When 8-year-old Thaer Jouda left Gaza for urgently needed medical care in Germany last October, he did not know that his mother and four of his brothers and sisters were dead.
In the late afternoon of 24 August 2014, Thaer was with most of his family in their courtyard in Jabaliya, a town in northern Gaza, when a drone fired a missile directly at the seated group. It was just two days before the ceasefire that ended Israel’s 51-day assault on Gaza.
Sinai Province, an extremist group affiliated with Islamic State militants, claims to have launched a rocket at an Egyptian naval vessel in the Mediterranean, setting it ablaze.
Egyptian militants from the Sinai Province group have previously focused on attacks on Egyptian soldiers and police in the Sinai peninsula, killing hundreds since the army ousted President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
Photographs distributed by the group, and which have not been independently verified, appeared to show a rocket heading towards the ship, and then setting it ablaze on impact.
Egyptian military sources said in a statement that a coastguard launch had exchanged shots with "terrorist elements", causing it to catch fire, but there had been no loss of life.
The incident took place in waters off the town of Rafah, in north Sinai, which borders on the Gaza Strip.
Witnesses in Gaza said they had heard explosions and gunfire. The attackers were said by military sources to have fled after firing on the vessel.
The group, which pledged allegiance to the self-styled Islamic State in 2014, is the most lethal militant group in Egypt. Its recent high-profile attacks have triggered the drafting of a sweeping counter-terrorism law.
On 1 July, 100 militants and at least 17 members of the security forces were killed in a single day of clashes and attacks claimed by the group.
While the Obama administration may hope the nuclear deal paves the way for a more peaceful Middle East, it just may convince Riyadh to turn its conflict with Tehran up a notch.
In the days before the nuclear deal with Iran was signed, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sounded excited about the prospect that an agreement could pave the way for other diplomatic breakthroughs in the region. In an interview with his hometown Boston Globe, he spoke about how the deal is “an opportunity here to galvanize people” and potentially “open some doors” to future regional cooperation.
India and Pakistan exchanged gunfire and mortar bombs along their disputed frontier on Thursday, killing five civilians and injuring more than a dozen, Pakistan said, days after the leaders of the nuclear-armed rivals agreed to high-level talks.
The escalating hostilities have chilled a brief thaw in ties after prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi met in Russia, but appeared unlikely to thwart a planned meeting of national security advisers.
"We remain committed to steps that contribute to peace and tranquillity on the border," Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said after top officials huddled in New Delhi on Friday.
"However, there should be no doubt that any unprovoked firing from the Pakistani side would meet with an effective and forceful response from our forces."
Five Pakistani civilians were killed "due to Indian unprovoked firing", the Pakistani military said in statements on the clashes on the frontier in the disputed Kashmir region.
India said a woman on its side of the frontier was killed in Pakistani firing the previous day.
Majority-Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought three wars since becoming separate nations in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
Soldiers along their heavily militarised boundary have regularly traded fire for decades but clashes became less frequent after a 2003 ceasefire in Kashmir.
Hopes for warmer ties were raised last week when Modi and Sharif met on the sidelines of a summit in Ufa, Russia and agreed that their national security advisers would hold talks.
Modi also agreed to visit Pakistan in 2016.
India said Pakistani troops fired at five of its forward bases and six villagers on Wednesday, when the woman was killed.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani military said it had shot down an Indian surveillance drone. A photograph released by the military appeared to show a small, unarmed model.
The Indians denied the drone was theirs, with Jaishankar saying it appeared to be "commercially available" Chinese design.
Relations between the neighbours nosedived after Pakistan-based militants attacked Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people.
India believes Pakistan supports militants fighting security forces in the Indian part of Kashmir and launching attacks in Indian cities.
Pakistan denies that.
Sharif made improving relations with India a cornerstone of his 2013 election campaign but many army commanders remain suspicious of India.
Modi, elected in 2014, belongs to a Hindu nationalist political party and is seen as hawkish on relations with Pakistan.
