing is that he doesn’t turn to me at the end of dinner and say the line from that joke: ‘now make sure it’s like this every day’”, Ksenia Sobchak boasted about her husband. In the picture you can see that Maksim is whole-heartedly cooking something, while pickled vegetables and a roasted chicken are already set out on the table.

Bulgaria's Prison Officers Stage National Protest Hundreds of prison workers from across Bulgaria have held a national protest in front the Justice Ministry in the capital Sofia. In a peaceful demonstration, they have reiterated their calls for the old working conditions, which were recently changed, to be restored. Higher salaries are also among a list of requests due to be discussed with interim Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov. For a month, officers have protested symbolically against the new working hours, demanding to return to the old 24 hour shifts. Despite the meetings between the prison officers union and the Justice Ministry representatives, an agreement was not reached, Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) informs. Negotiations are ongoing, the head of the Chief Directorate on the Execution of Penalties Rosen Zhelyazkov told BNR. The protest of the prison workers union is expected to be joined by members of the Trade Union Federation of the Employees in the Ministry of Interior.

The Army is in control of the new government of Thailand General Prayuth (on the right) appointed Pravit Vongsuwan (on the left) to the post of Minister of Defence The military governor and Prime Minister of Thailand, General Prayuth Chan-ocha announced the composition of the new cabinet of ministers for the country, in which more than a third of positions are held by either generals or retired generals. Members of the army received key positions: ministers of defence, finance, foreign affairs, and trade. On Monday, Prayuth Chan-ocha was officially confirmed in the position of prime minister, following official approval by the King of Thailand of the appointment of the head of the interim military government to that post. The 60 year-old military man, who seized control of the country following a bloodless coup on May 22, was the only candidate for the post of prime minister. He was chosen as the prime minister during a session of parliament. Earlier, the army appointed the members of parliament. According to Prayuth Chan-ocha, a coup was the only way to ensure stability. It was preceded by six-month long demonstrations, in which those protesting demanded the resignation of the government’s Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra. Officially, Prayuth Chan-ocha will be the temporary prime minister, since army leaders plan to hold general elections at the end of 2015. However, there are concerns that military leaders plan to consolidate their power over the country. The army came to power on May 22 against the backdrop of a totally paralysed civil government. The leaders of the main political parties were subjected to temporary arrest. Immediately following the military leaders’ seizure of power, they began the temporary arrest of the country’s leading politicians, including Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Those arrested included several journalists and public figures. The current political crisis traces its roots back to 2006, when the army removed Yingluck Shinawatra’s brother, Thaksin, from his post as prime minister. Both of them are popular with the rural population, especially in the northern regions of the country, which brought them success several times at the polls. However, many members of the middle class and the elite in the capital joined the anti-government movement, which has virtually paralysed the country since November 2013.

No one told you that the mussels would be better in a salad, I didn’t promise you that, joked the waitress from the new Palm brasserie. It must be formally recognized that this is indeed the case, but the mind and the stomach remain adamant. After all, everyone knows that when we say “Belgium”, we mean mussels, and when we say “mussels”, we mean “Belgium”. Restaurants love to sagaciously proclaim that the success of an establishment is dependent on three factors: location, location, and, once again, location. There are certain places that are not just well, but rather superbly located, and yet they are still unlucky. In a word, having sat down at a table at Palm, I remembered how, some time ago, this used to be the site of a café called Gorodok (in tribute to the television show of the same name), then there was Odessa Mama, as well as the restaurant, Beaujolis, and the Druzhba beer hall. Now there is another beer hall here, but this time it’s not a nostalgic soviet-style one, but Belgian. Above ground is just the tip of the iceberg – a bar counter and a few tables – the rest of the space is devoid of even a hint of sunlight. But still, it is pleasant here, like a child’s bedroom: red, yellow, and green walls, different coloured chairs, and, in place of a window, a television that shows mermaids swimming. Belgian establishments are far from new in Saint Petersburg, so there is something to compare this one to. There are eight types of beers on tap here (260-300 roubles for 0.5L) and countless numbers of bottled ones (170-1550 roubles). A sociable and friendly waitress happily presents me with a menu, while telling me that “mussels are large filling seeds”, and here it should be noted that the service, in spite of other shortcomings, is the best feature of Palm. The menu contains what one might expect, but the preparation of the dishes is often rather unexpected. For example, who would be able to predict that the Meat Roll with Walloon plums (280 roubles) was actually a carpaccio, that, moreover, was so thinly sliced that parchment paper would seem to be an outrageously thick material in comparison. The only way to be able to detect some sort of flavour would be to shove half the plate into your mouth all at once. The salads are even worse. It would be fair to call the Classic Salade Liegeoise (260) a crime against the Belgian people: some sort of withered-up iceberg lettuce, potato that was boiled some very long while ago, soggy Kenyan beans, overly hard pieces of bacon, plus, for some reason, pickled onion. You wouldn’t wish this salade liegeoise on your worst enemy! The list of ingredients for the Belgian Salad was a bit different, but the impression it made was no more positive. If it was possible to turn a blind eye to the unripened quartered cherry tomatoes and over-fried mushrooms, it was impossible to ignore the mussels that looked as if they had been boiled and refrozen several times during their lifetime! After all, I already know that absolutely normal White Sea mussels are available here! They are served in small pots “with your choice of sauce” (490-560 for 0.5 kg). Out of half a dozen sauces, the one made with white wine, celery, and carrots honestly wasn’t a success. There were vegetables in the sauce, but no aroma, and whether or not there actually was any wine in the sauce remains a mystery. On the plus side, the frites with homemade mayonnaise served alongside the mussels were good. The Chicken Waterzooi served here is not a broth, but so thick that, depending on your mood, you might decide you have either a first or a main course in front of you – it’s simply a nice creamy soup. It was stated that the local chef prepares the rabbit in a beer sauce, but nothing was said about rosemary. In fact, the situation turned out to be the diametric opposite: the rosemary took over the whole dish. I was given the impression that this rabbit was exclusively fed rosemary bushes throughout its life, and, as a result, its meat had taken on a highly unusual aroma. But, at the same time, the rabbit leg was served with a wonderful – no, utterly outstanding – pear in a caramelized crust. Palm offers not only sweet, but also savoury waffles with beef, chicken, or bacon and cheese (220-280). The maple syrup turned out to be too runny and the waffles were a bit dry. However, the manager came up to my table and rather casually asked about my impressions of the meal. That means it’s worth coming in another time.

The dollar exchange rate on the MICEX rose to more than 37 roubles on news of new sanctions being prepared by the West in relation to Russia. This is a new historical record. The dollar rate for ‘tomorrow’ settlements rose by 26.9 kopeks to 37.02 roubles by 10:29 (MSK), while the euro exchange rate increased by 30 kopecks to 48.73 roubles, according to Moscow Exchange data. The bi-currency basket rose by 28 kopeks to the level of the previous closing and stood at 42.28 roubles. Before the events in Crimea, the dollar hit its peak on February 19, 2009, when it stood at 36.43 roubles, but on March 3, 2014, it was already at 37.005 roubles. On the night of August 29, the White House announced that US President, Barack Obama, and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, are discussing the possibility of introducing additional sanctions against Russia. The weakening of the rouble against both the euro and the dollar is here for the long-term. The long-term forecast suggested this mark, says Anna Bodrova, a Senior Analyst with Alpari. One way or another, everything associated with Ukraine will affect the exchange rate. As long as this continues, investors will respond to it. Today there were rumours about a military incursion that were not substantiated by any side, but the market turned out to be highly emotional. All the talk about it being resistant to such kinds of news was proven wrong yesterday. According to experts, the week will close at around the levels of 36.90 and 37.05 roubles per dollar. Tax season has ended, the price of oil is weak, politics, sanctions, and difficulties with delivering gas through Ukraine – these are all a part of the same chain. It is also expected that inflation will soar: by fall, current prices will rise by between 5-10%. Moreover, the season for vegetables and fruits will soon end and a vacuum of sorts will appear while the network reorients to alternative suppliers. “The dollar went up to the 37 rouble mark, went over it, and then returned to its previous position – there is no overwhelming hysteria here, comments Konstantin Bushuev, Head of the Market Analysis Department at Otkritie Broker. Everyone will also be watching to see if the promised sanctions will be introduced on Saturday, as there will be a NATO meeting. The rouble, according to him, weakened sharply after the end of the tax season, then came the news about Ukraine, and, to top it off, the Central Bank announced last week that it will move to a fully floating rate by the end of the year and will renounce any kind of currency intervention. If you take a look at the daily fluctuations, they are in no way different from those previously seen over the course of this month; everyone was frightened by the 37 rouble mark, the analyst continued. But, in terms of volume, nothing spectacular occurred. I'll remind you of the anxious times in the currency market at the end of January, when there was an increased demand for foreign currency, as well as on the third of March, when the Central Bank sold off a record volume of foreign currency. But UFC Investment Company sees a positive side to the weakening rouble. First and foremost, this means growth for the revenue side of the budget from export operations, as well as an improvement to the competitive advantage of domestic producers as a result of the rising cost of imports, says Chief Analyst for UFC Investment Company, Aleksei Kozlov. On the downside, this may mean increased prices for imported goods and services. The sharp fluctuations of the Russian currency are significantly decreasing the attractiveness of investing in the Russian economy and provoking an increase in inflationary pressures, which, as a consequence, has become a reason for the increased cost of borrowing money, which, in turn, slows the country’s economic growth. If we’re taking about the stock market, the depreciation of the rouble somewhat mitigates the decreasing price of stocks denominated in roubles. By way of example, during Thursday’s trading session, the MICEX index fell by 1.67%, but the RTS lost 3.27%. Such a significant difference in the relative magnitude of decline in the indices is explained by the weakening of the rouble by more than 1.5% over the course of the day. The weakening of the rouble has an emotional element to it, which explains the widespread rush to buy foreign currency. Experience shows that emotions will slowly fade away and the rouble’s listed price will either partly or fully recover its losses. “We suspect that, before long, we will see a ratio between the dollar and the Russian currency closer to the level of 36 roubles to the dollar”, Aleksei Kozlov remarks.

Genetic disorder often misdiagnosed A British woman says she spent many years thinking she was going to die after a misdiagnosis. Karin Rodgers spent most of her teenage life believing that she only had years to live after she was diagnosed with another disease. She actually had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) - a group of inherited disorders that damage nerves outside the brain and spine. Charity CMT UK said that misdiagnosis is a common problem among people with CMT because so little is known about the condition. About 23,000 people in the UK are thought to have CMT, which can cause motor symptoms such as muscle weakness, an awkward gait and curled toes. Sufferers can also experience numbness or pain and the condition is incurable and progressive, meaning symptoms get worse over time. When Rodgers was 13 she was under the impression that she suffered from Friedreich's ataxia (FA) - a condition which had a very poor prognosis. Rodgers thought that she was going to be wheelchair bound by the time she was 18 and dead before she reached her 30s. The mother-of-two, who is now 51, said: "As a child I knew I couldn't do the same things as others. I was falling daily and everything took me longer to do. I could never roller-skate or skateboard with other kids and got bullied at school a lot because of the way I walked and ran. Rodgers said when she was aged 13, after several operations to release her Achilles tendons and straighten out her feet, she took a peak at her medical notes when her consultant left the room which said that she suffered from FA. "I felt guilty because I'd been nosy and so I didn't tell anybody, but I did come home, look up the condition at the library and wrote to the FA Association," she said. When I got the information back I was gobsmacked and in the worst state of panic possible. I thought I'd be in a wheelchair at 18 and dead by the time I was 25 and in between gradually lose all my ability. I was going through this on my own and I planned my own funeral. She said by the time she reached 17 she realised that her walking abilities hadn't deteriorated as much as she thought they would have and asked her surgeon about it. He just stood up and hugged me and said 'my dear I don't think you have it, as you would be in a wheelchair now.' I think you have something a lot less life threatening. After some genetic testing she was found to have CMT. "When he explained what CMT was, I thought I'd drawn the lucky straw," she said. Charity CMT UK has launched CMT awareness month to try to draw attention to the condition.

