Google uncovered Russia-backed ads on YouTube, Gmail

Authentic news,No fake news.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google has discovered Russian operatives spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads on its YouTube, Gmail and Google Search products in an effort to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a person briefed on the company’s probe told Reuters on Monday.

The ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated entity that bought ads on Facebook Inc, but may indicate a broader Russian online disinformation effort, according to the source, who was not authorized to discuss details of Google’s confidential investigation.

The revelation is likely to fuel further scrutiny of the role that Silicon Valley technology giants may have unwittingly played during last year’s election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow’s goal was to help elect Donald Trump.

Google has uncovered less than $100,000 in ad spending potentially linked to Russian actors, the source said.

Both Twitter Inc and Facebook recently detected and disclosed that suspected Russian operatives, working for a content farm known as the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, Russia, used their platforms to purchase ads and post content that was politically divisive in a bid to influence Americans before and after the November 2016 presidential election.

The Internet Research Agency employ hundreds of so-called “trolls” who post pro-Kremlin content, much of it fake or discredited, under the guise of phony social media accounts that posed as American or European, according to lawmakers and researchers.

Facebook announced last month it had unearthed $100,000 in spending by the Internet Research Agency and, under pressure from lawmakers, has pledged to be more transparent about how its ads are purchased and targeted.

Google’s review had been more robust than ones undertaken so far by Facebook or Twitter, the source said.

Russia’s ad purchases on Google were first reported by the Washington Post.

Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, did not deny the story, and in a statement pointed to its existing ad policies that limit political ad targeting and prohibit targeting based on race or religion.

“We are taking a deeper look to investigate attempts to abuse our systems, working with researchers and other companies, and will provide assistance to ongoing inquiries,” a Google spokeswoman said on Monday.

‘DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY’

Google, which runs the world’s largest online advertising business, had largely evaded public or congressional scrutiny until now. On Sunday, the Daily Beast news website reported that the Kremlin recruited at least two black video bloggers to post clips on YouTube during the campaign. They posed as Black Lives Matter sympathizers who were sharply critical of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Though the videos were only viewed hundreds of times, they demonstrated for the first time that Russia allegedly deployed real people, not just fake online accounts or bots, to further spread propaganda.

Congressional committees have launched multiple investigations into Russian interference, but concern about Silicon Valley’s role has surged over the past month against the backdrop of a cascade of revelations about how Russia appears to have leveraged their platforms to spread propaganda.

A study published on Monday by researchers with the Oxford Internet Institute, which is affiliated with the British university, found that current U.S. military personnel and veterans were targeted by disinformation campaigns on Twitter and Facebook over the past year by a nexus of pro-Kremlin, Russian-oriented sites, along with conspiracy theorists and European right-wing ideologues.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have said Russia intended to sow discord in the United States, spread propaganda and sway the election. Some Democrats plan to introduce legislation to require internet companies to disclose more information about political ad purchases on their platforms.

“If Vladimir Putin is using Facebook or Google or Twitter to, in effect, destroy our democracy, the American people should know about it,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said Monday on MSNBC.

Google officials have been invited to testify publicly about Russian attempts to use their platforms to influence the election before both the House and Senate intelligence committees on Nov. 1 alongside Facebook and Twitter. While Facebook and Twitter have confirmed plans to attend, Google has not.

China to establish more vocational schools

Authentic news,No fake news.

BEIJING, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- China plans to build up more vocational schools in poor areas as part of its battle with poverty, said the country's education authority on Monday.

Vocational education was one of the best and fastest ways to bring people out of poverty, Sun Yao, vice education minister, said at a poverty-relief forum.

The new schools will provide professional training based on local economic and social situations, said Sun.

The subjects and majors will be designed to meet the market needs in each area and increase job opportunities for students, Sun explained.

Sun also said China has provided various financial support to poor vocational students across the country, including free tuition, scholarships and student grants.

China is closing in on its ambitious goal of achieving a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, with the baseline task of lifting all people out of poverty.