(Additional reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar and Krista Mahr in New Delhi; Editing by Robert Birsel and Douglas Busvine)
Funding comes as eurozone finance ministers scramble to assemble €7bn bridging finance to keep economy afloat Greek citizens protest against the new package of austerity measures. Photograph: UPI /Landov/Barcroft Media
Greek banks will benefit from an extra €900m (£630m) in emergency funding to keep them afloat, the European Central Bank has announced, possibly allowing bank branches to open on Monday.
The Malaysian ringgit has taken a battering over the last few months, especially relative to some of the high performing currencies in the region, like the Thai baht. The Malaysian ringgit is now at a nine-year low against the US dollar, just recently ducking under the psychological RM3.80 mark.
This new ringgit low has come at a time when a number of potential scandals such as the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) furore, where the Sarawak Report and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has alleged that Prime Minister Najib Tun Abdul Razak received $700 million into his personal bank accounts, are threatening Government.
There's this thing people sometimes say down South.
So-and-so is "acting brand new." Sometimes that's a reference to people behaving like they don't know old friends and family — that they have evolved past their old crowd. Sometimes that's Southern-speak for the emboldened, people behaving like they either don't know the rules or have outright decided to disregard them.
In the past four weeks, we've seen President Obama take up residence in a place that sits somewhere in-between.
He's spoken off the cuff about race relations on a widely circulated podcast (even using the n-word) and then eloquently followed that with whatcan only be described as a sermon on race relations in America before breaking into song. He's challenged America to go deeper in its support of equality than retiring symbols of slavery (such as the Confederate flag) and impolitic words (such as the n-word).
While eulogizing a slain minister and state lawmaker allegedly killed by a white supremacist in Charleston, S.C., he outlined a whole raft of ways in which discrimination remains and inequality continues to grow. And now, in the span of two weeks, he has announced two major reform packages — housing last week and criminal justice on Tuesday — that could, if ultimately implemented, be of particular benefit to people of color in the United States.
Here's the thing: This Obama might look or sound "brand new" to some Americans. He might even sound a little something like the black president some white Americans across the political spectrum feared (or hoped for). But to people who watch the White House closely, this is the President Obama who has been developing for some time.
On Tuesday, Obama addressed the 106th national convention of the NAACP, the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. It's worth noting here that the NAACP was founded by a cross-racial group of civil rights warriors ultimately responsible for some of the most sweeping legal reforms of the 20th century. But the NAACP isn't as highly regarded these days as it once was. In the 1990s, the NAACP saw a sharp decline in membership and was itself focused on issues such as retiring the n-word, before rebuilding its membership by expanding its activism to include things like anti-death penalty work and school-funding reform.
Still, in the eyes of some Americans, the NAACP is a partisan organization. Some on the right have even called it a "hate group."
But Obama came to the NAACP convention and laid out a criminal-justice reform agenda that included everything from calls for a close and hard look at what sends people to jail, which crimes and which defendants get the longest sentences, the use of solitary confinement and the loss of voting rights after release. That agenda, Obama said, also has to include resolving the massivedisparities in school quality and discipline that federal data tells us begin in pre-kindergarten classrooms.
Obama talked about the fact that some people in jail need to be there, at least for some period of time. And he didn't lambaste law enforcement.
Still, this Obama didn't do what he has so many times before. He didn't lecture black America about its behavior while making only passing mention of some of the social and economic conditions that solid research — not just political ideology — tells us has at least helped to foster inequality. He gave a full airing to his sense that there is a need for wholesale policy reforms. And he stayed completely clear of the politically expedient and at times outright popular act of saying that young black men should do something about the way some wear their pants or how they speak.
This Obama did not dispute that mass incarceration and sexual violation in prison have become accepted features of life for some segments of America (so much so that they are now part of the American joke-making firmament). He mentioned both. And Obama put the price tag of mass incarceration, American-style, at more than $80 billion a year.
That's a tab that could be used to build better roads and bridges and schools, Obama said. Or it could cover the cost of universal pre-K for every 3- and 4-year-old in America or the cost of college tuition at every public college and university in the United States.
