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While Maoists elsewhere in Odisha and Chhatisgarh ensured that low voter turnout in many pockets, 36 polling officials in Maoist-affected Malkangiri district ensured that democracy was not subverted by the left wing rebels.
They trudged through a steep mountain, braved a storm, mosquito bites and quenched their thirst by drinking water from a nullah. And all these, while clutching the sealed Electronic Voting Machines close to their heart.
Soon after the polling ended at Mudulipada High School of Bondaghati area in Maoist-affected Malkangiri district on Thursday afternoon, the 36 polling officials thought their duties would be over in a couple of hours once they deposit the sealed EVMs and VVPAT machines in the strongrooms of Malkangiri. But an urgent message from police about Maoists laying ambush on their return route ended that hope.
“There were credible information that Maoists were waiting to ambush the polling party and the accompanying anti-Maoist Special Operations Group jawans. There was no way we could allow the polling officials to travel in a vehicle on the pre-designated road,” said Malkangiri superintendent of police Jagmohan Meena. With Maoists killing a BJP MLA and four security personnel in Chhattisgarh two days before the first phase of polls, the officials took no chances.
An alternative but tortuous route was quickly chalked out by the police officials. It was decided that the polling officials would take a detour and walk through a mountain so as to give the Maoists a slip.
“We kept walking through mountain and thorny bushes careful of not slipping down. It was difficult walking holding all the heavy EVMs. But the SOG jawans kept our spirits high. They shared their dry foods with us. We even drank water from the nullah,” said Samal Routray, one of the polling officials.
On the way, a thunderstorm brought the polling officials to a halt forcing them to huddle under tarpaulin sheets. While the officials tried to give some rest to their tired limbs, the SOG jawans threw a security cordon around the polling parties throughout the Thursday night. “They shared their communication equipments like VHF and satellite phones with the polling officials to keep the officials at district headquarters informed about their journey. The SOG personnel encouraged polling parties when they could not walk anymore,” said Meena.
Tired, hungry and sleepless, the polling officials reached Khairput on Friday morning from where they were taken to Malkangiri on Friday morning. “We thought it was impossible for us to make it to Malkangiri with EVMs intact. But we did it. It would remain in our memory forever,” said a polling official.
Malkangiri district which comes under Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency, recorded 72.5% polling on Thursday, better than that reported in the last election in 2014.
Nabarangpur MP candidate of Congress, Pradeep Majhi said the polling officials walking 15 km to ensure safety of the EVMs proved that democracy is a winner. “As long as we have such polling officials and securitymen ready to guard them, no one can subvert democracy. It’s a great day for democracy,” said Majhi.
The ruling Socialists United party (PSUV) of Venezuela has a new plan: devalue the official rate of the bolivar while knowing well that the black market rate is so much better for those in the know—as in the government and military. Almost by design, they have created the best currency arbitrage rate on God's green earth.
The new arbitrage will make some rich in useless bolivars, but the new forex (called the Sovereign Bolivar now) is unlikely to fix an economy in dire straits.
Venezuela revalued its currency on Monday. Following at least three years of the bolivar losing nearly all of its value against the dollar and locals either printing their own neighborhood currency or bartering, PSUV opted for new banknotes to solve the problem.
They took off five zeroes, because—as we now know—the bolivar faces five-digit inflation on an annual basis. They can say the new bolivar is worth one dollar if they want to. At the rate the economy is going, it will be worth $0.10 by September 30.
The move devalued the bolivar by a whopping 96%, after it had already fallen by at least half that over the last three years. The new exchange is 6 million bolivars to one dollar. President Nicolas Maduro can now claim that socialism has succeeded in making everyone millionaires.
Maduro was on an economic policy rampage last week. Besides a new currency, he enacted new gasoline subsidies only targeted to low-income individuals and raised the corporate tax rate. The higher tax rate means more tax evasion. In addition to raising taxes for businesses, he increased the minimum wage.
Reuters reporters in Caracas reported late Monday that the new economic policy initiative was leading more locals to plan their exit. Most see it as a failure less than three days after going into effect.