As of the end of 2016, there were still 43.35 million people in China living below the country's poverty line of 2,300 yuan (344 U.S. dollars) of annual income, accounting for about 3 percent of China's population

UNICEF warns of nutrition crisis affecting 165,000 children in Mali

Authentic news,No fake news.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- A nutrition crisis is threatening the lives and future of thousands of children in Mali, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned Monday.

An estimated 165,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition across the country in 2018, a UNICEF report said.

"Behind these figures are the lives of the most vulnerable and forgotten girls and boys in Mali," said UNICEF Representative Lucia Elmi in a press release.

"We must provide life-saving treatment and ensure each and every one of these children can fully recover. At the same time, we need to invest in the critical first 1,000 days of the lives of children to reduce the risk of acute malnutrition from occurring in the first place."

The rate of acute malnutrition among children under five has reached critical levels in the conflict-affected areas of Timbuktu and Gao, while the national rate also remains very high.

Since the 2012 political and security crisis in Mali, violence and instability have led to displacements of population and disruption of social services in the north of the country, with detrimental impact on the nutritional status of the most vulnerable girls and boys.

Your Smart Device Spying on You?

Authentic news,No fake news.

by Marziah Karch

The short answer is sort of yes, they're spying on you. The thing is, they have to always be listening if they are supposed to respond to you. So, our take is you should be cautious but not worried.

Just about every "smart" device that is connected to the internet and offers personalized services is spying on you. Google, for example, keeps a list of websites you've visited, apps you've used, where you've traveled and a cache of everything you've said after, "OK Google" when using Google Now or Google Assistant.

In order to know what the traffic will be like on your commute home, Google has to know where you live as well as the average driving time for other Google users along the same route. In order to make a reasonable recommendation for what movie you'd like to watch next. Netflix has to know what you've watched in the past. Your Nest thermostat has to know your temperature preferences as well as your schedule in order to save you money on your heating bill. And any apps that rely on advertising revenue need to know what you like in order to know what you're likely to buy. This is the price you have to pay for personalization.

That doesn't mean you should sit back and accept this as nothing but beneficial. There is a big potential for abuse when your personal data is stored in the cloud because a hacker could find out when you're likely to be home as well as when you're not home. Your information could also be sold to a third party without your knowledge.

Let's explore a few common microphones and cameras that may be spying on you right now. Then you can decide if there's anything you don't like and you can make a few changes.

Smart Home Virtual Assistants: Amazon Echo and Google Home

Amazon Echo (Alexa), Google Home, and other similar virtual assistant devices are all voice-powered devices that, when on, listen for a key phrase, hot words or the "wake word", that will activate them.

The Amazon Echo, for example, listens for "Alexa" by default, while Google Home listens for "OK, Google." 

The devices are then recording what you say after you activate it, such as "Alexa, tell me a joke" or "OK Google, do I need an umbrella?"

What is the risk? 

The worry about the Amazon Echo, in particular, comes from a murder investigation in which the police asked for all the recordings from the home's Amazon Echo.

You might be (rightfully) wondering to yourself, "Is Amazon recording my whole life? Is there some database of everything I've ever said in my living room?" Generally speaking, your Amazon Echo or Google Home is just going to keep track of what you say after you activate it with the hot words. You can log into Amazon and see the recordings Amazon has made and retained under your name. 

That doesn't mean that you might not say something that sounds like "Alexa" on accident, or that Alexa won't activate and order you a dollhouse after a TV segment about Alexa ordering a dollhouse airs.

Find All Amazon Alexa Recordings

1. Go to Amazon Devices 
2. Select your Echo
3. Select Manage Recordings

You can find and delete your recordings. 

Change Alexa's Name

You can change Alexa's wake word on Amazon.com to avoid accidentally waking her up:

1. Go to alexa.amazon.com.
2. Select Settings.
3. Select a device if you have more than one. 
4. Click Wake Word.
5. Click to open the drop-down menu and select either Amazon or Echo.
6. Save your changes. 

