Media player Media playback is unsupported on your device Video The house that is in both India and Myanmar The residents of Longwa village, live in both India and Myanmar, and say they enjoy the best of both worlds.Produced by Shalu Yadav, shot and edited by Sharad Badhe

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accused Iran of building sites to produce missiles in Syria and Lebanon during a meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres – part of increasingly bellicose rhetoric from Israel and the US against Tehran.The remarks, made by Netanyahu at the beginning of a meeting with Guterres on Monday, come against a background of growing Israeli anxiety over the expanding Iranian influence on its northern border.Netanyahu accused Iran of turning Syria into a “base of military entrenchment as part of its declared goal to eradicate Israel”.He added: “It is also building sites to produce precision-guided missiles towards that end, in both Syria and in Lebanon. This is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the UN should not accept.”Israel has pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shia Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.Netanyahu’s remarks follow recent comments by the fiercely pro-Israel US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley. She accused the UN peacekeeping commander in Lebanon, Maj Gen Michael Beary, of being “blind” to the spread of illegal arms and reiterated a call for the force to do more about it. “Gen Beary says there are no Hezbollah weapons,” Haley said. “That’s an embarrassing lack of understanding on what’s going on around him.”Beary pushed back at US and Israeli criticism, saying his force had no evidence of weapons being illegally transferred and stockpiled in the area, and that “if there was a large cache of weapons, we would know about it”.Earlier in August, Israeli media broadcast what it said were images from Israel’s Eros B satellite, showing a site in north-west Syria near the town of Baniyas that it claimed was intended to be a missile storage site. It has become clear that the Netanyahu government and senior Israeli defence officials badly misjudged the trajectory of the war in Syria, which Israel had hoped would turn into a quagmire for the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s key ally, Iran, and for Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah.However, after the intervention of Russia on Assad’s side, the war has swung in favour of the Syrian president and his allies, prompting Israeli officials to become increasingly concerned by a “day after” scenario that would mean Iranian power being projected on to its doorstep.Guterres arrived in Israel on Sunday for a three-night trip. In his first official visit to the country, he is expected to discuss the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, as well as ways to promote the moribund peace process between Israel and Palestine. “I dream that I will have the chance to see in the Holy Land two states able to live together in mutual recognition, but also in peace and security,” Guterres said at Netanyahu’s office on Monday.Guterres spoke of improving economic and social conditions for Palestinians to provide them with a “dividend” and incentive for peace. He is due in Ramallah on Tuesday for talks with the Palestinian prime minister, Rami Hamdallah.Netanyahu’s remarks to Guterres on Iran follow his warning to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, this month that Israel might be prepared to act unilaterally to prevent Tehran establishing a garrison on the country’s doorstep.Meeting Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Netanyahu said Iran – which Russian officials have said has had a stabilising influence in Syria – was fighting to cement an arc of influence from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.“Iran is already well on its way to controlling Iraq, Yemen and, to a large extent, is already in practice in control of Lebanon,” Netanyahu told Putin.“We cannot forget for a single minute that Iran threatens every day to annihilate Israel,” he added. “Israel opposes Iran’s continued entrenchment in Syria. We will be sure to defend ourselves with all means against this and any threat.” Topics Benjamin Netanyahu Israel Middle East and North Africa Iran Syria Lebanon United Nations news