Washington-area business owners" tax burden mounts as economy rebounds A rebounding economy means more customers, higher sales and new jobs. It also means higher taxes. State and local tax bills for companies across the country grew modestly last year as the economic recovery accelerated, according to new research released last week, and Washington-area firms were no exception. District, Maryland and Virginia businesses collectively paid $27.6 billion to state and local coffers in fiscal 2013, an increase of 3.8 percent over the $26.6 billion collected in 2012. Businesses" state and local tax burdens last year expanded by 4.3 percent, to $671 billion, compared with 3.9 percent the year before, and it was the third consecutive year of growth after back-to-back years of shrinking bills in 2009 and 2010. State taxes rose at a faster clip, 4.3 percent, than local levies, 3.9 percent, according to the study, which was conducted by professional services firm Ernst & Young and the Center on State Taxation, a tax policy group. More than half of the District's tax revenue, 56 percent, comes from business taxes, while 36 percent of Maryland's revenue comes from firms. Virginia, at 28 percent, generates the least amount of tax revenue, proportionately, from business. Much of the growth in tax revenue is being driven by a rebound in companies" real estate values, researchers say, which pushed property taxes up 3.7 percent this year after three consecutive years of sub-1 percent growth. While a large share of those gains came from big states such as California, New York and Texas, it appears to be the same story in the Washington area as well. Companies in the District, Maryland and Virginia collectively forked over $10 billion in state and local property taxes last year, up from $9.6 billion in 2012 - year-over-year growth of 4.2 percent. But the apparent bounceback in property values isn't doing nearly as much to inflate state and local tax revenues in Maryland, where property taxes amount to barely more than a fifth of companies" tax bills. Virginia and D.C. firms pay nearly half of their state and local tax bills in the form of property taxes. "What's happening in Maryland is that so much of their property, especially the tax base surrounding the D.C. area, is owned either by the government or by nonprofits, which don't pay property taxes," said Douglas Lindholm, executive director of the Center on State Taxation. So Maryland is forced to rely much more heavily on, for example, its income taxes to pay for the same services you have in other states. The recent rebound in business tax revenue cannot all be attributed to the recovering real estate market. Business incomes also appear to be on the mend, according to the data. Companies in the region reported state corporate income taxes of $2.3 billion, up from $2.1 billion in 2012. Maryland collected $1 billion in corporate income tax revenue, the most in the region. While trending in the same direction, the local tax burden on businesses isn't growing at the same pace in all three places. The District's rate of growth was level with the national average, at 4.3 percent, while Maryland's growth was substantially faster at 4.9 percent. Only Virginia posted a below-average tax bill bump of 4.1 percent. Virginia has the lowest corporate income tax by far of the three jurisdictions (all of which have flat corporate rates) at 6 percent. Maryland's corporate rate is 8.25 percent, while the District's stands at a relatively high 9.975 percent. A similar study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this year showed that Virginia had lower state and local business taxes and an overall better business tax climate than Maryland. The District wasn't evaluated in the study. Despite its advantage, Virginia is facing competitive pressure from its neighbor to the south. North Carolina recently signed legislation lowering its corporate rate this year from 6.9 percent to 6 percent, in line with Virginia, and the rate will drop to 5 percent next year. If the state continues to meet revenue goals in the coming year, the law could push the state's business income tax rate as low as 3 percent by 2017. Meanwhile, small businesses in the Washington region seem to be faring better and thus paying more state and local taxes, according to the recent study. Business taxes paid as personal income taxes by small business owners - the pass-through structure by which most small firms are organized - in the District, Maryland and Virginia surged 20 percent last year to $2.4 billion, a much faster rate of growth than overall business taxes. Researchers say that trend and the increase in business taxes nationwide are likely to continue this year, with overall sales tax revenue for state and local governments up 6.2 percent in the first three quarters of 2014 compared with the same period last year. However, the Washington area may lag behind as the slowdown in federal spending takes its toll on the region's labor market.

The Bronze Age of Russian Judo The World Judo Championships held on home soil, brought Team Russia two silver and seven bronze medals. Given these results, the Russians only gave way to the competition’s main favourites – Team Japan. The tournament in Chelyabinsk started on Monday, with the first day already bringing the Russian team a silver medal. The award’s winner was Beslan Mudranov, who was competing in the 60kg class. Furthermore, in the tied final fight with Boldbaatar Ganbat from Mongolia, the result of the match was decided by just one penalty, received by the Russian. But the second day of the tournament turned out to be the most successful for Team Russia – three medals were won on Tuesday alone. Mikhail Pulyaev, competing in the men’s 66kg class, achieved a silver medal, and the bronze went to Kamal Khan-Magomedov. In the final fight, the Russian went up against the Japanese 2011 and 2013 World Champion, Masashi Ebinuma. Khan-Magomedov, having lost to his fellow countryman in the quarterfinals, successfully made it through repechage and won the bronze medal. In the women’s 52kg tournament, Natalia Kyzyutina made it to the third spot on the podium. She lost the semi-final to the current World Champion, Majlinda Kelmendi from Kosovo, who competed under the flag of the International Judo Federation in this competition and successfully defended her title. In the fight for the bronze, Kyzyutina defeated Ma Yingnan from China, but after the tournament, she admitted that third place was not at all what she was expecting. Once again, Kelmendi, who earlier beat Kuzyutina in the final match of the European Championships, stood as an obstacle to the Russian’s road to gold. On the third day of the tournament in Chelyabinsk, Musa Mogushkov, competing in the 73kg class, added another bronze to Team Russia’s collection. His opponent in the quarterfinals was Viktor Skovortsov, a former representative of Moldova who now competes for Team UAE. But then, the Russian won two fights and became a medal winner. Mogushkov entered the home championships with an injured ankle, which he plans to rehabilitate in the near future, and is why he will take a break from competing. As concerns the ex-Moldovan competitor, Skvortsov, well he won himself a bronze medal in this tournament. Interestingly, his other fellow countryman, Ivan Remarenko, who also took on sporting citizenship from the UAE, likewise finished his competition in the 100kg class with a bronze medal. The fourth day of the 2014 WC also brought the Russians one bronze, won by Ivan Nifontov in the 81kg class. In a difficult semi-final fight, he won against Frenchman, Alain Schmitt, as a result of a penalty against his opponent. On Friday, three groups of medals were up for grabs at the tournament, but the Russians, as per tradition, were limited to just one bronze in the men’s 90kg class tournament. The recipient was Kirill Voprosov, but Team Russia was guaranteed to win this medal: his opponent in the repechage final was fellow countryman, Kirill Denisov. However, the actual fight was never held: Voprosov’s opponent wasn’t able to walk out onto the judo mat as a result of an injury. A men’s bronze was also won by the home team on the sixth day of the competition – it was added to the team’s collection by Renat Saidov, who competed in the over 100kg class. He achieved a clean win in the repechage final against the Brazilian, David Moura. Thus ended the individual portion of the World Championships. On Sunday, the last day of the tournament in Chelyabinsk, the titles of world champions in the team competitions were up for grabs. Both Russian teams – the men’s and the women’s – were amongst the top contenders for the award, but, as in the individual competitions, things didn’t work out for the representatives of the fairer sex – they didn’t achieve any medals. But the Russian male judokas won the team silver. In the deciding match of a hard-fought battle with a score of 2-3, they gave up first place to the competition favourites – Team Japan. Moreover, Team Russia was leading 2-0 after the clean fight victory of Khan-Magomedov and the comeback win by Denis Yartsev (in the 73kg class). However, in the heavier weight classes, Murat Khabachirov (81), Magomed Magomedov (90), and Aslan Kambiev (100) weren’t able to defeat their Japanese opponents. The same scenario played out in the bronze medal match of the women’s tournament, where the Russian team, leading 2-0, ended up losing 2-3 to the Japanese. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, attended the team competitions in Chelyabinsk, and congratulated the men’s team with their silver medal following the closing of the tournament. “Second place is very honourable, but I want to say that it was obvious you could become champions, Putin said according to RIA Novosti. To lose to the Japanese, the pioneers of judo – there is no shame in this. But I am confident that you are also capable of beating them. Team Russia’s performance at the World Championships on home soil was much better than last year’s showing at competitions of a similar calibre held in Rio de Janeiro. At that time, the Russian team only managed to get three medals under its belt – one silver and two bronze. Moreover, this tournament was held without Olympian champions, Arsen Galstyan and Mansur Isaev. Of course, we are all big maximalists. Yes, we want gold medals. But let’s remember that if a person ends up in the top eight of an Olympic cycle, then they are considered a contender for an Olympic medal. Especially, in a type of sport like judo”, Russian Minister of Sport, Vitaly Mutko, said in summing up the tournament, as reported by the press service for the Championships. As predicted, Team Japan came out on top in Chelyabinsk, winning 11 medals of various value, five of which turned out to be gold. The next World Championships will be held next summer in Astana. You can find more information, news, and statistics on the Summer Sports page.

Joan Rivers' Family Keeping 'Our Fingers Crossed' Joan Rivers has been unconscious since her arrival three days ago at a New York City hospital, but her daughter expressed hope today that the 81-year-old comedian will recover from her illness. "Thank you for your continued love and support," Melissa Rivers said in a statement today. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Her mother arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital Thursday after an emergency call that she was in cardiac arrest at an Upper East Side clinic, Yorkville Endoscopy, sources said. Doctors are intentionally keeping her sedated and under close supervision until they're more comfortable with her condition, which remains "serious." Reaction has been widespread, including overwhelming online support from the likes of Donald Trump, Montel Williams and Kelly Ripa.

The kings can do it all The now on-sale debut album by the group, Royal Blood – the new hope for British rock – has taken rock duos from nightclubs straight into stadiums. The Royal Blood duo has only be on the stage for a year, but they have already managed to earn a nomination for a BBC music award, tour as the opening act for the Arctic Monkeys, and receive a visit from the one and only Jimmy Page in the dressing room at their New York concert. Their self-titled debut album has already received 100 thousand pre-orders several months ahead of its release, and the contract for its distribution belongs to one of the major labels – Warner Music. Given the sorry state of the current music industry, this situation is quite remarkable; after all, we’re not talking about the next Lana Del Rey or your run-of-the-mill, sweet-sounding representative of the “new R&B”, but about a moody-looking duo of Brits that plays with such a level of volume and intensity that hasn’t been in vogue for several decades. Overall, given everything mentioned above, the expectations for the first album were particularly high – and they have been fully justified already. The duo chose their name, which up until now one might only expect some desperate long-haired metalheads to take on, for good reason: it’s clear that they feel as if the blood of kings runs in their veins. Here, we of course are talking primarily about the heroes from a previous level, Led Zeppelin: just like the great foursome, Royal Blood have made it their goal to shake up the stagnant blood of British rock, taking it to new heights. While it’s probably still too early to forecast the success of this enterprise, it’s not too early to make some predictions. The ten songs laid out over thirty-something minutes aren’t so much a demonstration of phenomenal compositional talent, as they are a confident and strong declaration of such intent. It’s impossible to deny the merits of certain tracks: for example, the lead single, “Out Of The Black”, stands out in that one remembers it not for its melodic line, but for its drumming. The musicians jokingly say that this song is easier to tap out a beat to than to sing. It’s also worth singling out the equally powerful “Little Monster” and the record’s closing composition, “Better Strangers”, with a Shakespearean reference in its title. While there is truth to the notion that each of these songs would sound great at a party for hard rock fans, when playing them back to back they begin to merge into a more or less uniform canvas. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather quite the opposite. Royal Blood’s strength is that they aren’t trying to become the next Lennon or McCartney (they’d be more likely labelled as Motörhead’s successors), but they have brought many rock duos out of the indie club ghettos. Their music, in spite of some variety, is made for stadiums, whereas, in places that are meant for less than a couple thousand of people, it feels noticeably cramped. The secret, in part, is in the clever use of bass, which supplants the traditional place of the guitar – a technique that was pioneered by The White Stripes at the start of the 2000s. Admittedly, it’s not only about the instruments, but also in the very approach to the composition of the songs. Members of the retro rock movement in the 2000s, with great difficulty, pushed themselves beyond the postmodernist paradigm, and, with great reluctance, moved to call themselves not just imitators, but independent creative entities. Royal Blood already sounds so brazen and powerful that such drive helps to successfully cover-up some of the repetitiveness and bullheadedness of the musical material. After all, who said that rock had to be intelligent?

Amazon buys Twitch for $1.04 billion AMAZON just confirmed what the Information reported Monday morning: The online retailer - and video producer, and a hundred other things - is buying video streaming service Twitch for $1.04 billion ($US970 million). The announcement comes as a surprise, not because no one expected Twitch to be bought, but because YouTube was widely expected to be the buyer. Three months ago the sale of Twitch to Google's video service, for a cool billion, looked all wrapped up, and the pairing seemed natural. Twitch, founded only three years ago as Justin.tv, set out to be a general streaming service - a live version of YouTube. Instead, it quickly became a platform for gamers to broadcast their in-game feats; a "YouTube for live gaming," in Business Insider's words. Twitch's interface. And "let's play," a genre of videos in which wiseacres give (mostly older) games the Mystery Science Theater treatment, are already popular on YouTube. The point is, YouTube comes up a lot when describing Twitch, so the news that YouTube was acquiring Twitch was greeted with a yawn, a textbook example of an entrenched tech company buying out a potential competitor. It's a mystery why the deal with YouTube fell through, considering it was reportedly willing to pay no less than Amazon. All we have at the moment is this statement from Twitch CEO Emmett Shear: "We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster." Another mystery, frankly, is Twitch's incredible success. To snobs like me who declare that they'd rather play sports than watch them, it's hard to see the appeal of watching games rather than taking up a controller myself. It's one thing to look over your friend's shoulder at 3 in the morning as she creeps through Resident Evil, and quite another to watch some rando get 20 headshots in a row in Call of Duty. All the games you could be watching right now. Another problem is that many of today's most popular games are first-person, so watching footage of them, without controlling the viewpoint yourself, can be a Do It Right-worthy recipe for a headache. I concede that speedruns, in which the Roger Bannisters of our electronic age complete entire games in record time, are entertaining. But unless someone is a virtuoso at gaming or humour, his Twitch channel isn't likely to be all that interesting. But what do sceptics like me know? Twitch has 55 million unique visitors monthly and is the fourth-largest source of peak internet traffic. How, exactly, will Amazon capitalise on this? It's hard to imagine Twitch being folded into Amazon Instant Video as elegantly as YouTube could have just swallowed Twitch. But Twitch has something any company would love to attract: hordes of advertiser-coveted young men. As Twitch chief Shear said, Amazon and Twitch "are both believers in the future of gaming," and the medium shows no sign of shrinking, even - gulp - as a spectator sport.