You can also require a speakable confirmation code before authorizing purchases or just turn off the ability to purchase things through Amazon Echo completely (the best option for families with young kids). 

Google Home does not currently allow you to change the "hotword" from "OK Google." 

Mute Amazon Echo or Google Home's Microphone

When you are not using your virtual assistant, plug its ears. You may also want to turn off your Google Home if it keeps answering questions you're trying to ask your Android phone.

Both the Amazon Echo and Google Home have a microphone button that you can toggle on and off. 

You can also instruct Google Home to stop listening "OK Google, Turn off the microphone." Google Home should confirm that it is off, and the lights should also be off. Once you command Google Home to turn off the mic, it will not obey a verbal command to turn it back on (which is as it should be.) You will have to turn Google Home back on using the button on the device itself. 

Alexa does not know how to obey a voice command to mute the mic, so you have to use the physical button to turn it off, too. Like Google Home, you should see lights indicating when your Amazon Echo is "awake" and listening.

Are muted microphones still listening to me? It is unlikely that this is the case, but since the microphones are controlled by software, there may be some unknown spying capabilities inside the virtual assistants. Unplug the power cord if you're still worried.

Smart TVs and Game Consoles

Your Xbox Kinect is, similar to Amazon and Google devices, listening for you to say "Xbox" in order to start obeying vocal commands. "Xbox, open Netflix." "Xbox, play Fruit Ninja." The cameras are also watching for you to wave in order to start using gesture control and face recognition. However, the Xbox i more sophisticated, and therefore more of a potential spying threat. The Xbox is of particular concern because of concerns from several years ago that the Xbox could potentially be usedby British and American intelligence agencies for spying on civilians. There's no evidence it actually was used for this purpose, and Microsoft tried to get ahead of the issue by assuring users that the Xbox One's always-on mic could be temporarily disabled through the settings menu.

When you're not using your Xbox, turn it off. If you're still concerned, put the unit on a power strip and, after powering down your Xbox using the power button, turn off the power on the power strip. 

Some smart TVs or TV devices (such as the Amazon Fire TV) have microphones either on the TV or remote that allow you to use voice commands. But the more common spying associated with smart TVs is your metadata. Internet-connected TVs can track your viewing habits and use them to sell advertising. Vizio was guilty of overreach by selling viewing data without user's permission. 

If you don't need your TV to be quite so smart, WIRED has a set of instructions on how to turn off those features on most brands of smart TVs. 

Controlling Your Computer's Microphone and Camera

Your computer, by far, has the most potential to spy on you. And that's beyond the usual data mining from Facebook, Microsoft, or Google.

Because your computer is meant to be modified with new software, it's more sophisticated than virtual assistants and voice-activated appliances. That new software is supposed to offer fixes and improvements, but, unfortunately, you could be infected with spying malware. That kind of software could track your keystrokes or secretly spy on you through the webcam. It's possible for malicious software to activate the webcam or mic without activating the indicator light. 

Our best advice is to keep your virus protection up to date.

It's sounds awfully rudimentary, but we also recommend covering your webcam with a sticky note when you're not using it and unplugging any USB webcams when they're not in use. Cover your computer's built-in mic with tape and use a USB microphone or headset when you need to use it. On the plus side, you'll get better sound quality that way, anyway. 

If you're using a Mac, Macworld recommends this software for keeping an eye on your Mac's camera.

Mars offers insights into the origin of life on Earth

Authentic news,No fake news.

Mineral deposits in Mars' Eridania basin suggest the Red Planet once hosted underwater hydrothermal activity. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Oct. 9 (UPI) -- The discovery of ancient hydrothermal deposits on Mars could offer insights into the origin of life on Earth, according to a team of NASA scientists.

Scientists have previously suggested hydrothermal vents on the ocean floors of early Earth would have offered ideal conditions for the emergence of life. Now, scientists have found evidence of such conditions on Mars.