But lots of reporters who watch the White House for a living say the Obama administration was stung by the 2010 midterm elections and Democrats' staggering defeat, despite years of what they saw as pragmatic compromise. So the administration went big with executive orders and administrative actions on the environment, immigration, trade and other issues. There have also been some defeats — in court and in the court of public opinion — but then, there have also been some legal and social victories in the past eight weeks.
And there have stunning moments — in Sanford, Fla.; in New York; in Ferguson, Mo.; in North Charleston, S.C.; in Baltimore and in Charleston, S.C. — that have made the continued significance of race harder for the White House and larger swaths of America to ignore. Combine that with the waning months of Obama's presidency, and the timing makes sense.
And there was something else that happened in that podcast with comedian Marc Maron. There was something Obama said long after that n-word exchange that should not be ignored.
"I know what I am doing, and I’m fearless," Obama said.
The Iran nuclear deal marks another milestone in Barack Obama's presidential tenure. Washington Post opinion columnist Jonathan Capehart explains how deeply this affects his legacy. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
Janell Ross is a reporter for The Fix who writes about race, gender, immigration and inequality.
A team from the Scripps Research Institute found that mutations in the autism risk gene PTEN lead to a sequential overproduction of the neurons and glia that build the cerebral cortex (visualized here using a red fluorescent reporter). Credit: The Scripps Research Institute.
As early as 1943, when autism was first described by psychiatrist Leo Kanner, reports were made that some, but not all, children with autism spectrum disorder have relatively enlarged heads. But even today, more than half a century later, the exact cause of this early abnormal growth of the head and brain has remained unclear.
Now, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have uncovered how mutations in a specific autism risk gene alter the basic trajectory of early brain development in animal models.
The study, published in the July 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, focused on the gene PTEN (Phosphatase and tensin homolog), which is mutated in around 20 percent of individuals with autism spectrum disorder and enlarged heads (macrocephaly).
In new research, the team led by Scripps Florida biologist Damon Page found that mutations in PTEN, which approximate those found in a subgroup of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, lead to dynamic changes in the number of two key cell types that make up the brain—neurons and glia. At birth, neurons are more abundant than normal. Surprisingly, in adulthood the number of neurons in the brains of mutant animals is virtually the same as normal, and glia (which provide support for neurons) are overrepresented.
"In the adult brain, excess glia are a primary cause of the overall change in brain size," Page said. "This raises the intriguing possibility that these excess glia may, in fact, contribute to abnormal development and function of brain circuitry when PTENis mutated."
The brain overgrowth the team observed in PTEN mutant mice is a dynamic process, with the greatest increase in size occurring at birth and adulthood and the least in the early juvenile period. The team noted that this abnormal pattern of growth appears to be caused by an amplification of the normal process of brain development, where neurons are generated in over-abundance before birth and then trimmed off by a program of cell death (apoptosis), and glia are generated after neurons.
"Apoptosis is a natural phenomenon that removes unnecessary neurons during normal brain development," said Research Associate Youjun Chen, the first author of the study and a member of the Page laboratory. "We find it very striking that in the brains of PTEN mutant mice, the presence of excess neurons is corrected by excessive apoptosis. After that, excess glia are made. In adulthood, the number of glial cells increases by more than 20 percent in our models."
The scientists traced these effects back to an increase in signaling through a molecule known as β-Catenin (beta Catenin).
"PTEN and β-catenin are two important molecules that control growth in the developing brain in both mice and humans," said Page. "We have found that these work together in a common pathway to regulate brain growth trajectory by controlling the number and types of cells produced. Although caveats apply when extrapolating from mice to humans, this suggests that an imbalance in this relationship may contribute to abnormal brain growth in a subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder."
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social deficits and communication difficulties, repetitive behaviors and interests, as well as cognitive delays in some individuals. The disorder affects in approximately one percent of the population; some 80 percent of those diagnosed are male.