More than 330 people, including 186 children, died as a result of the terrorist attack committed in 2004. More than 800 people were injured. We spent several days in Beslan. We spoke with hostages who survived – most of them are now university students, with the parents of the victims, with the caretaker of the City of Angels cemetery, Ramon Kaspolatov, and with the Head of the Mothers of Beslan Committee, Susanna Dudieva, who took part in the special operation with members of EMERCOM, says our correspondent for our “Society” section, Elizaveta Antonova, who is working on a special project. Having already returned to Moscow, we met with Aslambek Aslakhanov, who was the President’s advisor for the North Caucasus 10 years ago and led negotiations with the terrorists, as well as with an officer from the “V” department of the Russian FSB, Vyacheslav Bocharov". What particularly shocked me during my time working on this issue was that it seemed as if those ten years hadn’t come to pass in Beslan. This issue is extremely painful for anyone that has even the slightest connection to it, and people are very reluctant to speak about what happened. The impressions from the trip are very troubling. But we cannot forget Beslan, and I hope that we’ve succeeded in our task", Antonova said. The special project was prepared by the infographics design studio of Rambler & Co holding, which has been working as a part of the company since the spring of this year. Previous special projects were dedicated to the First World War and the 15-year anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s time in power.

The DPRK launches a short-range missile North Korea carried out the launch of a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan, Renhap reports. The launch was conducted at around 10:30 am local time from the direction of Chagang province, located on the border between North Korea and China. Allegedly, the missile fell into the Sea of Japan after having flown for approximately 220km, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff announced.

Deputies have proposed accelerating the entry into force of the law on personal data In the event of the initiative’s success, the storage of personal data of Russian citizens on servers outside of the country will not be permitted from January 1, 2015 on A bill, which seeks to change the date of the entry into force of the already approved law on the personal data of Russian citizens from September 1, 2016 to January 1, 2015, has been introduced in the State Duma. The initiative is on the legislative docket of the lower chamber. Its authors are State Duma deputies Vadim Dengin, Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), Yevgeny Fedorov (United Russia), Vladimir Parakhin (A Just Russia) and Aleksandr Yushchenko (CPRF). This change, according to the authors of the initiative, will support a more timely and effective enforcement of the rights of Russian citizens as concerns the storage of personal data and the confidentiality of private correspondence on information and telecommunication networks. The law, whose entry into force parliamentarians are trying to hasten, requires that the personal data of Russian citizens created on-line be stored within the Russian Federation. It also requires that the recording, categorization, accumulation, storage, updating, and retrieval of personal data of Russian citizens be on databases that are located within the territory of the Russian Federation, and that information about the location of such databases be provided. Moreover, the law grants Roskomnadzor with the power, based on a court ruling, to restrict access to information gathered in contravention to Russian law in the area of personal data. The law also proposes the creation of so-called “black lists” of sites violating the automated information system: “List of violators of the rights of the subjects of personal data”. The State Duma passed this law in the summer. Andrei Lugovoi and Vadim Dengin from LDPR and Aleksandr Yushchenko from CPRF were the authors of the bill. Dengin and Yushchenko are also two of the authors of the current bill that aims to push forward the date of the entry into force of the already passed law. Those who do not have data centres within Russia will have to lease them Commenting on the bill introduced in the State Duma today, Deputy Head of the Duma Committee for Information Policy, Leonid Levin, stated that he sees no problem with changing the date of the entry into force of the law on the storage of personal data. According to him, those companies that won’t have their own facilities for the storage of personal data of Russian citizens within the Russian Federation by January 1, 2015, will be able to lease them, for example, “from Rostelekom, who have many times said that they are prepared to offer their servers for lease and who have already made their servers available, or from Mail Group, or from Western companies who currently are already making their servers available”. “Additionally, there are several independent data centres that are willing to cooperate in this area”, he added. “If companies decide to abide by the law and continue to work within the Russian Federation, then I don't see any problem with it – they will receive the technical capabilities they require to function”, Levin summed up. A controversial bill Immediately following the publication of the bill, the Russian Association of Electronic Communications warned that if the bill were to pass, Russian citizens wouldn’t be able to use many global internet services anymore. In part, this refers to online booking services for airline tickets and hotels. According to the Association, “the bill denies subjects of personal data – citizens of the Russian Federation – control over their own personal information, by mandatorily determining that the recording, categorization, and so forth of this information should only take place in databases that are located within the Russian Federation”. In its announcement, the RAEC emphasizes that a more effective measure would have been to create a mechanism to inform the user about where the recording, categorization, and so forth of his or her personal information is being carried out. In this way, a person could choose for himself or herself where the operation in question will be carried out. The passing of similar bills on the “localization” of personal data in other countries has led to the departure of global service providers and economic losses.

Ice Bucket Challenge participant dislocates her jaw Isabelle Roberts from in the UK shouted so hard while freezing water was poured over her head that she damaged the bone structure of her face. This Ice Bucket Challenge went painfully wrong. A woman has been hospitalised after screaming so hard during the Ice Bucket Challenge, that she dislocated her jaw. Isabelle Roberts shouted so violently while freezing water was poured over her head that she damaged the structure of her face. "The water was so cold so I screamed, but as I did it my jaw just started to stick," she told The Mirror. Ice water is poured over the 20-year-old's. Isabelle Roberts moments before the accident I tried to close my mouth but it would not close, it was locked, and then I came to the realisation that something was up. Then my mum and sister came to the realisation and they started wetting themselves, but I had to be rushed to A & E. The 20-year-old, from the UK, was taken to hospital to have her jaw repositioned after taking part in the viral craze on Tuesday. The clip has become an internet sensation, having been shared thousands of times on Facebook and twitter.

The rebels transferred more than 400 captives to Ukrainian forces The Army of Novorossiya confirms that they have shot down a Ukrainian Su-27, and fault the enemy for violating the ceasefire agreement At 10:00 on September 1, the rebels transferred 402 captives to the Ukrainian side, 72 of which were wounded, as well as the bodies of 35 dead service personnel. This was reported to Interfax by a representative of the press service for the Army of Novorossiya. He added that: “A Su-27, which was in violation of the ceasefire agreement, was shot down near Mereshka by air defence forces”. According to an agency informant, the Ukrainian side used cluster munitions, which are banned under international conventions, during the bombardment of Luhansk airport. The press service representative noted that, during the night, the rebels had managed to damage two Ukrainian Air Force helicopters on one of the airstrips, as well as destroy two armoured vehicles and two weapons caches. “Enemy causalities amounted to as much as one hundred killed and wounded, while 13 surrendered as prisoners”, a representative from staff headquarters briefed. Interfax cannot confirm this information with Ukrainian sources. On Sunday, armed groups of the “peoples’ republics” of Donbass announced the transfer of 223 captured service personnel and soldiers of the Ukrainian National Guard to the Ukrainian side in accordance with the ceasefire framework. At the same time that night, according to information from the Army of Novorossiya, the army of the DPR “thwarted an attempt by members of the National Guard, in violation of previously reached agreements, to remove heavy equipment from the encircled area”. Next, the rebels reported the destruction of two tanks and two infantry combat vehicles, the capture of six tanks, and the disarming of 198 service personnel in a hit-and-run battle. According to information from staff headquarters, overall enemy losses on that night on all fronts (Donetsk, Luhansk, Mariupol) totalled five tanks, eight armed vehicles, and more than 120 killed and injured At the end of last week, the rebels encircled a large group of Ukrainian service personnel nearby Ilovaisk in Donetsk Oblast. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, asked the leadership of the “people’s republics” to let the service personnel out of the encirclement. The DPR agreed to this concession on the condition that the enemy surrender their weapons and ammunition. The first several dozen service personnel started to drop-off their weapons at communities on Saturday morning. According to the commander who was encircled by a battalion of the Donbass Ukrainian Territorial Defence, Semyon Semyonchenko, another 14 people escaped from the “entrapment” on Sunday night. Semyonchenko wrote on his Facebook page that the injured Ukrainians “are being held captive by the 137th regiment of the 32nd division and the 9th tank brigade of the Russian Federation”, where they are being treated well. That being said, Russia’s MFA and Ministry of Defence deny statements made by Ukrainian soldiers and NATO about the presence of Russian detachments in Ukraine.

Russian MFA: Russia will take countermeasures in the event of the introduction of new sanctions by the EU Russia reserves the right to enact countermeasures aimed at protecting its legitimate interests in the event of the introduction of new anti-Russian sanctions, reports the Russian MFA. A statement by the Russian diplomatic agency says that the “findings” of the European Council, made on August 30, demonstrate the inability of EU member states to overcome the inertia of their reckless support of the Kievan authorities. Brussels continues to insist that Russia is implicated in the situation in Eastern Ukraine, based on “absolutely unevidenced allegations about the presence of Russian armed forces on the territory of that country”, the agency’s website states. Russia’s MFA expresses regret that the European Council, contrary to the interests of its member states, has come under the influence of countries that seek to escalate confrontation with Russia. Members of the European Council ought to call for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the east of Ukraine, as well as provide support for meaningful “dialogue between the opposing parties”, the agency emphasizes. Furthermore, it is noted on the agency’s website that, currently, there are no objective assessments of the humanitarian situation in Donbass, where a full-blown humanitarian crisis has broken out, coupled with a growing number of causalities within the civilian population. To recap, over the course of the coming week, the European Union plans to develop a concrete proposal on sanctions against the Russian Federation. Moreover, EU representatives are closely cooperating with American officials. It is expected that they will work together to coordinate the established measures in terms of their duration and degree of severity. New sanctions by the European Union might affect the energy and financial sectors. Furthermore, the Australian government announced the broadening of its sanctions against Russia in the areas of defence, finance, and the oil and gas industries.

Smart ways to save on college textbooks With the cost of college textbooks surpassing $1,000 a year for many students, soon-to-be sophomore Matt Schroeder came up with a smart way to trim costs. He worked out a system of borrowing books from upperclassmen, offering nominal compensation to get them to delay selling them back. "My calculus book that usually costs $180, I got for the semester for $10 and a Chick-fil-A biscuit," says Schroeder, 19, who attends Covenant College in Georgia. Required texts for his last semester would have cost $430, he says. He spent $120. The College Board says the average student will spend more than $1,200 a year on textbooks and school supplies, but students have a variety of options for managing these costs. Online outlets and creative approaches like Schroeder's are increasingly the go-to choices for students. Renting textbooks is on the rise, allowing students to use a book for the semester, often at a significant discount to buying. Neebo Inc, which operates more than 250 campus bookstores, says textbook rentals have doubled since 2011. Industry research shows that about one-fourth of books at college bookstores in this past spring semester were rented, says Neebo Vice President Trevor Meyer. Fewer than half of all texts are purchased at campus bookstores, according to the National Association of College Stores trade association. Here is the 101 on the best ways to score a deal. Buying online Some new book prices can be one-third of what you might find at the campus bookstore if you go online. The ninth edition of "Calculus" by Ron Larson, Bruce Edwards, and Robert Hostetler carries a list price of nearly $290 but can be purchased new for $239.99 at specialty textbook retailer Chegg.com. Buying used If you do not mind other people's notes or wear and tear, used texts are a good option. "Calculus" is selling for $93.49 used on Chegg.com. Matt Casaday, 25, a senior at Brigham Young University, says he had paid 42 cents on Amazon.com for a used copy of "Strategic Media Decisions: Understanding The Business End Of The Advertising Business." The book was selling for $48 new. Academics like Ingrid Bracey, director of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's College Without Walls, suggest students check with their professors to see if previous editions are acceptable. Sometimes the updates are not relevant to the classwork. If so, old editions can often be found for a tiny fraction of the cost of the latest version. Besides Chegg and Amazon, eBay Inc's Half.com is a popular alternative for used books. Renting Renting your textbooks is worth considering if you take reasonable care of them, you remember to return them and you do not care to own them after you complete the class. You can save more than 80 per cent of the cost of buying a book new. For example, a student could rent "Calculus" for the length of the semester for about $20. Know the rules of the store you rent from, including any penalties you could be assessed for taking notes, highlighting, or wear and tear. Renter, beware: If you fail to return the book, penalties can actually exceed the cost of buying it new. E-books Getting e-books instead of traditional texts is another option. Sometimes those books are essentially rented by providing the electronic license for a specific period from distributors such as Amazon.com, Chegg and Barnes & Noble Inc . Chegg will rent "Calculus" for six months for about $61. Bracey says students in literature classes can often find the best bargains since many classics are now available to download for free, while science and engineering texts can be extremely expensive. No matter what, shop around. Joe Gault, 29, who is about to enter Pepperdine Law School, recommends using the ISBN number to price books since it ensures you are shopping for the right text. Before ordering online, Gault says, be sure to check if the book is actually in stock. He learned that lesson the hard way. A book he purchased was back-ordered for four weeks, and he ended up paying full price at the college bookstore.