Researchers discovered the signs of underwater hydrothermal activity while analyzing observations of a basin on southern Mars made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"Even if we never find evidence that there's been life on Mars, this site can tell us about the type of environment where life may have begun on Earth," Paul Niles, a scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a news release. "Volcanic activity combined with standing water provided conditions that were likely similar to conditions that existed on Earth at about the same time -- when early life was evolving here."

Mars is now dry and dormant, but it once hosted water and volcanic activity. Scientists estimate the basin deposits surveyed by MRO were formed roughly 3.7 billion years ago.

Another study published this week argued methane outflows warmed Mars' atmosphere during the time period, melting the planet's ice and allowing water to flow across the Martian surface.

Mars' seas burned off millions of years ago, but hydrothermal activity is still common on the floor of Earth's oceans. Scientists have found complex communities of microbes and other types of organisms uniquely adapted to the niche environment.

Scientists have previously observed signs of hydrothermal activity inside Europa, one of Jupiter's icy moons, as well Enceladus, one of Saturn's 62 moons. Some planetary scientists believe the activity makes them ideal targets in the quest to find extraterrestrial life.

"This site gives us a compelling story for a deep, long-lived sea and a deep-sea hydrothermal environment," Niles said. "It is evocative of the deep-sea hydrothermal environments on Earth, similar to environments where life might be found on other worlds -- life that doesn't need a nice atmosphere or temperate surface, but just rocks, heat and water."

The MRO data suggests the Martian impression was once filled with water, making it the largest sea to grace the Red Planet's surface. Younger lava deposits in the basin prove the region was volcanically active. MRO's spectrometer identified deposits of serpentine, talc and carbonate, minerals created by underwater hydrothermal activity.

Researchers detailed their discovery this week in the journal Nature Communications.

"Ancient, deep-water hydrothermal deposits in Eridania basin represent a new category of astrobiological target on Mars," scientists wrote. "Eridania seafloor deposits are not only of interest for Mars exploration, they represent a window into early Earth."

Statoil finds at least 25 million barrels of oil in the North Sea

Authentic news,No fake news.

Norwegian energy company Statoil finds new oil in the North Sea using a rig leased earlier this year from Transocean. Photo courtesy of Statoil

Oct. 9 (UPI) -- At least 25 million barrels of oil were uncovered while drilling into the British waters of the North Sea, Norwegian energy company Statoil said Monday.

The company said it made a new oil discovery while drilling into Verbier basin in British waters. Preliminary data show the field contains between 25 million and 130 million barrels of recoverable oil.

Statoil said the discovery solidified the future for a maturing basin in the North Sea, where it believes significant potential remains.

"Significant work remains, most likely including appraisal, to clarify the recoverable volumes and to refine this range [of the reserve potential]," Jez Averty, a vice president for exploration, said in a statement.

The Verbier results were the only success for Statoil in a three-well effort in the region.

Statoil started work in the British waters of the North Sea last year, working alongside British energy company BP. The Norwegian energy company said its Mariner field in the region holds an estimated 250 billion barrels of oil and peak production should be around 55,000 barrels of oil per day, with first oil expected in production by next year.

The maturation of some of the basins in the North Sea has prompted some companies to shift strategies. BP in April sold off some of its legacy holdings as it reconfigured its regional operations by parting ways with a pipeline system tied to Forties crude oil, a component of the Brent basket.

After awarding contracts to rig company Transocean for the North Sea earlier this year, Statoil said British waters still have a long life of ahead.

The company said Monday it would work now to assess the commercial prospects for the new discovery at Verbier.

Liquefied natural gas may carve out a niche in India

Authentic news,No fake news.

Liquefied natural gas could carve out a niche in an evolving energy landscape in India, analysis from Wood Mackenzie found. File photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI. 

| License Photo

Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Liquefied natural gas could help satisfy growing energy demands in India, especially if commodity prices continue to improve, Wood Mackenzie found.