“I am looking for flights to leave on Wednesday, any way I can,” a man named Jose Narvaez, a 43-year-old carpenter, told Reuters. “I am sure this is going to get worse because the man’s ideas lack all logic,” he says of Maduro.
Venezuela has lost over a million people in the last year to Colombia alone as the economic crisis has turned into a migrant crisis for the country’s neighbors.
Venezuela announced its “economic recovery program” last month. It was a series of policy changes beyond forex intended to stabilize the worst economy in the Americas. The World Bank estimates another year of economic contraction. And despite higher prices for oil, PdVSA—the state-run oil firm—is struggling to pay its debts. It defaulted on some bond issues in the fourth quarter of 2017. Oil production is the country's cash cow, and production levels are roughly half where they were four years ago.
The new currency is anchored to the petro, the country’s recently created cryptocurrency that is reportedly backed by the Orinoco Oil Belt’s Ayacucho I oil field with a nominal value equivalent to the price of a barrel of oil.
Via executive order, Maduro’s “yes men” and “yes women” in PSUV’s Constituent Assembly repealed the Illicit Foreign Transactions Law, which could be kindly viewed as an attempt to move to a more market-determined forex, or more realistically viewed as a move to legalize the old black market.
This allows PdVSA to trade currency between the mercado paralelo and the official market after many years of having had to trade dollars for an overvalued, fake exchange rate set by the central bank. With oil production in decline, look for PdVSA to start booking more profits in forex markets, Morgan Stanley analysts believe.
Venezuela is not just facing an economic crisis. It is facing a political and social crisis unlike any other in the region.
Violent crime is on the rise. Kidnappings are on the rise. The country is a complete disaster, overrun in part by petty criminal gangs, drug lords and Marxist revolutionaries supported by Cuban money. Many Venezuelans consider PSUV a criminal enterprise. In 2017, family members of President Maduro were arrested in New York on drug charges. They were both sentenced to 18 years in a federal lockup near in central Florida. Venezuela’s ex-vice president, Tareck El Aissami, is considered a drug trafficker and is sanctioned by Treasury.
OPEC member Venezuela is mainly exporting social calamity today.
Brazil is sending troops to the border town of Pacaraima in the Amazon where Venezuelan migrant camps were attacked and set ablaze following reports that a local restaurant owner had been badly beaten by rowdy Venezuelans. There has been growing animosity toward Venezuelan migrants entering Brazil recently.
Ecuador is also close to shutting its border to stop the tide of Venezuelan refugees.
The U.S. is doing its part by sending a mercy-class hospital ship to Colombia to help with Venezuelan migrants.
With Romney’s campaign now arguing that Dems are the ones who are hurting women, thanks to Obama’s bad economic policies, Democrats pounced today on the news that Romney advisers were unable to say on a conference call with reporters whether he supports the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
The question now is whether a President Romney would veto or refuse to sign any effort by a GOP-controlled Congress to repeal the Lily Ledbetter Act. I’ve asked for further clarification and will update if I hear back.
A few points on this. First, this isn’t the first time the broader issue has come up. As you’ll recall, neither CBS News nor the Hill were able to get the Romney campaign to say whether he supports Scott Walker’s repeal of Wisconsin’s equal pay law. And as Sam Stein notes today, if the Romney campaign is going to attack Obama for failing women economically, it should have had a ready answer at hand about Lily Ledbetter, given that this is one of Obama’s oft-trumpted achievements.
Second, this dust-up offers a signal that conservatives suspicious of Romney will be policing his pivot to general election mode very closely. After the news broke that Romney isn’t looking to change the law, right-leaning writer Philip Klein immediately tweeted: “Wow, Romney spox says he won’t get rid of Lilly Ledbetter act. Terrible legislation.” Expect more of this.
Third, the larger context is key. The Romney campaign has rolled out Ann Romney to argue in multiple forums that the battle over contraception and cultural issues won’t hurt Mitt, because women mostly care about jobs and kitchen table concerns. But this gender issue is an economic issue, too.