Putin made a statement about the total ineffectiveness of the development fund for the Russian Far East The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, at a meeting concerning state support for priority investment projects and development areas in the Far East, asserted that the budgetary investment fund for development of the Far East, which was created two years ago, is ineffective, Interfax reports. “The 15 billion roubles are still sitting in the deposit account”, the President emphasized. During the course of the meeting, the head of state ordered that approval of the list of priority development areas in the Far East be expedited. He pointed out that the bill, which is necessary for the creation of priority development areas, must be submitted to the State Duma this autumn. The Federal Assembly, the President noted, had still not approved the list of priority development areas in the Far East and their criteria by July 1st. Vladimir Putin also laid out the primary objectives to ensure development of the Far East. They include improving transport accessibility in the region, and removing infrastructure constraints, both in the domestic market and to develop exports. Among other matters, it is essential to create the preconditions to attract additional investment into the region, as well as to form priority development areas, which should become competitive vis-à-vis major business centres in the Asia-Pacific region, the President emphasized. To recap, it was reported earlier that the priority development area might replace the SEZ.

Why the Guardians of the Galaxy couldn't save the box office Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables 3 has made back less than $30 million of its $90 million budget in the US, while Sin City: A Dame to Kill For has made back only $12 million of its $70 million budget. The Cameron Diaz vehicle Sex Tape took only $14.6 million in its opening weekend, while children's films such as How To Train Your Dragon 2 are also showing disappointing box office returns. An article from Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin indicates that, when it comes to children's movies, the poor quality of the films themselves might be to blame. Collin called 2014 the "the worst" year yet for children's films, and described How To Train Your Dragon 2 as a merely "functional" fantasy sequel. But when it comes to film pitched at a slightly older market, it appears that the issue might not necessarily lie with the quality of the films themselves. In July, Entertainment Weekly compared the average CinemaScore and Metacritic ratings for every summer release playing on at least 2,000 screens between May's Memorial Day holiday and July 20, for 2013 and for this year. The results, which take the opinion of both cinema audiences and film critics into account, suggest that this year's crop of films are of similar calibre last year's hits. Some commentators have suggested that changing viewing habits and the increased popularity of web streaming services such as Netflix may be to blame. Director Jon Favreau, who is currently working on Disney's forthcoming Jungle Book film, told the website Hollywood Reporter: "I think times are changing." We have to acknowledge that and not try to chase what used to be. In contrast to Hollywood's current box office slump, Netflix recently saw revenue from its streaming content service reach $1.2bn, almost doubling last year's figure of $837m. Last summer, director Steven Spielberg criticised studios for relying too much on comic book franchises, and predicted a Hollywood "meltdown." In light of the current downturn, some commentators are arguing that his dire prophecy may have held some truth to it. With summer 2015 set to usher in a slate of potential big box office hits, including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Minions and Jurassic World, other figures within the film industry are feeling more optimistic. X-Men producer Simon Kinberg recently described the drop in box office takings as simply "cyclical," telling Hollywood Reporter: "Next summer will be the biggest box-office summer in history, and nobody will be worrying about the business."

The food sanctions aren’t frightening owners of Caucasian and Central Asian establishments, but for European and Japanese restaurants, Russian suppliers are a nightmare. In general, the food service industry still prefers to substitute banned imports not with goods from Russia, but rather from Latin America, Israel, and China. “It’s better to eat lightly-pickled cucumbers, than bad mozzarella”, laments Mariano Valerio, Executive Chef at Barlotti Italian restaurant, in regards to the quality of cheeses his suppliers are offering him in lieu of Italian ones. The mozzarella and burrata cheese ran-out at the restaurant first – they have a short shelf life. The stockpiles of parmesan should last for another couple of months. What to do? Switch to Russian products? In 2005, I went to Dorogomilosky market. Mariano Valerio makes such a face, that it is clear: the shocking memories have never left him. Meat was sitting out on carts just 30 centimetres from the floor! There were cats there! Rats! That’s when I said that we would never buy anything for our restaurant from Russian markets. I don’t know, maybe things have totally changed there. But this week, I was sent some fish on appro from the Far East. And it turned out to be rotten! I said that I didn’t even want to speak with the person who sent it to us. Valerio is surprised that many things that are common in Italy are a rarity for the Russian producer. Several years ago, I was in a position where I needed to buy Russian beef. In Italy, meat is hung in a cold room for 10 days at a temperature of 1 to 2 °C. It needs to hang there to become tender, so that the muscles relax. I did all this with the local meat. Then, they would ask me: where did you get such tender meat? I would say: it’s actually your Russian meat! Why doesn’t anyone do this here? A five-minute walk from Barlotti, in the kitchen of the French restaurant, Brasserie Most, hangs a stop list that shows which items are out-of-stock: French oysters, sea urchin. Executive Chef at Brasserie Most restaurant and Strelka bar, Triguel Regis, isn’t as pessimistic as Valerio: they’ve already replaced oysters from France with oysters from Turkey, and in place of French cheeses, the restaurant will buy Swiss ones. However, Regis gets more emotional when the conversation turns to Russian suppliers: “200 roubles for cauliflower! I ask: "Why? On what grounds should it cost that much?" They answer me: "We need to make a living too". But that cauliflower shouldn’t cost more than 80 roubles! We buy oysters from the Far East by weight, and they live for 15-20 years, but can you imagine how much their shells weigh? At that price, they really are a super delicacy. It appears that Russian suppliers are one of the main sources of horror for foreign chefs. A typical story: “Everything was fine for the first three months and then the quality dramatically declined”. The main complaints: Russian suppliers can’t sustain consistent quantities and quality. Many European restaurants don’t know what they will do when their cheese stockpiles run-out Photo: Aleksandr Miridonov, Kommersant A sanctions menu On August 6, Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the application of certain economic measures to ensure the security of Russia, which principally refer to food sanctions. The import of beef, pork, poultry meat and by-products, deli meat, fish, shellfish, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, cheeses, vegetables, fruit, nuts, kielbasa, and sugar syrups into the country is forbidden. A game of leapfrog has begun between restaurants and suppliers: prices for food products have risen, and they must urgently look for comparable products from other countries. This has most significantly affected expensive restaurants that exclusively serve French, Italian, and Spanish cuisine, and import their goods directly from their “home” countries. The food service industry has had to make alternative arrangements in the past. For example, at the beginning of 2014, Rosselkhoznadzor banned the import of Australian beef, and, the year before that, American and Canadian meat. Instead, suppliers established supplies of beef from Argentina, Uruguay, and New Zealand. But the sanctions of the summer of 2014 have turned out to be a lot more serious. However, on August 20, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved amendments to the presidential decree, which removes baby Atlantic salmon and trout, lactose-free milk, planting potatoes, sweet corn, peas, and onions for planting from the ban. Valerio the Italian hopes that the sanctions will be relaxed even further. In the meantime, part of the restaurant industry waits in a state of uncertainty. According to data from the company, Vostok-Zapad, one of the largest suppliers of the HORECA sector, the share of imported products in the premium segment of the market amounted to as much as 70%. “Expensive restaurants will have to change their menus to fit with what local farmers and other countries are producing, says Sergei Mironov, restaurateur and owner of Reskonsalt agency. If the head chef is talented, then it shouldn’t be a problem for them. But, we only have very few chefs like this, and the preparation of a new menu could take two or three months. Triguel from the restaurant, Brasserie Most, is ready for this: he will have to abandon 10-15% of his dishes, and still rework half of the menu. Restaurants that offer fusion cuisine are already starting to substitute their dishes, for example, beef stroganoff in place of a marbled beefsteak, says Sergei Mironov. “Cheeses from Europe can be substituted with Russian and Belarusian cheeses, and cheeses from Serbia, Argentina, Tunisia, and Chile, lists Oksana Glibchuk, a representative from the company Vostok-Zapad. Cream and dairy products from Europe have equivalents in Russia and Belarus. Chicken from the USA can be substituted with chicken from Russia and Belarus, and salmon and summer salmon from Norway – with salmon, summer salmon, and trout from Belarus and Chile. The absence of European-produced vegetables and fruits can be offset by domestically produced goods, and by offers from Serbia, Moldova, and China. According to Mironov, it will be easier for lower-end restaurant chains to adjust than for the premium sector: it’s doubtful that they are frequented by food connoisseurs who are capable of telling the difference between an Italian mozzarella and a Russian one. Although, it will be difficult for Ginza Project establishments, he considers. The Ginza Project has several dozen restaurants under different brands and with their own menus. Changing this will take an enormous amount of time”, Mironov says. Ginza declined to comment, citing the owners’ absence from the country. Owners of cafés that offer Caucasian and Central Asian cuisine emphasize that food products from the former Soviet republics are more aromatic than European ones But there are many restaurants that are barely affected by the sanctions. This includes establishments with cuisine from CIS countries: Georgian, Uzbek, Armenian, and Azerbaijani. “There aren’t any expensive ingredients in Georgian cooking, says Khatuna Kolbaya, owner of the Georgian restaurant, Saperavi, and the café, Vai Me!. All of our cheeses are produced in Russia, chicken fillet is the base for many of our dishes, and we don’t use exotic greens”. As of yet, none of Kolbaya’s establishments have removed a single dish from their menus. The sanctions are also no bother to Timur Lansky, the owner of Chaikhona N1, which serves Uzbek cuisine: he will only have to switch to lamb from New Zealand. If Russia can establish imports from Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, we'll be even better off, as it will be even cheaper for us than imports from Europe, he says. It’s possible to get cheaper fillet steak, lamb, tomatoes, cucumbers, and fruit from the CIS. Moreover, goods imported from Central Asia are much better than the "plastic" from Italy, Spain, and Turkey. Everyone knows that Uzbek tomatoes are delicious and sweet. Nobody says that about Spanish ones. Following the introduction of sanctions, a representative from Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, Olimboy Artykov, announced plans to double exports of fruit and vegetable products to Russia by 2016. Belarus and Kazakhstan announced their intention to replace European imports to Russia almost immediately after the introduction of sanctions. The fast food restaurants that responded to Kommersant-Dengi’s survey were also fairly calm about the situation. McDonald’s press service announced that their localization exceeds 85% and that the chain works with 160 Russian suppliers. According to Tatiana Bogdanova, Head of the Supply Management Department for Subway Russia, the chain buys around 80% of its food supplies in Russia, although temporary difficulties, associated with the supply of vegetables and increasing prices for meat products that are produced using imported materials, may arise. At Teremok, “sanctioned goods” generally accounted for no more than 4%. The sanctions also haven’t affected Wokker noodle house. KFC, Burger King, and Kroshka Kartoshka didn’t respond to Kommersant-Dengi’s survey, however, other market participants confirm that Burger King’s level of localization is significantly lower than McDonald’s. In the absence of Norwegian fish, restaurateurs are more likely to buy Chilean fish than those from Russia’s Far East B(u)y one’s own pink salmon In the meantime, restaurateurs are complaining that, as a result of increasing demand, prices are rising even on local goods. “The prices of goods for Grabli have gone up by an average of 10-15%, and for the Italian restaurant, Cherry Mio, they have doubled”, says restaurateur Roman Rozhnikovsky. Even in Georgian restaurants, the prime cost of dishes will increase by 5-10%, Kolbaya acknowledges. Vostok-Zapad doesn’t disagree: “For example, Belarusian dairy products have increased in price by 10-15% since the beginning of August”. “Brazilian suppliers increased prices on pork by almost twofold, complains Sergei Rak, Assistant General Manager of Stardogs. Chicken legs have gone up in price by 35%. We are waiting for the prices from China; perhaps they will cool down the Brazilian hotheads. In the near future, Stardogs will go ahead with a planned 8% increase in its prices. Right now is not a very desirable time to raise prices, Rak says. According to the statistics, revenue growth in the food service industry was only 1.8% for the second quarter of 2014. This is the lowest figure since 2010. Retail prices will continue to rise, he admits, but it is not clear how quickly: the majority of restaurateurs have already stocked-up on goods for the next two months, in hopes of riding out the fluctuations in purchasing prices. But nobody knows what things will be like two months from now. On the square in front of Moscow city hall, there are dozens of tents decorated by greenery and trees. In the centre, there is a stage where musicians are playing a waltz. It’s a festival of regional food with the fun name “It’s time to eat”. “Actually, we’ve been planning on having a celebration of local food for quite some time, and now, with the sanctions, we rushed to put the festival together”, says one of the organizers. On the side of the stage with the musicians, the Greek chef, Anastas, prepares a salad from macaroni and homemade sweets; during the week there was a workshop on how to prepare borsch with caramelized apples. Everything is made from Russian goods, the organizers attest. In the tents, there is an exhibition on the achievements of the Russian national economy. Honey from Bashkiria, reindeer from Salekhard, vegetables from the Lenin State Farm outside of Moscow, cheeses by the Russified Italian, Jay Klouz. “Salmon for restaurants can easily be substituted with a different fish from the salmon family from the Far East, says the owner of the fish stall, Our People, Filipp Galkin. We catch all sorts of salmon: Sockeye, Chum, Coho, Pink, and Chinook – the "king of salmon". Sure, they’re not as fatty as Norwegian salmon, because they are wild fish. Norwegian salmon are actually an aquaculture product. You can grab it with your hands and it won’t even wriggle. But you wouldn’t be able to hold our salmon from the Far East in your hands. Only an establishment without any particular pretensions would be willing to substitute Italian mozzarella with a domestic one In the display case in his tent, there are shrimp with a tag reading “Magadan”, cod, omul, muksun, and mussels from Crimea, and scallops from the Far East. Galkin is sure that it’s high time to switch to fish from the Far East. According to statistics, the annual fish catch in Russia for 2013 was more than 4 mln. tonnes, with a significant portion of the fish caught being sent to Japan, Korea, and even the USA. Fish imports for 2013 totalled around 800 thou. tonnes. The Our People stall has been operating since 2012, selling fish through its on-line store, and was already supplying a dozen and a half restaurants, including Simple Things, before the introduction of sanctions. Now, Galkin has received requests from another 15 restaurants. You can make the very same sushi from our fish, he says excitedly. We racked our brains and tried out various recipes. Now we sell a million roubles worth of sushi per month through our on-line store. Our fish is several times less expensive and the delivery charge is no more than 15 roubles per kilogram. To vouch for his wares, Galkin prepares a Philadelphia roll with chum salmon for me to sample at his stall. In contrast to rolls made with Atlantic salmon, these ones take longer to chew, but the knowledge that this is our fish, our own domestic fish, gives one the strength to do it. On Our People’s on-line store there are even rolls made with halibut and ocean perch. Sushi bars, however, prefer to substitute Norwegian salmon with the Chilean variety. Galkin chalks this up to chefs who are too lazy to come up with new recipes using fish from the Far East. “So far, our suppliers haven’t offered us Russian fish”, Dmitry Evseev, the owner of Killfish Bar, offers his explanation. It’s a similar situation with other food products: Russian producers could very well fill these now vacant niches, but it isn’t happening. According to the founder and co-owner of the LavkaLavka project, Boris Akimov, right now, one can talk more about the substitution of imports from Europe and America with imports from China, Israel and Latin America. There, they have large transnational corporations with strong logistics networks and large volumes. Unlike our farmers, they are capable of quickly providing substitutes for banned imports. That is to say, large producers from other countries will be the biggest winners of the import ban”, says Akimov. However, last month the restaurant industry received a warning signal even bigger than the food sanctions. Following the results of widespread random inspections by Rospotrebnadzor, three McDonald’s establishments in Moscow and two of its regional establishments in Stavropol and Yekaterinburg were temporarily closed. “We are studying the content of the submitted complaints with the aim of determining the actions necessary to open our restaurants to visitors as quickly as possible”, McDonald’s press service told Kommersant-Dengi. The truth is that no one understands what will happen next. If all of this is limited to just food sanctions, then this is an option we can live through, an employee from a company involved in restaurant consulting said, on the condition of anonymity. But if they start to close down all the McDonald’s throughout the country, then this will be an entirely different case.