Interestingly, Page noted that in spite of the profound effects of PTEN mutations on brain growth, the mice are largely able to adapt at the level of behavior, with the important exception of social behavior and a few other behaviors relevant to autism spectrum disorder.
"Our findings across studies indicate that it may be a multiple-hit process," he said. "While abnormal growth puts stress on the developing brain, the brain works hard to compensate for that. How well an individual can adapt to an abnormal pattern of brain growth may shape their outcome in terms of behavior and cognition. The capacity to adapt may, in turn, be influenced by genetic or environmental factors."
In addition to Page and Chen, other authors of the study, "Pten Mutations Alter Brain Growth Trajectory and Allocation of Cell Types through Elevated β-Catenin Signaling," are Wen-Chin Huang, Julien Sejourne and Amy E. Clipperton-Allen of TSRI.
போரால் பாதிக்கப்பட்டவர்களுக்கான மீள்கட்டுமான வாழ்வாதார உதவித்திட்டம் தொடர்பான ஊடகவியலாளர் மாநாடு ஒன்று இன்று வடமாகாண மீன்பிடி போக்குவரத்து அமைச்சர் டெனீஸ்வரன்' தலைமையில் நடைபெற்றது.
குறித்த மாநாடு தொடர்பில் அமைச்சர் டெனீஸ்வரன் உரையாற்றுகையில்,
எமது வடமாகாணத்தில் ஒட்டுமொத்தமாக அனைவரும் போரால் ஏதோ ஒரு விதத்தில் பாதிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளோம்.குறிப்பாக உயிரிழப்பு,சொத்து இழப்பு போன்றவற்றால் எமது மக்கள் மனதளவில் பொருளாதார ரீதியிலும் பாதிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளார்கள்.
இந்த போரின் வாயிலாக எமது மக்கள் ஒட்டுமொத்தமாக பாதிக்கப்பட்ட நிலையில் நான் எனது அமைச்சுப் பொறுப்பை பதவியேற்றதன் பின்னர் ஐந்து மாவட்டங்களிலுமுள்ள கிராமங்களிற்கு செல்கின்ற போது மிகவும் எனது மனதைப் பாதித்த விடயமாக எமது இனத்திற்காக பல தியாகங்களை செய்தவர்கள் அன்றாட உணவிற்கு கையேந்த வேண்டிய நிலையில் காணப்படுகின்றனர்.
ஆகவே தான் இவர்களை பொருளாதாரத்தில் ஒரு நல்ல நிலைக்கு கொண்டு வர வேண்டும் என்ற நோக்கம் தான் எனது மனதில் ஆழப்பதியப்பட்டது.
அதன் அடிப்படையில் 2015ஆம் ஆண்டுக்கான எனது கொள்கைப் பிரகடனமாக பின்வருவோருக்கான வேலைத்திட்டத்தினை ஆரம்பிக்க வேண்டும் என்று முன்னுரிமை அடிப்படையில் சில முக்கியமான நபர்களை பொருளாதாரத்தில் கட்டியெழுப்ப வேண்டிய பாரிய பொறுப்பு இருக்கின்றது.
அதன் பின்னர் பல்வேறு நடவடிக்கை மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்டு ஐந்து மாவட்டங்களிலும் தரவுகள் சேகரிக்கப்பட்டு தற்போது அந்த வாழ்வாதார வேலைத்திட்டத்தை ஆரம்பிக்கவுள்ளேன்.
குறிப்பாக மூன்று படிவங்கள் எமது கிராம அபிவிருத்தி திணைக்களத்தினூடாக வழங்கப்பட்டன.