It’s 73 years since Song of the South was first released in cinemas, and Disney can now tacitly admit something cine-literate parents have known all along: not all films theoretically made for children are suitable to be viewed by actual human children. When Disney Plus, the company’s streaming site, launches in the US in November, this 1946 film about an idyllic, reconstruction era slave plantation will be omitted from the catalogue, as will the similarly controversial “Jim Crow” scene from Dumbo. Good.Some will see this as just another example of history being rewritten to match current cultural sensitivities, but Song of the South hasn’t suddenly fallen foul of hyper-vigilant offence-junkies. It was always a bit racist. I remember, a full generation ago, my (black) mother banned me from watching the film when it came on terrestrial TV (as it did, semi-regularly, until as recently as 2006). And she was livid when she found out that I went and watched it anyway, while staying with my (white) father. Maybe I gave myself away by humming Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah round the flat on my return. It is demonically catchy.At the age of seven, the only kind of Disney films I disapproved of were the ones without songs. Sure, Song of the South was no Little Mermaid, but otherwise I didn’t see the problem. And that was exactly the problem.Flash forward a quarter of a century and I have a three-year-old daughter of my own, who solemnly informs me as I brush her hair every morning that she hates her curls because “princesses have straight hair”. I try to steer her towards Brave, The Princess and the Frog or Moana – Disney princesses are, thankfully, a more diverse bunch these days – but the kind of curation my own mother once attempted has become even more difficult. The explosion of kid-targeted content on streaming sites such as Disney Plus has seen to that. (And yes, I know, this “princess” phase is troubling for other reasons, but we’ll have to leave the gender non-conformity, patriarchy-resistance and class consciousness for another day. There’s only so much dense material you can get through on the school run)Most under-10s don’t yet have the necessary historical knowledge to see a racist stereotype for what it is, but such images still batter their self-esteem. Children are unlikely to appreciate the wider context that makes the very notion of a Jim Crow-era film celebrating slavery so political, but they’ll absorb its messages all the same. (Of course some adults don’t get all this either, but there’s less we can do about them.) Protecting young minds from on-screen sex and violence is utterly uncontroversial, why should racism be deemed any less of an obscenity ?Part of this wider context is that Song of the South is far from an isolated case in Hollywood history. The dream factory has long specialised in a product designed to make white America feel better about the atrocity of slavery, while marginalising black experience. It’s telling, for instance, that the first black man to ever win an Oscar was James Baskett – as Song of the South’s smiling slave, Uncle Remus. Eight years earlier, Hattie McDaniel had won for playing Mammy, another racist stereotype, in Gone With the Wind. Note too that neither actor was permitted to attend the premiere of their own, Oscar-winning film, since both took place in still-segregated Atlanta, Georgia.It’s infuriating, yet there’s no need to burn the negative. Indeed, I hope Disney make Song of the South available to view elsewhere, so it can stand as testament to all the troubling history it represents. Please let’s just spare the children while they’re still so young. Both from the film itself and from the tedious-yet-extremely-necessary lecture on the wiles of white supremacy that Mum would be forced to give as running commentary should it ever pop up on the watchlist.May our children grow up to embrace all sorts of problematic favourites – I still love Gone With The Wind and watch it any time it’s on because, if it brings you joy, it can’t be all bad. But may they do so with their eyes open and their ears fully attuned to the bullshit. Until then, it’s our joyless duty as grownups to steer them, and we’d appreciate any help Disney is willing to give.• Ellen E Jones is a film and television writer Topics Walt Disney Company Opinion Race comment

India may want its former “rockstar central banker” Raghuram Rajan back, but the man himself isn’t interested. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the ruling party of Delhi, had sought to nominate the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a seat in the parliament. AAP is said to be looking to field professional, non-party members for its three Rajya Sabha seats. However, it appears that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party will have to look for another candidate.“Professor Rajan has no plans to leave his full-time academic job at the University of Chicago,” Sandra Jones, associate director, communications department, at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, told Quartz in an email. Rajan is a professor of finance at the Booth School.In his three-year stint as the top boss of the RBI, which ended in September 2016, Rajan ended up ruffling a few feathers. The straight-talking central banker didn’t mince his words, calling out crony capitalists, bankers, and the government. But he did leave the Indian public with this famous one-liner: “My name is Raghuram Rajan and I do what I do.”

After blowing hot and cold on bitcoin, the Indian government is considering bringing out its own cryptocurrency.A panel constituted by India’s finance ministry might soon recommend that the country launch a government-backed cryptocurrency.“We are evaluating the government-backed cryptocurrency and crypto-token,” said a senior government official privy to the discussions of the panel. “And we are looking to develop and encourage our own research and development of blockchain technology,” the official added, referring to the digital infrastructure on which cryptocurrencies are based.The finance ministry panel was set up in December 2017 under Subhash Chandra Garg, secretary, department of economic affairs, to suggest measures to regulate cryptocurrencies. The panel was supposed to submit its report by July, which was later pushed to the end of the year. An email sent to the finance ministry seeking confirmation remain unanswered.Its plan, however, seems to be in tandem with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) proposal made earlier. The central bank has constituted a multi-department panel of its own and has been studying the feasibility of launching government-backed digital coins.In the meantime, the government and the RBI have been moving to curtail cryptocurrency exchanges for a while now.Even in its previous meetings with bitcoin exchanges, government representatives were trying to understand how a government-backed digital currency would work, said a person from the cryptocurrency community privy to the details of the meetings.“If a virtual currency is going to be backed by the government then it goes against the whole grain of such coins,” said the executive, requesting anonymity. “These are essentially decentralised ledgers, and if the government or the RBI is trying to control it, then it loses its meaning.”What’s worse is that the government may also kill or ban the existence of other digital currencies if a government-backed cryptocurrency is rolled out.“The panel is also discussing amendment of the Currency Act to make possession of any cryptocurrency, not approved by the government, a punishable offence,” said the government official.This comes after the RBI has already come down heavily on bitcoin and its ilk almost choking the ecosystem. Since July, the central bank has barred banks from maintaining any business relationship with cryptocurrency exchanges and traders, including maintaining savings bank accounts.Not surprisingly, trading is hit.For instance, from its peak when bourses were adding up to 300,000 new customers a month nearly a year ago, additions have now reduced to merely 1,500-3,000, cryptocurrency exchanges told Quartz. Since April, the exchanges have engaged in a legal battle against the RBI in different high courts and the case reached the supreme court in May this year. However, there are no signs of an end to it.The situation is so grim that Zebpay, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, shuttered last month.Like the RBI, even the government is not comfortable with virtual currencies, even though it wants to push the blockchain technology, a digitised and decentralised public ledger for cryptocurrency transactions. The government has also expressed concerns that these currencies may be used to launder money or dupe gullible investors. Therefore, it is seeking control.However, the idea of a digital currency backed by the government is not new in itself.Venezuela, the world’s second-largest crude oil producer, launched Petro, the world’s first government-backed digital currency, earlier this year. The Venezuelan government owns and controls this cryptocurrency, the price of which is equivalent to a barrel of oil.Even Iran is looking to launch its own virtual currency.The RBI has reportedly planned to tentatively name its digital currency Lakshmi, after the Hindu goddess of wealth. “This will be in addition to the paper currency that we have. It also holds the promise of reducing the cost of printing of notes,” RBI deputy governor BP Kanungo, said at a conference in April.Want to read more from Nupur Anand? Subscribe to Quartz Private Key—Quartz’s premium crypto newsletter, delivered twice weekly.