Romney’s seeming support of the law notwithstanding, Dems will work hard to remind voters that all but five Republican Senators voted against Lily Ledbetter. Romney seems to recognize that this is an area where he absolutely must achieve separation from the Congressional GOP, even if it risks angering conservatives. But this dust-up shows that where warranted, Dems will continue using the GOP’s overall damaged brand among women to complicate Romney’s effort to reintroduce himself to this key swing constituency.
Update: Five GOP Senators, not just the Maine twins, voted for Lily Ledbetter. I’ve edited the above to correct. Apologies for the error.
Friday’s soon to be formally accepted offer by Virgin Australia to buy 40 per cent of Tigerair for $1 isn’t the first time such a gold coin has been the price for all or part an Australian domestic airline.
On 4 September 2001, Singapore Airlines declined an offer by the acting chairman of Air New Zealand, Jim Farmer to buy all of its doomed Australian subsidiary Ansett for $1.
On 5 September 2001, Qantas was offered all of Ansett for the same $1 amount.
Qantas however didn’t rush to refuse. The then Minister responsible for transport in the Howard Government, John Anderson had publicly put Qantas on notice to explore means by which it could keep the embattled Ansett flying after Virgin Blue founder Richard Branson had earlier on 4 September staged a cheque ripping up stunt by way of rejecting Singapore Airlines’ offer to buy out the then tiny but potent new Australian airline for $250 million to protect its investment as the owner of one quarter of the combined Air NZ/Ansett carriers.
Included in the $1 offer to Singapore Airlines and Qantas was a business with certain obligations and liabilities that Air New Zealand would rather not continue to hold, and an Ansett that had been gutted to a shell.
Qantas sent a team to go through the Air NZ books, with a deadline of 12 September for a decision, the day before the much delayed annual results announcement for the company that owned all of Ansett had to be made to the New Zealand Stock Exchange.
However by Friday 7 September of 2001 the then Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon knew from his auditing team in Auckland what was in the Air New Zealand accounts in relation to the offer to sell Ansett for $1.
He was told that Ansett was stuffed, irretrievably stuffed, and would almost certainly be abandoned by the New Zealand airline in order to save its own skin. (As proved to be the case).
The $1 deal offers of 2001 did not become public knowledge until a number of post Ansett collapse interviews were published in the months following.
However the abrupt closure of Ansett on 12 September was driven off the front pages of the Australian media and the top of TV bulletins by the 11 September terrorism atrocities in the US, with the fall of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the murder of almost 3000 people obscuring the collapse of Australia’s second largest airline.
The Virgin Australia $1 Tiger deal, and the simultaneous swoop by Singapore Airlines on the Singapore listed Tiger Airways holding for a sum that could exceed $300 million only have a symbolic gold coin in common with the events of the Ansett collapse and Air NZ’s own near death experience.
Virgin Australia gets to do what the Qantas group never really succeeded in doing with its acquisition of Impulse Airlines earlier in 2001, and the eventual morphing of that division into Jetstar. That is, it gets to radically reduce its overall costs of doing business.
And it can do whatever it likes with Tigerair, with abundant signs it will never let it expand as a second brand the way Jetstar expanded within Qantas, with the serious consequences that have become apparent for the flying kangaroo in recent years.
Tiger Airways new CEO Lee Lik Hsin has already told the Singaporean media that its misfortunes to date have been due to joint ventures that went wrong.
Which is what has also gone wrong with the Jetstar JVs in Asia, except that Qantas doesn’t get it, and regards the destruction of the capital it has invested in them as ‘progress’.
This is a dollar deal which should drive substantial cost efficiencies in Virgin Australia, while clearing the decks for Singapore Airlines to regroup its low cost airlines activities into a simpler and stronger division where a large part of its growth ambitions are the customers that currently fly Jetstar Asia.
This three bedroom detached chalet home is situated close to the beach in East Preston.
The property, in Sea Lane, has been much improved by the current owner with oak block flooring to the ground floor.
The accommodation is arranged as an entrance hall, sitting/dining room modern kitchen, and a ground floor bedroom with dressing area and en-suite bathroom.