A “europrotocol” instead of a certificate from the STSI It will be possible to receive payouts from fully comprehensive vehicle insurance policies without a certificate from the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate – the Central Bank is determined to stimulate the implementation of European Accident Reports or “europrotocols” in Russia by such means. The Bank of Russia has developed a draft directive according to which, starting from September 1 of this year, an insured driver would be able to receive a payout from a fully comprehensive vehicle insurance policy without a certificate from the STSI. Truth be told, this issue only concerns those situations where an accident is processed using a “europrotocol” without the involvement of the road police. In other words, only in cases where two vehicles are involved in a motor vehicle accident, there are no injured individuals, the damage does not exceed a set limit, and both drivers have reached a consensus as to who is at fault in the accident. From August 2 on, the payout limit for accidents processed using a “europrotocol” amounts to 50 thou. roubles; whereas, on October 1, the limit will be raised to 400 thou. roubles in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as well as in both Moscow and Leningrad Oblasts. The issue is that, more often than not, even in a situation where there is only minor damage and the motor vehicle accident could be processed using a “europrotocol”, the drivers who have gotten into the accident still call the STSI. After all, it wasn’t possible to receive repayment from a fully comprehensive vehicle insurance policy without a certificate from the STSI. The parameters prescribed in the draft directive specifically call for the removal of this barrier on the road to the implementation of the “europrotocol” in Russia. In accordance with them, the maximum payout on a fully comprehensive vehicle insurance policy for a motor vehicle accident that is processed without STSI officers, should not be lower than the limit for an accident processed using a “europrotocol”. But, at the same time, it cannot be higher than the limit set out in the contract of the fully comprehensive vehicle insurance policy. The idea is, without a doubt, useful and, in theory, could free up both STSI officers and the roads. But, it’s not likely to be met with delight from either drivers or insurers. The latter are already talking about the serious threat of an increase in fraud, which could lead to the introduction of new rules on payouts for fully comprehensive vehicle insurance policies. As far as drivers are concerned, it’s hard to imagine exactly what kind of work would have to be done to overcome our long-standing Russian conservatism. The driver, in the majority of cases, will wait hours for an officer to process a minor accident, just because it is more reliable. It’s still not clear what will be easier: defeating the fraudsters or convincing drivers of the reliability of the “europrotocol”. The savings certificate will be made registered and irrevocable The Ministry of Finance wants to ban bearer savings certificates, but allow banks to offer an irrevocable deposit as a substitute. The Ministry of Finance is preparing a draft bill, which would ban bearer savings certificates. Lately, this instrument has gained popularity, since the rates are higher than those paid on bank deposits. The issue is that bearer savings certificates are not covered by the deposit insurance system, and they are cheaper for a bank to offer since it doesn’t have to contribute funds to the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA). The poignancy of the situation is that plans to take this step were made as a result of small and medium-size banks distributing these certificates, but it is Sberbank and Bank of Moscow, which according to DIA estimates control 98% of the niche market, that will suffer as a result. Moreover, Bank of Moscow’s share, according to the agency’s estimates, amounts to around 3.5%. The issue, the DIA explains, is that clients of a small bank who have purchased this certificate might try to get money from the DIA in a case where the bank’s license is revoked. Some investors don’t have a sufficient level of financial understanding and, when purchasing bearer savings certificates, may assume that their investments are insured. The legitimate absence of insurance compensation for such certificates, in a case where a bank’s licence is revoked, might lead to misunderstanding and social unrest. The agency has dealt with actual situations where the holders of bearer certificates have attempted to collect insurance compensation through the courts”, the DIA stated. The problem, of course, is far-fetched. After all, no one will ever pay the buyers of such certificates since they don’t have any rights under the law to seek compensation from the state. If the issue was that the instrument isn’t insured by the DIA, then they also would have banned metal accounts, in which citizens’ wealth is recorded according to grams of one of four metals: gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. After all, these accounts also are not covered by the deposit insurance system, but so far no one is trying to snuff them out. Most likely, the issue is that these bearer certificates are a very convenient valuable security, which can basically be used as quasi-money. Moreover, their movement is almost uncontrollable: any client of a bank can buy the certificate and hand it over to any other citizen, and, until it is converted into cash, this certificate can change hands between a multitude of owners. It is no accident that the wording of the draft bill requires that a savings certificate be a registered security that is held at a depository institution. But, in order to sweeten the deal for the banks, these certificates can be issued without the right to early redemption. In other words, bankers will finally get an equivalent to the irrevocable deposit that they have long been dreaming about.

Nato summit: First protests in Newport and Cardiff There have been protests over the weekend by those opposed to the Nato summit in Newport. On Saturday, hundreds gathered in Newport city centre for an anti-Nato march. And on Sunday in Cardiff, around 150 people came together at Cardiff's county hall for what was described as a counter-summit. Stephen Fairclough has been following developments for us over the weekend and has spoken to protesters who have travelled from Bridgend to Belgium.

Germany will send 30 antitank weapons systems to Iraq Germany will supply the weapons to Iraq as a countermeasure against militants from the Islamic State terrorist group, ITAR-TASS reported on August 31, with reference to a decision taken following a meeting of members of the German government headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel. According to reports, Germany will send 30 Milan portable antitank guided missile launchers, as well as 500 shells for them, and 8 thousand G3 and G36 assault rifles to Iraq. The delivery will be made before the end of September. Furthermore, a decision was made to allocate an additional 50 mln. euros in humanitarian assistance for Iraq. On September 1, Ms. Merkel will address the Bundestag with a speech on this matter. Until now, Germany has never delivered its weapons to “hot spots”. The opinion of people living in Germany on sending the Iraqis weapons is split. One half considers this to be the only way to stop Islamic State militants, while the other half expresses concern that these weapons may eventually end up in the hands of the terrorists.

The rebels took down a Ukrainian patrol boat in the Sea of Azov The Donetsk rebels took down a Ukrainian patrol boat in the Sea of Azov, reports ITAR-TASS on August 31. According to available information, it happened in the Gulf of Taganrog close to the communities of Shirokino and Bezymennoe (10-20km to the east of Mariupol). Several Ukrainian media sources report the shelling of two coast guard patrol ships. It has been determined that the incident occurred at around 16:20 (MSK) today.

Teens airlifted from Blue Mountains TWO teenage bushwalkers have been winched to safety after spending the night stranded in the NSW Blue Mountains. THE 16-year-old girl and 18-year-old man went hiking just after midday on Sunday at Govetts Leap in Blackheath. Concerned relatives called police about 8pm when they hadn't returned home. A search party involving local police and rescue squad was sent out and the pair were found about 11pm near Bridal Veil Falls. The girl had injured her knee and the man had fallen and hit his head. Officers remained with the pair overnight and they were winched out on Monday morning. They were taken by ambulance in a stable condition to Blue Mountains Hospital.