In its October forecast, the Reserve Bank of India predicted inflation would hold steady at 4.5 percent through 2019 and real gross value added growth, the grand total of all revenues, should increase from 6.7 percent through 2018 to 7.4 percent in 2019. The growth translates to a stronger energy appetite and nearly half of India's energy comes from oil and natural gas.

New Delhi this week hosts an annual IHS-CERA conference. From the sidelines, Terence Ang, a senior analyst for Wood Mackenzie, said demand for India should outpace domestic supplies, especially for natural gas. To meet the shortage, Wood Mackenzie expects the appetite for liquefied natural gas will increase 36 percent when compared with three years ago.

"We expect a glut in LNG supplies will allow surplus volumes to flow to India," he said in an emailed statement.

The market footprint for LNG is expanding, especially for countries sensitive to geopolitical issues. A long-awaited gas pipeline from Iran has yet to materialize for India, as has a similar Western-backed project from Turkmenistan.

Coal still dominates the power sector, though Wood Mackenzie estimates that if the price for Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, reaches $66 per barrel, LNG will become more competitive to other fuels.

Brent was around $55 per barrel early Monday.

Indian Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said earlier this year that expanding domestic oil and gas developments, including shale reserves and coal-bed methane, could help the country achieve its goals of reducing its foreign dependency by the start of the next decade. At a time when major oil producing nations are stemming production to address supply-side market strains, Pradham said energy consumers had concerns of their own.

A report from General Electric, which has operations in both renewable and conventional energy resources, said the Indian government has ambitious plans to boost oil and gas production, but has fallen short of its goals in the past. GE estimated that India could exhaust its proven resources within the next 25 years, but added that barely a quarter of the country's reserves have been explored.

Richard H. Thaler wins Nobel Prize for work on behavioral economics

Authentic news,No fake news.

1 of 2

Richard H. Thaler won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for his work in integrating psychology and economics. File Photo by Carsten Rehder/EPA.

Oct. 9 (UPI) -- The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences -- the final award for this year -- was awarded Monday to an American economist for his work in integrating economics and psychology.

Richard H. Thaler won the prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

"By exploring the consequences of limited rationality, social preferences, and lack of self-control, he has shown how these human traits systematically affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes," the Nobel announcement said.

Thaler developed the theory of mental accounting, which helps to explain how people simplify financial decision-making by creating separate accounts in their minds, His discovery showed why people tend to value the same item more highly when they own it than when they don't.

Thaler also did research on the concept of fairness by developing the dictator game with colleagues to study and measure the attitudes of fairness of different people around the world.

Thaler's research into the concept of self-control utilizing the planner-doer model is credited with shedding light on the internal tension between long-term planning and short-term doing.

"Succumbing to short-term temptation is an important reason why our plans to save for old age, or make healthier lifestyle choices, often fail," the Nobel announcement said.

"In his applied work, Thaler demonstrated how nudging -- a term he coined -- may help people exercise better self-control when saving for a pension, as well in other contexts."

Thaler earned a doctoral degree in 1974 at the University of Rochester in New York and is currently a Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in Illinois.

The Nobel Prize for Economics was the final award given out this year. The Peace Prize and others in physics, chemistry, literature and medicine were awarded last week.

Jerusalem cannot be replaced by any other city

Authentic news,No fake news.

Ramallah - For exiled Palestinian parliamentarian Khaled Abu Arafeh, it felt like a small step towards reuniting with his family in Jerusalem.

Israel's Supreme Court last month accepted a petition on behalf of Abu Arafeh and three other Palestinian parliamentarians who were expelled from the city, cancelling the revocation of their Jerusalem residency.

"I know that our cause is a just one," Abu Arafeh told Al Jazeera. "Jerusalem cannot be replaced by any other city, and I am eagerly waiting for the day I can return to Jerusalem."

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, Israel revoked the residency status of almost 15,000 Palestinians between 1967 and 2016. The majority of those cases involved a failure to prove that an individual's "centre of life" was in the city, but there have also been cases of punitive revocations and collective punishment against family members of Palestinians who were accused of attacking Israelis, as well as a number of individuals accused of "breach of loyalty".