On the first floor there are two bedrooms and a bathroom.
Outside, the front garden has a driveway to the garage. The rear garden has been mainly laid to lawn with established borders.
The property is just 300 yards from the beach and local shops.
Layoffs expected at mining companies and fewer shipments headed out of the Duluth harbor are signs that the worldwide economic downturn is being felt on Minnesota’s Iron Range, reports Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Kelleher.
Less demand for steel globally means less need for Minnesota iron, and ship owners are ending their season early. All of this comes just when the mine companies were planning expansions.
Use your slingshot to pop balloons and score as many points in this casual arcade game. Keep an eye out for special balloons worth bonus points!Test your skill in Challenge mode where you'll have to keep popping balloons without missing to score and add time to the clock.* 12 exciting levels with different themes* Unique ammo and balloon types to keep gameplay fun and challenging* Watch out for the obstacles in your path!* Infinite run style Challenge mode to test your skill and perseveranceCan you hold out long enough to get the high score?
Sling Media is now selling the Slingbox PRO-HD – which lets users watch high-definition cable or satellite programming on PCs, over the Internet or a home network – with a $300 list price, $100 lower than the EchoStar subsidiary previously announced.
The box can stream up to 1080i HD content, which has 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution, to Windows computers over a user's home network. In addition, according to Sling Media, the PRO-HD can also deliver HDTV over the Net to a remote location if the broadband connections on both ends are at least 1.5 Megabits per second.
When Sling Media announced the PRO-HD in January, it expected the product to have a list price of $399.99.
Sling Media also released a new version of SlingPlayer for Windows XP or Vista. The 2.0 version provides a live video buffer that lets the viewer pause and rewind a live video stream and includes an electronic programming guide to navigate channels without having to call up an on-screen guide on their home set-top box.
The Slingbox PRO-HD may be ordered from slingmedia.com and Internet retailers including Amazon.com and Buy.com. The product will start rolling into retail stores nationwide, including Best Buy and Fry’s, in the coming weeks.
The PRO-HD includes support for both standard (4:3) and widescreen (16:9) video formats and provides multiple audio-video inputs and outputs, including ATSC and HD digital cable (clear QAM) channels.
EchoStar announced the acquisition of Sling Media in September 2007.
Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh reportedly made $500,000 selling copies of her Healthy Holly children’s-health book to the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) while sitting on the system’s board.
Pugh sold some 100,000 copies of the book, which she wrote in 2011, to UMMS, but does not know where many of those copies ended up. Baltimore City Public School System officials told the Sun that they received “unsolicited” shipments containing an unknown number of books between 2011 and 2013 and placed them in storage.
UMMS did note the book purchases on a 2013 tax filing but declined to do so in subsequent years, a possible oversight that tax experts believe may have violated the law.
“If the check is made to her or her company as a transactional payment, it does have to be reported,” Eve Borenstein, a national expert on tax reporting by nonprofits, told the Sun.
Two other UMMS board members resigned Tuesday and four others were placed on leave. Maryland legislators met in Annapolis this week with UMMS officials to investigate the potential corruption.
“Everybody is wringing their hands about the self-dealing that was going on,” Maryland comptroller Peter Franchot said.
Manager Anthony Choat is hoping to follow Haverhill Borough’s best win of the season with their biggest win of the campaign tomorrow night.
Borough gave their Thurlow Nunn Premier survival chances a huge boost with a 3-2 win at promotion-chasing Histon on Saturday, thanks to goals from Sam Hawley, Matthew Staines and former Stutes defender Cameron Watson.
The win moved them three points clear of the drop zone with a game in hand over the side who occupy the last relegation spot, Hadleigh United, who they now host on the New Croft 3G in a true six-pointer.
“It’s possibly one from three, but realistically one from two for that final place, so tomorrow is a real six-pointer,” said Choat. “It’s our biggest game of the season and there’s a lot riding on it, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying the winner will be safe.
“Our destiny is in our own hands, but if you had offered me still being in with a chance of staying up at this stage at the start of the season I’d have bitten your hand off. We’ve only got a few players who have played at this level before.