Two unions meet High-level negotiations in Minsk have failed to solve the issues for which they were convened, but they have created a new format: dignitaries from the European Union met with dignitaries from the soon-to-be Eurasian Union Albeit, given the alarming matters (the situation surrounding Ukraine won’t tolerate delays), the leaders of the EU and the Customs Union first discussed a series of “hot topics”. It isn’t clear if a structure like this is capable of working effectively; however, it is obvious who’s skimmed the cream off the top of this summit. Any question about this was put to rest on the evening of August 26, when Belarusians, and after them other Eurasians, saw a new President Lukashenko on the television news broadcast. The Belarusian leader was a model of polished gallantry, giving off the manner of a person who has just hit the jackpot and is planning to spend their old age in the lap of luxury. How Maidan helped Lukashenko The simultaneous arrival in Minsk of three major European commissioners (EU ministers), who met with Lukashenko and allowed him to present the final briefing on their behalf, was not only a legitimization of the President with 20 years of service. It was a declaration of the acknowledgment of Minsk as a full-fledged member of European politics and the main mediator of the Ukrainian crisis. Senior Analyst at the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Denis Melyantsov, is certain that, from now on, Brussels won’t be able to speak to Minsk in the same tone as before. “The fact that Catherine Ashton met face-to-face with Lukashenko gives one a basis to assume that relations with the EU will continue to thaw”, he told Ogonyok. This iceberg has a hidden part: Belarusian authorities had been preparing for this breakthrough since the summer of 2013, long before the start of the November Maidan movement in Kiev. “Results with the EU had already been achieved: successful negotiations on simplifying the visa regime and readmission, dialogues on modernization, lists Ogonyok’s source, and negotiations on international security had been conducted with the USA. The States even loosened their sanctions a little. As far as Ukrainian events are concerned, well they themselves, as well as the Belarusian leadership’s response to them, simply ratcheted up the process. On the one hand, Minsk succeeded in keeping its relations with Ukraine rather warm, so as to not significantly hurt mutual trade, and President Poroshenko was able to come to Belarus for the negotiations. On the other hand, the Belarusian leader, who de jure didn’t recognize Crimea’s unification with Russia and called for the pro-Russian rebels in Donbass to be punished to the fullest extent, hasn’t had a falling out with Moscow. Minsk hasn’t withdrawn from the Customs Union or CSTO, and there is a Russian airbase stationed in Baranovichi. Brussels and Washington noticed Minsk’s balanced position on the Ukrainian question and put stock in it, the Belarusian experts are convinced. Just how successful Lukashenko’s move towards political diversification turns out to be, will be seen by how often, in the near future, Minsk has the occasion to host meetings in the EU-CU format. The press service for the EU High Representative for External Affairs and Diplomacy, Catherine Ashton, wasn’t able to provide an impromptu response to questions about what Brussels expects from mutual relations in this new format. Ashton’s Press Secretary, Maya Kosyanchich, only told to Ogonyok that, within the context of solving matters of war and peace, this issue isn’t a priority. Furthermore, a statement came out that suggests that the next meeting place for negotiations on the Ukrainian question, with the participation of dignitaries in the new format, could be Kazakhstan. The fly in the ointment for Minsk turned out to be a statement by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in which he admitted that European Union representatives, it turns out, personally asked him about this. Nevertheless, in the final briefing, Aleksandr Lukashenko made it clear that all sides are not opposed to having Minsk remain as the main forum for meetings in the Russia-OSCE-Ukraine format, as well as for meetings between heads of state and EU high commissioners. This means that “Europe’s last dictator” has attained the status of a being a hand-shakeable European leader, who is helping to solve a global issue. Best friend to the European farmer Later the EU delegation itself, which included the European Commissioners for Trade and Energy, came to the conclusion that the main rationale for the summit wasn’t in fact the tragic situation in Donbass, but rather the economy. As a matter of fact, the schedule for upcoming negotiations prepared at the meeting, which will deal with the supply of gas and overcoming the misgivings of CU countries regarding Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU, appears to be a much grander achievement than the peaceful declarations lacking concrete dates and numbers. Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, nevertheless, indicated that EU representatives “came to Minsk to find a solution to a political crisis that has economic consequences, and not the other way around”. It appears, however, that, even in terms of economics, the crisis in Ukraine “works” for Belarus. Its consequences – first and foremost the reciprocal sanctions between the West and Russia – have provided Minsk, which is still feeling the pressure of sanctions itself, with long-awaited room to manoeuvre. According to Jaroslav Romanchuk, Head of the Mises Scientific Research Centre and former Belarusian presidential candidate, European investors are keenly interested in Belarus’ ability to supply Russia with agricultural products in circumvention of the sanctions. Moreover, the supply network structures, which Vladimir Putin admonished Minsk for at the summit, are pushing forward. “The initiators of these structures”, Romanchuk stressed to Ogonyok, “are not Belarusian businessmen, but Russian companies. They spent a long time developing networks to supply goods, including in Poland, Germany, Lithuania, and now, these networks have been destroyed. Russian business critically needs to re-establish them, even if it’s through Belarusian structures acting as intermediaries. The second subject, the expert continues, is connected to the fact that many Ukrainian companies are not averse to setting up production in Belarus, using Ukrainian raw materials, which is intended for the Russian market. Ukrainian producers do about 4 bln. dollars in exports to Russia, and Belarusian production and trading structures could now turn out to be in very high-demand”. According to Romanchuk, the role of forum host to negotiations between the EU and the CU is ideal for Lukashenko, as well as in terms of developing economic relations with Europe. He reminds us that losses to the EU’s agricultural sector, as a result of Moscow’s sanctions, are valued at between 5-10 bln. euros, and that the European Commission has, as of late, only offered agrarians 125 mln. euros in compensation. The Belarusian President could offer Brussels the opportunity to work together to minimize the impact on European farmers. This could raise Lukashenko’s profile in the EU to an unprecedented level. Hospitality without initiative Catherine Ashton thanked Belarusian authorities for their initiative to hold a summit. But the paradox is that official Minsk denies its active role in creating the CU+EU format, and the Belarusian leader, at a meeting with his Ukrainian colleague, underscored that Kiev alone was the author of the new format. “It was your suggestion to get together, without all the distractions, to discuss and to make a decision, in a direct manner, following the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU, to deal with the situation that was developing at that moment in Ukraine”, he said to Petro Poroshenko in front of the cameras. However, observers have interpreted this as an attempt to appease Moscow, which is rumoured to have initially been against Minsk’s mediation, which has significantly increased its political clout. The Belarusian diplomatic agency assiduously stresses that Belarus does not have ulterior motives in organizing cooperation between the EU and the CU on its soil, given that the final goal of such a format is the creation, in the future, of a unified trading area from Lisbon to Vladivostok. “This is absolutely in keeping with policies in other fields, including in the field of security, that are advanced and promoted by the leadership of our strategic partner – the Russian Federation”, Ogonyok was told by the MFA of Belarus, an agency, which, as of late, has been choosing its words wisely.

Entry toll zones may be introduced in Moscow The Moscow City Government is considering the option of introducing entry toll zones as a method for combatting congestion on roads in the centre, in a similar way to other major world cities, reports M24.ru, with reference to the Deputy Mayor of Moscow for transportation issues, Maxim Liksutov. One of the options that has proven itself to be effective is an entry toll. This is the expert opinion, which we will certainly examine and we will look at all the positives and the negatives. It is too early to say whether any decisions have been made in this regard”, Liksutov said. The Deputy Mayor emphasized that the experiences of Asian cities, which in terms of structure and congestion are very similar to Moscow, were of particular importance to authorities of the capital city. One of the solutions taken from these countries is the construction of a central ring road, which is already being implemented, Liksutov added. The recently launched construction of the Central Ring Road is one example of how it is not necessary for all traffic to pass through Moscow. If sufficient bypass infrastructure were in place, then there wouldn’t be a need for transit traffic in Moscow”, the Deputy Mayor pointed out. Maksim Liksutov also stated that the introduction of pay parking significantly decreased congestion on the streets of the capital. According to him, authorities in the capital do not plan to stop with what has already been accomplished. To recap, on August 26, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, took part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the start-up facilities of the Moscow Central Ring Road (TsKAD) project.

Boredom is a sin The film by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For, accomplished a totally different revolution than one might have expected it to. The first Sin City (2005), shot with the minimal, but symbolic, participation of Quentin Tarantino, accomplished a revolution in the relationship between film, comics, and noir fiction. The sequel is also revolutionary in its own way: in the sense that it destroys a formula that is fundamental to modern thinking, “thesis – antithesis – synthesis” (if we understand thesis to mean the universe of noir, and antithesis to mean space comics). From now on, it will have to be read as follows: “thesis – antithesis – chaos”. Sin City 2 is chaotic both on a dramatic and philosophical level: it is chaotic in the idiotic sense of the word on both accounts. Yes, some of the characters are familiar from the first “City”, although, there’s the hoodlum, Marv (Mickey Rourke), who, if memory serves, ended his life in the electric chair, and now, as if nothing happened, he just manages – in the role of something like a people’s guard – to snatch out of thin air, knives, and all sorts of hatchets, and nooses. But the newcomers simply push the old fellows aside with their elbows, as if they were breaking into the city from some other film, the meaning and story of which the audience is asked not to worry about. Now, there’s the story, shamelessly interrupted by the authors at the most interesting moment, of the extra lucky gambler, Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). There’s the story of the salaciously-frigid Ava Lord (Eva Green) and Dwight (Josh Brolin), who takes revenge on her for some reason. But this confusion, in which, let’s say, Dwight can’t be differentiated by sight from Johnny – moreover since their faces, as with the other body parts of the characters, are demolished with relentless regularity – is not a big deal or even a little bit of a problem. These aren’t real people, of course we understand that these are archetypes of the noir genre: a fatalistic bitch, an overconfident gambler, a detective who falls into a sex “honey trap”, and a corrupt parasitic senator. But when an archetype waltzes with an archetype and gets kicked out by an archetype, then it’s not really a film anymore, but almost like an abstract painting. And it’s simply ridiculous to ask an abstract painting questions about the logic of its subject matter. By the same token, even in this hectic world, there are some things that remain constant. The fighting prostitutes from the first “City” still hold a security perimeter around their native slums, against the besieging forces of darkness. And, while at first, the ghost of Detective Hartigan isn’t anywhere to be seen, he later joins the party, and it’s always nice to look at Bruce Willis. The major problem with Sin City 2 has to do with something else. Frank Miller was great in that, as an illustrator, he skilfully fused comics with noir fiction, and, as a director, in how he reinvented our understanding of how to take comics from the page to the screen. Comics and noir fiction are two diametrically opposed “realities”. The comics phenomenon, in its modern context, was born at the end of the 1920s, when Dashiell Hammett’s novels, Red Harvest (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), and The Glass Key (1931), created the noir cannon, which at that time was called the hard-boiled school. Or pulp fiction. Comics have given Hollywood many dozens of characters: from Popeye the Sailor Man – who ate spinach to give himself heroic strength – Superman, Batman, and the gumshoe, Dick Tracy, to the Hulk, Thor, Spiderman, and other such “avengers”. But there was always something lacking in every film based on a comic: the illustrated characters stubbornly refused to come to life on the screen, and continued to be imposters in the like it or not “real” world that surrounded them. Simply put, they were totally devoid of “existence”. Noir, on the other hand, is the most existential genre in world literature. After the world wars, the traditional novel, with its dilemmas, characters, family scandals, and historical background, lost all persuasiveness. What Forsytes, what Thibaults, or Rougon-Macquarts, or even Bolkonskys or Rostovs are even conceivable after Verdun, Auschwitz, or Hiroshima? That type of novel could easily be twisted into a soap opera, but the crime novel – by definition on the margins – rose to the level of philosophical prose. Hammett learned first-hand what it was like to work as an orderly on the front. He was a communist. Incidentally, other pillars of the genre, such as writers, Horace McCoy and Jim Thompson, and directors, Jules Dassin, Joseph Losey, and Edward Dmytryk, were also close to the Communist Party, albeit to a lesser extent. This is why noir, and the archetype that they created, is, first of all, crude and cynical, and, secondly, particularly social. It’s almost like an American version of socialist realism. The first Sin City was remarkable because it counterintuitively, yet organically, blended comics with noir. It was the very first time comics came to life on the screen, not a bit ashamed of their illustrational nature, and without pretending to be a “real” film. The gloom of the corrupt world, where a cardinal orders a hit, and a senator covers for his monstrous sadistic son, was entirely worthy of Hammett’s pen. While the picturesque details, such as the severed heads that the sadist used to decorate his flat, are as if from the pen of the genius, James Ellroy, author of The Black Dahlia, and the best – that is to say, declaratively stomach-turning – representative of the neo-noir genre. Sin City 2 is not just a retreat, but an utter capitulation of the radical Miller-Rodriguez stylistic addition to the comic tradition. Probably, much of this is the result of 3D technology. When you’re watching the second Sin City, you feel as if you are imprisoned in a glass sphere, inside of which snow covers a toy-sized cesspool. However, more often than not, it’s not snow at all, but bloody scraps, however, in the grand scheme of things, what’s the difference? There is nothing to be said about sociality here. After all, such a thing is only possible when somewhere, in some place, we, at some time or another, have, even if it’s along the margins of a dirty swamp, a normal world that exists, to which a girl, who has been down a crooked path, can return, or, let’s say, where it’s possible to tell her devastated parents that the one who destroyed her has been punished. When there is no room in sin city for anything other than sin, then sin is no longer a sin, but just the norm. It's boring, just like any other norm. The chaos of Sin City 2 is just boring. To be fair, the domestic release added a little extra spice to this unsavoury sin. The on-screen captions warn that the film contains harmful scenes of smoking. In relation to the show, which in its least bloody scene shows a person’s fingers being broken with pliers, this reads as hellish humour. Hammett would have liked it.

France's Socialists should 'shut up and sort France out', Francois Hollande's key ally says Mr Valls called on the deeply divided Left to "show its affection" for the embattled Socialist president, whose reshuffle has failed to meet the approval of the vast majority of French. The president deserves everyone's respect, he deserves our loyality, he deserves our support. "It is our duty to remain at his sides," he said, to applause. As a placatory gesture, the prime minister insisted his government would not call into question France's controversial 35-hour working week, despite inflammatory suggestions it should relax the rules earlier in the week by Emmanuel Macron, the new economy minister. On Saturday, Mr Hollande had implored his fellow Socialists to remain "united" with the government. But Christiane Taubira, the justice minister, put a spanner in the works by turning up to a meeting of rebel Socialist MPs and criticising the Socialist Party for letting the French "lose faith in their future." Marine Le Pen, the far-Right National Front leader, heaped scorn on the Socialists' constant in-fighting by saying she did not see the new Valls government lasting more than just a few months. Francois Hollande the Emperor has no clothes, but neither has Prince Manuel Valls, forced to put together a new government when the previous one didn't even survive the summer. "And the new one won't survive the fall or the winter either," Miss Le Pen told supporters. She reiterated her party's call for a parliamentary dissolution, saying she was confident it could win early elections and stood ready to govern. France's ruling party suffered a drubbing in March municipal elections and the far-right National Front came out on top in EU elections in May. A poll in Sunday's Journal du Dimanche found 76 per cent of French believe the Socialist Party risks breaking up into several rival factions before the end of Mr Hollande's presidential term in 2017. Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po university, warned the French would fast lose patience unless the new Socialist government succeeds in improving the economy and record unemployment. "It has a small window of opportunity, but public opinion needs to quickly feel things are changing," he warned. Otherwise, the situation could further degenerate.