READ MORE: Jerusalem simmering over 'Judaisation' plan

Abu Arafeh's case took 11 years to reach Israel's highest court. In 2006, he, along with Mohammed Totah, Ahmed Attoun and Mohammed Abu Teir, was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the list of the Change and Reform Movement. Abu Arafeh was also appointed Palestinian minister of Jerusalem affairs.

Israel's interior minister, Roni Bar-On, subsequently revoked their residency status, citing a "breach of loyalty" to Israel. The accusation was related to their election to a foreign parliament and alleged membership in Hamas. All four men appealed against the decision and were deported to the occupied West Bank in 2010.

But in its September ruling, the Supreme Court decided that the interior minister lacked the authority to revoke the men's residency according to existing Israeli law, and reversed Bar-On's decision.

Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, joined the appeal in 2007, and in a brief submitted to the court, the group stated that Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem had never entered or immigrated to Israel, and their residency was never made conditional to any terms. The group also argued that the decision violated the men's rights to live in their homeland without fear of expulsion and rights to liberty, dignity and property.

"It is unfortunate that this ruling was made only after more than a decade, during which time the petitioners' rights were brutally violated," Adalah said in a statement.

While the judges ruled that the residency revocation was illegal, they also delayed the implementation of its cancellation for six months. During that time, the Israeli parliament is allowed to produce new legislation to permit the revocation of residency for "breach of loyalty", and this could subsequently be applied to the four petitioners.

"We have mixed feelings; our happiness is incomplete," Abu Arafeh said. "I was expecting to hear strange and illogical things at the Supreme Court and this is what happened. But if the court has decided that the interior minister was wrong, is it right to only cancel his decision in six months?"

Fadi Qawasme, the lawyer who represented the four petitioners, told Al Jazeera that the ruling could be seen as a result of political pressure on the court.

"When you legislate a new law, you can't apply it retroactively, so why do this at all?" he asked, suggesting that the court was "under attack because it's accused of being liberal and it's accused of being leftist. Nowadays, you know what kind of government we have in Israel, so they are always attacking it, especially in the last year."

OPINION: Revoking citizenship - Israel's new repressive tool

Despite the creation of a half-year window for the Israeli parliament to write a new law, Qawasme says that such an outcome is unlikely, due to the complexity of drafting legislation that would have to legally define the loyalty that Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem must show to Israel.

More than 300,000 Palestinians are permanent residents of Jerusalem, a status that allows them to reside in the city and travel and work within Israel but falls short of full citizenship.

The vast majority live in the eastern half of the city, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed, in a move that has not been recognised by the international community. Palestinians want the eastern half of the city to be their capital of a future Palestinian state.

"This situation is very troubled. It is not just about these four," Qawasme said. "It is about the residents of East Jerusalem ... To say in a law that the residents of East Jerusalem owe loyalty to Israel, it will not be easy."

Source: Al Jazeera

Merkel supports German coalition with Greens, Free Democrats

Authentic news,No fake news.

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel lobbied party members Saturday to stand behind efforts to build a new coalition with the Free Democratic Party and Greens, saying it's the best suited to govern the country.

Speaking in Dresden to her party's youth wing, Merkel said she will hold talks with the pro-business FDP and the left-leaning Greens and then present her Christian Democratic Union with a coalition proposal for approval.

She dismissed the only other realistic option, continuing her current coalition with the Social Democratic Party. "It is apparent that the SPD is not in the position to govern at the federal level for the foreseeable future, therefore I advise all of us not to waste further time on it," she said.

The Social Democrats came second in the Sept. 24 election with 20.5 percent of the vote, compared to 33 percent for Merkel's conservative bloc. Party leaders immediately said they would not seek another coalition with Merkel and would instead go into opposition.

A coalition between Merkel's conservatives and the FDP and Greens, called a "Jamaica" coalition because the parties' colors match those of the Caribbean nation's flag, hasn't been tried before in a national German government.