Dan Brown scored both Histon’s goals, while Borough’s neighbours Haverhill Rovers beat Wivenhoe Town 2-1, with goals from Kyle Clarke and Rory Jebb, but Ely City lost 3-0 at home to Felixstowe & Walton United.
Saffron Walden Town had both Lewis Francis and Julian Simon-Francis sent off as they crashed 5-1 at home to Stowmarket Town, sub Joe Murphy getting their goal, while a goal from player-boss Michael Shinn was not enough as Newmarket Town went down 3-1 at Wroxham.
Walden host Ely tonight, while Histon welcome Walsham-le-Willows and Haverhill Rovers are at home to Newmarket Town. Also in action tomorrow night are Godmanchester Rovers, who are at home to Kirkley & Pakefield.
Deadmau5 has dubbed Justin Bieber a “little prick” for inadvertently ruining his chances of appearing on BBC Two’s Top Gear.
The EDM giant was spotted next to the teenage pop star in Toronto’s Cabana Pool Bar, where he was promoting his annual Veld festival.
Deadmau5 released his sixth studio album ‘Album Title Goes In Here’ in September 2012.
Contact Kiran Patel 704.293.1105 for additional information/offers; Potentially to be zoned for Multi-family, a daycare, and other usage; City water and city sewage used to be connected to inhabitable all brick house, built 1971, vacant for over 11 years; Call 311, ask for zoning, they will be able to address your zoning questions/concerns prior to submitting an offer on this wonderful 4 acres of Prime land. Unhabitable all brick house on this 4 acres of land is a bonus; It has 2250 heated sq footage, 3 bedrooms 2/0 baths, deck, and a 3 car attached garage, built 1971. House been vacant for about 10 years without any maintenance.
Seoul: LG electronics has unveiled what it describes as the world's first watch-shaped mobile phone named as "the 3G watch phone". Its features include a touch screen, dialing system with a camera, a speaker built in to enable video calls over high-speed Internet connections.
Voice recognition that transforms voice into text, Bluetooth function and an MP3 player are also some of its features. The watch phone comes with a 3.63-cm screen and has a thickness of 13.9 mm.
It will be on display at the consumer electronics show at Las Vegas from January 8 to 11.
(CNN) — Stargazers crossed their fingers Thursday as NASA attempted to revive the planet-hunting Kepler probe, idled since a piece of critical equipment gave out in orbit two months ago.
Kepler has been sidelined since mid-May, when a reaction wheel that helps aim the spacecraft’s telescope failed. Controllers are launching a series of tests that will determine whether that device can be restarted, or whether another reaction wheel that quit in 2012 can be reactivated, mission spokeswoman Michele Johnson said.
NASA could know by the end of July whether those systems can be reactivated, she said.
The 15-foot, 2,300-pound spacecraft was launched in 2009 to search for Earth-size planets circling stars like our sun. The roughly $600 million mission has so far confirmed 134 planets and identified nearly 3,300 possible planets beyond our solar system.
Kepler was built with four reaction wheels. It needs three to keep the spacecraft aimed precisely at its targets — one to fine-tune the spacecraft’s position on each axis. After May’s failure, only two remained in service, causing the probe to go into a low-powered state to preserve fuel.
But controllers have remained in communication with the craft, which is about 45 million miles from Earth.
“We’re kind of hoping for the best, but planning for the worst,” said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kepler’s observations have focused on a sliver of the cosmos around the Northern Hemisphere constellations Cygnus and Lyra. They have led scientists to believe that most stars in our galaxy have planets circling them.
The craft’s light-recording photometer has shown that the intensities of as many as two-thirds of stars are more variable than our sun.
And in April, researchers reported that they had identified three planets that could potentially host life. Two of those — Kepler 62e and 62f, located about 1,200 light-years away — are considered the best candidates so far.
The probe has already surpassed its three-and-a-half-year minimum expected lifespan, and it has collected enough data to keep scientists busy for up to two years. And even if Kepler can’t regain the kind of steady precision required for its observations to date, NASA may be able to use the spacecraft for other purposes.

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