“City Without Drugs” is left without a suit The Sverdlovsk Arbitration Court dismissed without prejudice a lawsuit by the Administrative Directorate of the Regional Ministry for the Administration of State Property against the City Without Drugs Foundation. The agency intended to recover more than 7 mln. roubles by way of payment for the lease of a building in the centre of Yekaterinburg. However, the claimant failed to show up to court on two occasions. Today, the Arbitration Court for Sverdlovsk Oblast dismissed without prejudice a lawsuit by the Administrative Directorate of the Ministry for the Administration of State Property (MUGISO) against the City Without Drugs Foundation (one of whose founders is the mayor of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman). Representatives of the regional authorities intended to collect 7.3 mln. roubles from the organization as payment for the lease of a building. Today, it came to light that the claimant failed to appear in court twice, which is why the decision was made to deny the hearing. We were unable to clarify the reason for the absence of representatives from the Directorate of the MUGISO, as the Head of the Legal Department, Maksim Titov, wasn’t answering phone calls. We were also unable to get in contact with representatives from the Foundation. As a reminder, the issue at hand concerns the mansion at 19 Belinsky Street in the centre of the city, where the Foundation has been located on a free-of-charge basis since 2011. The previous Governor, Aleksandr Misharin, made this decision. In November 2012, the Administrative Directorate of the Ministry for the Administration of State Property for Sverdlovsk Oblast filed a lawsuit with the Sverdlovsk Arbitration Court to evict the Foundation from the building. According to the lawsuit, the agency sought, via the courts, a declaration that the contract for the free-use of the premises of the historical mansion was void. According to the Directorate of the MUGISO, the material terms for the lease of the cultural heritage site were not written in the contract. The Sverdlovsk Arbitration Court dismissed the lawsuit and then an appeal was lodged with the 17th Arbitration Court of Perm, which was granted. Then, in the same court, the Foundation filed a cassation appeal against the decision which did not receive approval; this decision then was appealed by the Foundation in the Supreme Arbitration Court, but the court sided with the Directorate. In 2013, a new lease agreement was concluded, according to which the Foundation started to pay rent; head of the city, Yeveny Roizman, spoke about this. The rental fee was set at 300 thou. roubles a month. The previous regional administration gave us free-use of this building, in recognition of our achievements in the fight against drugs, and as a sign of respect for the Foundation. The current administration decided differently”, he stated. Tatiana Drogaeva, Yekaterinburg Why the Mayor of Yekaterinburg was asked to voluntarily resign On July 24, United Russia Deputy for the Yekaterinburg City Duma, Aleksandr Kosintsev, suggested that the Mayor and Speaker of the City Duma, Yevgeny Roizman, resign. The reason for this being the criminal case against City Duma Deputy, Oleg Kinev, who was arrested as a suspect in the murder of a female pensioner, and who is deemed a close associate of the mayor. How they found a criminal case against Evgeny Roizman On July 1, it came to light that a criminal case had been initiated in connection with “slander” (Art. 128.1 of the Russian Criminal Code) in the blog of the Mayor of Yekaterinburg, Evgeny Roizman. This was reported by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior for Sverdlovsk Oblast, to whom the General Director of the Protection Centre for Rights, Anna Filatova, appealed with corroborating documents. According to her, Mr. Roizman accused her, in his blog entries, of participating in crimes that were allegedly committed by her ex-spouse. The Mayor of Yekaterinburg is confident that “this is yet another attempt to avenge the truth”.

The iPhone will be turned into a wallet In the run-up to September 9, when Apple is set to introduce its new developments, more leaks about what to expect from the presentation have started to appear in the press. With reference to sources, the American media reports that the sixth generation iPhone will be fitted with a mobile wallet function as a result of a joint project between Apple and Visa, MasterCard, and American Express payment systems. According to information from Bloomberg and the specialized Internet resource, Re/code, at the September 9th presentation on new products, among other things, there may be an announcement about the joint project with the Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, which has resulted in the availability of a mobile wallet function on the new iPhone 6 smartphone. The companies themselves refuse to make any comments on this issue. This function will make it possible to complete a transaction at a till using a smartphone. The user will complete authorization of the payment by using his or her fingerprint with the help of the TouchID function. It’s being reported that this iPhone will be the very first with built-in NFC (near field communication) technology, which makes it possible to complete contactless payments using a smartphone and a corresponding reading device at the till. The NFC technology itself will be available thanks to a special microprocessor from the Dutch high-tech company, NXP (previously Philips Semiconductors). The NFC function was featured for the very first time in 2004, within a framework of cooperation between Sony, Nokia, Phillips Semiconductors, and more than a hundred other companies, included in the so-called NFC Forum – an association for the further development of this technology. Nokia released the first phone with NFC in 2006. The first Android smartphone with an NFC function was the Samsung Nexus S, introduced in 2010. In May 2011, Google introduced the Google Wallet system, which enables users to link bankcards to their Google profile and make payments using an Android smartphone. However, American experts emphasize that, in spite of the massive investments made by high-tech companies into NFC technology, American retailers are still cautious about the innovation and are not all that excited about spending money to equip their stores with these systems. As such, observers are now hoping that Apple’s entry into this market will force retailers to hurry up and quickly introduce this technology into their retail stores.

MFA of France: Paris’ position on the delivery of Mistrals to Russia remains unchanged The official spokesperson for the French MFA, Roman Nadal, commented on Paris’ unchanged position on the delivery of Mistral class helicopter carrier ships to Russia. "I can recall the President of the Republic’s (François Hollande) statement about them made in an interview with LeMonde newspaper on August 20: “Today, the level of sanctions do not prevent the delivery. This is the decision of Europeans, and not France”, Mr. Nadal quoted to RIA Novosti. That is how the representative of the French diplomatic agency answered a question about whether the worsening situation in Ukraine might cause a change in Paris’ position on filling the requirements of the contract For more information on the delivery of the helicopter carrier ships to Russia read, “The Mistral is almost ours”, in Ogonyok magazine.

The Council of National Security of Ukraine: seven service personnel have died in the conflict zone over the past few days A representative of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine, Andrei Lysenko, reported that seven Ukrainian service personnel had died and 25 others had been wounded in the conflict zone in the east of the country over the past few days. The situation outside of Ilovaisk is extremely complicated. Until the operation to withdraw troops from the area of encirclement is completed, I won’t be able to speak in greater detail. Once the operation is completed, information about losses and the reasons for the current situation will be made available. Those who are guilty of creating this situation will be held to account”, Mr. Lysenko added, while refusing to discuss in greater detail the situation outside of Ilovaisk, where several Ukrainian battalions became encircled. According to the CNSD representative, “everything possible is being done to return the service personnel who have been captured”, ITAR-TASS reports. Mr. Lysenko also noted that Ukrainian soldiers have retreated from Luhansk airport in the direction of the community of Georgievka. For more information on the situation in Ukraine, read the material in Kommersant: Arsen Avakov, “The first Ukrainian soldiers have left the encirclement outside of Ilovaisk”.

Norwegian Cruise nears $3 billion Prestige Cruises deal Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd NCHL.O, the world's third largest cruise operator, is in advanced talks to acquire peer Prestige Cruises International Inc for around $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. A deal would give Norwegian Cruise, a company with a market value of $6.8 billion, access to Prestige Cruises' luxury cruise ships and affluent clientele as it competes with bigger rivals Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCL.N) and Carnival Corp (CCL.N). An agreement may be announced as early as this week, the sources said on Sunday, cautioning that the talks could still fall apart. The owner of Prestige Cruises, private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC (APO.N), also owns a 20 percent stake in Norwegian Cruise. The sources asked not to be identified because the negotiations are not public. Norwegian Cruise and Prestige Cruises representatives did not respond to requests for comment, while an Apollo spokesman declined to comment. Miami-based Norwegian Cruise operates 13 cruise ships in routes spanning North America, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, Central America and the Caribbean. It had revenues of $2.57 billion in 2013, up 13 percent from 2012. Prestige Cruises, also based in Miami, operates under the Oceania and Regent brands, which together have eight cruise ships traveling to Scandinavia, Russia, the Mediterranean, North America, Asia, Africa and South America. It posted revenues of $1.2 billion in 2013, up 6 percent from the year earlier. The $29 billion cruise industry is expected to benefit in the coming years from the rise of the middle class in emerging economies such as China and India. Companies are racing to position themselves as the cruise operators of choice for these new customers. Prestige Cruises registered with U.S. regulators for an initial public offering in January 2014. Apollo has been the company's majority shareholder following an $850 million deal in 2007. Norwegian Cruise was created in its current form in 2000 through a merger with a cruise operator owned by Genting Bhd (GENT.KL), the leisure and casino conglomerate controlled by Malaysian billionaire Lim Kok Thay. Apollo made a $1 billion investment in Norwegian Cruise in 2008. Norwegian Cruise went public in January 2013. Genting had a 28 percent stake, Apollo had a 20 percent stake and private equity firm TPG Capital LP had an 8 percent stake in the company as of the end of June, according to a regulatory filing. Carnival, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise together account for 82 percent of the North American cruise passenger berth capacity, according to Prestige Cruises' initial public offering registration document.

Crimea television and radio broadcasting company might receive 250 mln. roubles in subsidies The Russian Ministry of Communications is proposing to allocate 250 mln. roubles to the state television and radio broadcasting company, Crimea, in 2014. As it appears from the Ministry of Communications’ draft decree, which is available on the unified portal for the disclosure of information on regulatory documents, the subsidies are intended to be spent “to cover the costs of creating the conditions for widespread informational coverage of the social and economic situation and the development of a modern information space within the Republic of Crimea”. The money will also go toward the purchase of equipment and payment for renovations to the roof and electrical system of the building of the television and radio broadcasting company, which was founded in 1959, reports RIA Novosti.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists heckle China official day after vote ruling A group of Beijing loyalists stood nearby waving China's flag. The NPC Standing Committee on Sunday endorsed a framework to let only two or three candidates run in Hong Kong's 2017 leadership vote. All candidates must first obtain majority backing from a nominating committee likely to be stacked with Beijing loyalists. The decision makes it almost impossible for opposition democrats to get on the ballot prompted pro-democracy activists to renew their vow to bring Hong Kong's financial hub to a halt with "Occupy Central" protests. Political reform has been a major source of tension in Hong Kong, with China party leaders fearful of calls for democracy spreading to other cities. Following the publication by Beijing of a white paper outlining China's authority over Hong Kong in June, democracy activists held an unofficial referendum on voting in the special administrative region, and hundreds of thousands marched to the city's business district and staged a sit-in. Li's briefing is being organized by the Hong Kong government and China's Liaison Office in Hong Kong. The vice chairman of the Standing Committee's Legislative Affairs Commission, Zhang Rongshun, and the Deputy Director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Feng Wei, were also due to speak in a series of briefings throughout the day. Student activists said they would gather outside of the Hong Kong chief executive's office in the afternoon. Britain made no mention of democracy for Hong Kong until the dying days of about 150 years of colonial rule.

Israeli authorities are determined to annex 400 hectares of land belonging to the Palestinian Authority Israeli authorities announced that they are determined to annex 400 hectares of land on the West Bank of the Jordan River, which belongs to the Palestinian Authority. As the BBC reports, the decision to annex the land of South Bethlehem is connected with the desire to seek revenge for the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June of this year. The Israeli Ministry of Defence announced the annexation of the territory on Sunday and ordered the military to establish administrative control over the West Bank. According to a representative for the Gaza Strip, Saeb Erekat, the world community must call Israel to account for “the on-going settlement activity on the West Bank of the Jordan and in Eastern Jerusalem”.