1) புனர்வாழ்வளிக்கப்பட்ட குடும்பங்களுடன் வசிக்கும் போராளிகளின் தரவுப் படிவம்
2) போரால் உயிரிழந்த போராளிகளின் குடும்ப விபரம்
3) தடுப்புக் காவலில் உள்ள தமிழ் அரசியல் கைதிகளின் விபரத் திரட்டுப் படிவம்
அதன் அடிப்படையில் கடந்த யூன் மாதம் 30 ஆம் திகதி இந்த படிவங்களினை சேகரிப்பதற்கான இறுதித் தினமாக அறிவிக்கப்பட்டது.அதன் அடிப்படையில் மேற்படி படிவங்கள் பூரணப்படுத்தப்பட்டு ஏறக்குறைய 12676 படிவங்கள் எமது திணைக்களத்திற்கு கிடைக்கப்பெற்றுள்ளன.
வசிக்கும் போராளிகள் தரவுகள் போராளிகளின் குடும்ப விபரம் உள்ள தமிழ் அரசியல் கைதிகளின் விபரம்
யாழ்ப்பாணம் 1626 1550 157
கிளிநொச்சி 1687 1664 61
மன்னார் 673 905 38
வவுனியா 595 592 23
முல்லைத்தீவு 1741 1319 45
------- --------- --------------
6322 6030 324
குறித்த வேலைத்திட்டத்திற்காக எனது அமைச்சினால் 43 மில்லியன் ரூபா நிதியினை ஒதுக்கி இருக்கிறேன்.குறிப்பாக மேற்படி ஒதுக்கீடானது ஒப்பீட்டளவில் பாரியளவில் இருக்கிறது கிடைக்கப்பெற்றுள்ள தரவுகளோடு ஒப்பிடும் போது ஒரு கணிசமான அளவே இவ்வாண்டு பூரணப்படுத்த முடியும். என்றும் அவர் தெரிவித்தார்.
- See more at: http://onlineuthayan.com/News_More.php?id=866614148315583369#sthash.FLwGT9hJ.dpuf
Today we have more than a million people (and counting) wanting Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). That means a million people have now spoken with one voice – a fact that should undoubtedly persuade the UN and members of the Security Council to act decisively – both of whom, according the UN Internal Review Panel’s findings during the final months of the war in Sri Lanka, “failed” Tamil Civilians.[1]
In a major blow to Sri Lanka – both to the current Sirisena and previousRajapaksa regimes who continue to evade accountability and independent scrutiny at all costs, having been steeped in a culture of impunity and what observers hail to be clearly and unequivocally a strong message – a clarion call for action, addressed to the conscience of the United Nations, and through its auspices in particular to the Security Council, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council, it’s now been established that more than a million people (and counting) have added their names to TGTE‘s (Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam) campaign: “urging the United Nation to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (or establish a similar credible International Judicial Mechanism) for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed against the Tamil people – by the Sri Lankan State.”
In so doing, more than a million people, in a short space of four months, have, identifying with Eelam Tamilsand without reservation delivered an appeal, a plea, a demand, a salvo, a challenge, whichever way you see it, to the UN, one which must be heard, heeded and acted upon. These million people have in other words rejected as unsatisfactory, “any call by the Sri Lankan government for a domestic mechanism or a so called hybrid mechanism to replace any international judicial process,” as the petition states:
“Any call by the Sri Lankan government for a domestic mechanism or a so called hybrid mechanism to replace any international judicial process is an attempt to deflect the call for referral to the ICC and to delay other meaningful actions on accountability. And efforts to establish a domestic Truth and Reconciliation Commission is another diversionary tactic to protect those who committed serious crimes against Tamils.”
The petition invokes Chapter 7 Article 39 of the UN Charter and argues that, “the current situation in Sri Lanka constitutes an ongoing ‘threat to peace’ under the said provision because there has been absolutely no accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”
The petition points to the UN Internal Review Report which found “credible estimates” of civilian casualties of 70,000 Tamils during the first six months in 2009 and that, “as the former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated , Sri Lanka is one of the notable countries, along with Bosnia, Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and elsewhere, where rape was used as a tactic of war.”
Further the petition provides facts and reasons in support of its call under the following headings:
When 8-year-old Thaer Jouda left Gaza for urgently needed medical care in Germany last October, he did not know that his mother and four of his brothers and sisters were dead.