Still, Merkel said she was confident she could build a coalition that would govern effectively "so that in four years we can say we're better off now than we were in 2017." Before that, Merkel's first challenge is ironing out differences between her party and its Bavarian-only sister Christian Social Union party, which has been pushing for a yearly cap on migrants in response to the flood of more than 1 million asylum seekers in the past two years.

Merkel, who is to hold talks Sunday with CSU party leaders, told the crowd she believes German asylum law allows for no cap but will work for an agreement with the sister party. She acknowledged concerns from questioners about how Germany will integrate so many predominantly Muslim migrants, saying that progress was being made but more needed to be done.

Among other things, she said it was critical to provide more support for day care centers, school and universities which are often the closest contact to the new arrivals, to ensure they can properly teach German and European values to people from very different backgrounds.

"We are doing a lot, but it will still take a while," she said.

Miss Wheelchair World in Warsaw seeks to change attitudes

Authentic news,No fake news.


WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish organization had held the first international edition of a beauty pageant for women in wheelchairs in an effort to change people's perceptions about people with disabilities.

(1 of 5) Miss Wheelchair World 2017 winner Aleksandra Chichikova, center, from Belarus, with second placed Lebohang Monyatsi, right, from South Africa and third placed Adrianna Zawadzinska, left, from Poland during the Miss Wheelchair World 2017 beauty pageant final in Warsaw, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2017.

October 07, 2017

A woman from Belarus was the winner of the Miss Wheelchair World in Warsaw on Saturday evening. The first runner-up was from South Africa and the second runner-up from Poland. The event was organized by the Only One Foundation, which was founded by two disabled women seeking to break down barriers limiting disabled people. After four editions of Miss Poland Wheelchair, the pageant on Saturday marked an effort to go global.

The organization says that every woman in a wheelchair has the right "to be whoever she wants and to feel beautiful." The city of Warsaw co-organized the event.

Thousands protest across Australia against giant Adani coal mine

Authentic news,No fake news.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Large protests were held across Australia on Saturday against Indian mining giant Adani Enterprises’ proposed Carmichael coal mine, which would be the country’s largest coal mine but has been delayed for years over environmental and financing issues.

Environment groups say the mine in Queensland state would contribute to global warming and damage the Great Barrier Reef.

The “Stop Adani” movement organised 45 protests.

On the sands of Sydney’s Bondi Beach more than 1,000 people formed a human sign saying '#STOP ADANI’, said organiser Blair Palese from activist group 350.

“I think there’s a very real national concern that goes beyond Queensland about the idea of giving this mine a billion-dollar taxpayer-funded loan,” she said.

The national rallies come as new polling shows more than half of Australians oppose the mine, reported local media.

Analysts have raised doubts about whether Adani can fund the mine, at an initial cost of $4 billion, given a global backlash to investment in fossil fuels.

A surfer carries his board as he walks behind protesters participating in a national Day of Action against the Indian mining company Adani's planned coal mine project in north-east Australia, at Sydney's Bondi Beach in Australia, October 7, 2017. REUTERS/David Gray

Adani says the project would pay billions of dollars in royalties and taxes, create jobs and export coal to India help bring electricity to rural regions.

Adani has been counting on a A$900 million (538.93 million pounds) loan from the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) for a rail link to the proposed mine.

Slideshow (4 Images)

The company’s chief executive officer Jeyakumar Janakaraj, however, has said Adani may not have to borrow from NAIF. “If the commercial banks take off all the debt then we will not have any need for NAIF as there will be no gap.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation president Geoff Cousins, one of the country’s top businessmen, said it was unlikely Adani could proceed without the NAIF loan.

“They’ve tried hard to secure commercial funding, but no bank will touch them,” he said.

“Stop Adani is an issues-based campaign, and the rest of the world sees the madness of building one of the world’s largest coal mines particularly when Australia has signed the Paris Agreement (on climate change).”