Putin demands Kiev open 'statehood' talks with eastern Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Sunday that the Ukrainian government cease battling separatists in the country's east and immediately begin negotiations on the breakaway region's "statehood," according to Russian news accounts of his remarks. His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, later clarified that Putin didn't mean to imply that the eastern Ukrainian territory under separatist control would become part of Russia, but that its status within Ukraine had to be revised to give the Russian-speaking region the power to protect its rights and interests. But Putin's call upon the Kiev government to negotiate with the pro-Russia insurgents as equals corresponded with the apparent strategy he has followed since the violence began five months ago: Help the separatists take territory and force the Ukrainian government to grant the newly proclaimed Novorossiya region virtual independence to align with Russia instead of the West. In an interview with state-run Channel One television, Putin denounced the Ukrainian military campaign to recover separatist-held territory in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that were seized in March and April, after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula on March 18. The Kremlin and the separatists have lately branded the seized territory "Novorossiya," or "New Russia," a term that harkens to pre-revolutionary glory days of the Russian empire. Putin said that anyone who believed peace talks are in the offing as Ukrainian politicians launch campaigns for an Oct. 26 parliamentary election and while government troops are attacking civilian communities in separatist-held regions is "a prisoner to illusions," Itar-Tass reported. "We must immediately commence substantive talks and not only on technical issues, but also on the political organization of society and the statehood status of southeast Ukraine in order to serve the interests of people living there," he said. Peskov said Putin's reference to statehood was meant in the context of the broader autonomy that has been discussed for months with the Kiev leadership as it struggles to allay fears in the Russian-speaking areas that their cultural and linguistic rights are in danger. Only the Ukrainian government can grant the eastern regions the necessary autonomy, Peskov said. It's not a matter to be negotiated between Ukraine and Russia, Peskov said, "because it's not a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but an internal Ukrainian conflict." The Kremlin spokesman's intercession to correct the "misinterpretation" of Putin's remarks underscored the Russian leadership's approach to dealing with the separatist rebellion in the east differently from its outright seizure of Crimea, where the majority of the 2 million population is ethnic Russian. Moscow would have a much more difficult fight to annex even the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, as most of the 6.5 million residents are not Russian and pre-conflict polls showed broad support for staying within Ukraine. The autonomy that Russian diplomats have discussed in international forums would grant regional governments in Ukraine the authority to determine their own trade agreements and foreign relations, effectively handing the Kremlin de facto control over territory that would link the Russian mainland with Crimea. The Black Sea peninsula annexed five months ago is home to Russia's main naval fleet as well as commercial maritime facilities and historic coastal resorts. The regions between Russia's Rostov area and Crimea are also home to mines, factories and foundries that produce vital components for the Russian military. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proposed during his inauguration speech on June 7 that Ukrainian lawmakers - after new elections -- weigh constitutional amendments to give more control to the disparate regions over their finances and the status of languages. But his vision of autonomy appears to differ sharply from that of the Kremlin and the separatist rebels Moscow is accused of arming and instigating. Putin's latest call on Kiev to deal with the separatist leaders as equals followed new advances by the rebels last week after Russian troops and tanks entered eastern Ukraine from a previously peaceful area along the Sea of Azov. The Russian-backed separatists took control of the town of Novoazovsk in a drive that Ukrainian security officials say they fear is the opening of a campaign to seize the strategic coastal territory all the way to Crimea. That has spurred a massive civilian and military effort to fortify Mariupol, a steelmaking port of 500,000 that lies between Novoazovsk and the narrow gateway into the Crimean peninsula. Poroshenko on Saturday addressed a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels to urge action to prevent further Russian aggression against Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that has been independent for 23 years. "We are close to the point of no return," Poroshenko warned. Thousands of foreign troops and hundreds of foreign tanks are now on the territory of Ukraine. The EU summit took no definitive action; the leaders called for drafting more punishing sanctions on Russia to be imposed in the event of an unspecified escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Ukrainian soldiers had to withdraw from their positions in Ilovaysk after two columns of Russian armor and 1,000 troops last week moved into the Donetsk region to bolster the beleaguered separatists, Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, told reporters in Kiev on Saturday. The first of a reported 63 Ukrainian soldiers who were trapped in Ilovaysk by the Russian incursion were swapped Sunday for 10 Russian paratroopers captured inside Ukrainian territory a week ago, Lysenko said Sunday.

Nude photo scandal embroils Australian celebrities and Gabi Grecko Geoffrey Edelsten has vented his disgust at hackers who may have stolen nude images of fiancee Gabi Grecko and a who's who of Hollywood A-listers. Tinseltown is reeling after a series of explicit photos showing a nude Jennifer Lawrence hit the internet in a major celebrity hacking scandal. The hacker responsible is said to have 60 nude photos of Hunger Games star Lawrence and superstars including models Kate Upton and Cara Delevingne, singers Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Lea Michelle and actors Kirsten Dunst. Australian actors Teresa Palmer, Emily Browning, Yvonne Strahovski, and Melbourne-based Grecko also had personal pictures allegedly retrieved due to an iCloud leak. There are 101 celebrity names on the list. Edelsten, who proposed to Grecko last month, told Confidential: "It's disgusting". All private correspondence and images should remain private. It's disgraceful that personal information can be stolen and dispersed to others. Grecko, who is in New York, reportedly told a news website the hacking was "shameful" and those targeted would "feel violated." The hacker is believed to have 30 images of Palmer with ex-boyfriend Scott Speedman, including two frames where she is lounging topless in a pool. Palmer's film credits include Love And Honor, opposite Liam Hemsworth. Palmer, Chuck star Strahovski and Sucker Punch actress Browning yesterday had no comment on the hacked pictures. A representative for Lawrence told TMZ: "This is a flagrant violation of privacy." Actor Seth Rogen lashed out at the hacker, tweeting: "Posting pics hacked from a cell phone is really no different than selling stolen merchandise." Just legally speaking, it shouldn't be tolerated to report stolen pics.

The potential method for stealing photos of nude celebrities has been discovered It is possible that the massive hack of celebrities’ accounts was carried out using a vulnerability in the Find My Phone app. The Next Web resource described the potential scenario of events. A script written in Python language was published on the GitHub resource, which made it possible to collect passwords for the Find My Phone service from Apple. This service makes it possible to keep an eye on an iPhone’s location. To gain access to it one uses the same Apple ID login and password combination that is used to gain access to Apple iCloud, which is where the photographs of celebrities were stolen. The script made it possible to use a brute-force computing method to figure out the Find My Phone password. With this approach, every possible combination of symbols is sequentially entered, starting with the most commonly used passwords. The script’s creator confirmed that the Find My Phone service has an infinite number of password input variations. When it’s working properly, the security system should block an account after several unsuccessful login attempts and alert the user about the attempted attack. As a result of a vulnerability, the users didn’t receive any messages about the attempt to match the password to their account. The hackers figured out the password from Apple ID and then used it to gain access to iCloud. According to Hackapp’s message on Twitter, the vulnerability was found two days ago, on Saturday, and a script programme was then written for it in order to collect the passwords. At the present time, the vulnerability has been fixed: after the five failed login attempts, the service is blocked. The resource contacted the Hackapp user and he noted that the aforementioned vulnerability is common with many services; however, he also noted that he has no proof that this specific vulnerability was used to gain access to the “stars’” accounts. It’s not me, plz RT Once again unauthorized messages have shown up on the Prime Minister’s Twitter account Although there is no hard evidence that the vulnerability in Find My Phone was used to steal photographs, there has already been a wave of injurious acts committed using that service. Hackers intercepted control of a device and ordered owners to pay ransom. In that case, Apple told the media that the safety of the cloud was not compromised in this incidence, however, they had not conducted an investigation into how the users lost their accounts. In Russia, the Twitter account of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, was also previously hacked. If the hackers gained access to iCloud using the above-described method, then the password to the account of the head of the government may also be stored in the microblog service. The Next Web resource was not able to get a comment from Apple regarding the Find My Phone vulnerability.

Putin grants Russian citizenship to a Ukrainian female pentathlete The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, granted Russian citizenship to the famous Ukrainian female athlete, Anna Buryak. The relevant order was published on the Internet portal for legal information. At the beginning of this year, the female athlete moved to Russia as a permanent resident and approached the Federation of Modern Pentathlon with a request to allow her to join the Russian team. In 2013, she won two series of the World Cup, took the silver medal at the European Championships in the individual competition, and became world champion in the mixed relay, which happens to be one of the new types of programmes in this sport. She holds the lead position in this year’s season. According to the rules, in order to compete at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, she’ll have to get special permission from the Ukrainian Olympic Committee. Anna Buryak isn’t the first Ukrainian female athlete to change her citizenship. In July, Vladimir Putin decreed to issue a Russian passport to female chess player, Ekaterina Lagno, a native of Lviv, who is a two-time European champion (2005, 2008), a world champion in blitz chess (2010), and in rapid chess (2014). As a part of the Ukrainian women’s team, the female athlete became the winner of the Chess Olympics in Turin (2006), the World Team Championships in Astana (2013), and the European Team Championships in Warsaw (2013).

The ICR has ended the investigation into the Tu-204 accident at Vnukovo The Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) has dropped criminal charges in relation to the accident involving the Tu-204 airplane owned by Red Wings airlines. The agency’s press service reported this. The decision was made in relation to the death of the captain and the on-board engineer. The forensic investigation showed that the accident was caused by an accelerated landing approach, the failure of the crew to comply with standard landing procedures, as well as an unintentional forward thrust increase of the engines. The Tu-204 airplane owned by Red Wings airlines, which was travelling from Prague to Moscow, crashed on December 29, 2012, while landing at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. The aircraft overran the landing strip and burst into flames. The captain, co-pilot, and on-board engineer all died at the scene of the accident. Two flight attendants were sent to medical treatment facilities, where they later died from their injuries. Another three flight attendants, who were hospitalized with serious bodily injuries, underwent long-term medical care. Furthermore, a driver of a car, who was travelling along Kievskoe highway at the moment of the accident, received serious bodily injuries. There were no passengers on-board the aircraft. The transport prosecutor’s office conducted an investigation into Red Wings following the accident, in which numerous violations were found. In February 2013, the airline company’s license was suspended. The company resumed operations in the summer of 2013.

Aleksandr Yemelyanenko has begun training in a pre-trial detention facility The famous Russian mixed martial arts fighter, 33 year-old Aleksandr Yemelyanenko, who is currently situated in a pre-trial detention facility in connection with a charge of sexual assault against his housekeeper, has completely recovered from an injury and has started training. Championship reports about this. In May of this year, the Russian Investigation Committee charged Aleksandr Yemelyanenko with rape. The accused was put on the wanted list, and he was arrested on May 9, in Tambov, after causing a traffic accident in which he broke his hip. Yemelyanenko junior was held under arrest until August 31, and criminal sentencing was scheduled for September 1. However, court was postponed, and consequently required the extension of custodial detention until September 30. If the athlete is found to be guilty, he will face up to a six-year term in prison. What’s strength, brother? Lenta.ru recalls the most scandalous stories of Aleksandr Yemelyanenko’s career His last fight took place in January of this year, where he lost as a result of a technical knockout to his opponent, Dmitry Sosnovsky. Aleksandr is the younger brother of the better well-known fighter, Fedor Yemelyanenko. The latter is a four-time world champion in mixed martial arts, as well as a four-time world champion and seven-time Russian champion in combat sambo.

Anger turns out the be the most universal and functional of human emotions An angry facial expression turns out to be biologically universal to all of humankind, and every organ and muscle that participates in the creation of this expression is not accidental, but rather an additional means of expressing power and intimidation, scholars from Australia and the USA have discovered. They discuss their discoveries in the journal, Evolution and Human Behavior, but a summary of them can be read in a press release from the University of California, Santa Barbara. An angry facial expression – knitted and downcast brows, lips stretched into a thin line, flared nostrils – is the same across all cultures, and even congenitally blind children, having never seen it before, do it, notes the study’s lead author, Aaron Sell. As part of a major research project devoted to the nature of anger, scholars discovered that this emotion was developed to effectively manage disputes during a conflict. The greater one’s ability to cause physical injury to another, the more opportunities one has to dictate their terms, and a person is able to convey this to their interlocutor through anger. The researchers also found confirmation of their other hypothesis: physically strong people become angry more frequently and are more likely to resort to physical force, they consider themselves entitled to dictate unfavourable terms to others, and they prefer forceful rather then peaceful means to resolving conflicts. Starting from the notion that anger is primarily a “bargaining emotion”, the scholars decided that the movement of each of the seven groups of muscles that create an angry facial expression should make the angry person look more powerful and dangerous in the eyes of their interlocutor, thereby forcing agreement with the angry person’s demands as quickly as possible in order to avoid conflict. To test this hypothesis, the researchers created a computerized facial model, to which they added or removed each of the seven elements of an angry face, and then showed it to their test subjects. Although downcast eyebrows or a pushed out chin on their own didn’t make the face look malicious, study participants unanimously recognized an image of a more physically strong person with the same characteristics as being such. Human anger, just as in animals, conveys a threat: an exaggerated expression of one’s personal strength that compels others to consent and obey. A person flares their nostrils and presses their lips together for the same reason that a frog puffs itself up, or a baboon bares its teeth. “Anger is ‘triggered’ when an interlocutor declines to accept the situation, and the face immediately takes on a form that is maximally effective in demonstrating to the opposing side the consequences of that refusal. But what’s most astonishing is that not one of the components of an angry face is arbitrary, they all express the very same message”, anthropologist, John Tooby notes.

The Ministry of Communications has proposed to allocate 250 million roubles to Crimea television and radio broadcasting company The Ministry of Communications has proposed to allocate 250 million roubles from the federal budget in 2014 to the independent non-profit organization, Crimea television and radio broadcasting company. This is discussed in a government draft decree prepared by the agency, with which Lenta.ru has familiarized itself. According to the draft’s explanatory notes, the subsidies from the federal budget will be allocated “to cover the costs of creating the conditions for widespread informational coverage of the social and economic situation and the development of a modern information space within the Republic of Crimea, including the acquisition of equipment”. A portion of the money has been earmarked for upgrading the broadcasting studio, video walls, the main control room, and the video equipment room. The purchase of a mobile television station and a satellite transmitter are also being planned. Furthermore, the company will use the allocated funds to pay for the use of a fibre-optic communications line and repairs to the energy system. The subsidies will be made available as part of the federal budget resources that are set aside for the Ministry of Communications. The state television and radio broadcasting company, Crimea, founded in 1959, provides broadcasts in seven languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Crimean Tartar, German, Greek, Bulgarian, and Armenian. Currently, the television and radio broadcasting company’s television signal reaches more than 75 percent of the peninsula’s territory. In 2011, Crimea television and radio broadcasting company received its digital television broadcasting licence.