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While Donald Trump celebrated the supreme court decision to uphold his travel ban and Americans prepared to protest against his family separation policy this summer, a US immigration agency quietly shared a memo that set off alarms for immigration activists and attorneys.The memo was wonky and complicated. The policy it announced wouldn’t come into effect for months.And while it represented a fundamental change in how a key immigration agency operates, it slipped past most people’s radar, joining a flurry of quiet policy changes that have made legal and illegal immigration to the US more difficult without many noticing.“It is breathtaking, how sweeping and deep the policy and legal changes are that this administration has ushered in within a period of just two years,” Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), told the Guardian.These changes hit every angle of the immigration system, from assailing humanitarian protections with the family separation policy to restricting workers travelling on the so-called “high-skilled” H-1B visa with a plan to revoke their spouses’ work permits.“While the border wall is what this president talks about so much to the media, behind the scenes his administration is constructing all sorts of policies that are erecting an invisible wall,” Chen said.To glimpse the sheer scale of these efforts, consider the final week of November. The US government closed the busiest land border crossing in the world for five hours after dozens of Central Americans rushed the border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked the military to keep troops at the border through January, after the military had already spent $72m to send nearly 6,000 to the border. DHS also asked civilian police to be sent to the border. A federal judge refused the US government’s request to enforce an asylum ban he said the government had not proved was legal. Another judge ruled the US government could not force states and cities known as “sanctuary cities” to cooperate with federal immigration authorities to receive federal funding. Trump tweeted a lie about the federal assistance undocumented immigrants receive. Baltimore sued the Trump administration over a proposed immigration rule. The US health department’s internal watchdog said it was concerned staff at a teen migrant shelter had not been adequately vetted. Outside of Trump administration rumblings in courts and the Capitol, a Pew Research report released that week showed the number of undocumented immigrants in the US was at the lowest level since 2004. And a nurse deported to Mexico in 2017 returned to the US after getting a visa to enter the US legally. Anu Joshi, the New York Immigration Coalition’s senior director of immigrant rights and policy, said because so many of these changes are happening administratively, there is little accountability and oversight.“The thing that is most striking is how almost surgical in precision they’ve been with making these administrative and policy level changes that really, really impact for the negative people’s lives,” Joshi said.These changes are often too bureaucratic for the average American, leaving immigration advocates and attorneys struggling to drum up interest or outrage from the public.This is what happened with the memo issued in June during the family separation debacle. It said in October US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would greatly expand its ability to order people to appear in court if their applications for immigration relief – such as green cards or humanitarian visas – were denied.Combined with other new directives at USCIS, this means a human trafficking victim who is missing a document in their visa application could not only be denied the visa, but they may also be put in deportation proceedings . “It [the memo] really didn’t get very much coverage because there are so many other things happening, but that is going to have a profound impact on people’s ability to seek safety in this country,” Joshi said.USCIS spokesman, Michael Bars, said people applying for such visas can still challenge the agency’s decision to deny an application and emphasized that it relies on trained officers to rule on each individual case.“Ensuring that individuals who are subject to removal are placed in proceedings is fidelity to the law,” Bars said. “Each year, immigration benefits are attainable for many law-abiding individuals legitimately seeking greater opportunity, prosperity, and security as newly entrusted members of society, and to this end USCIS takes great pride and helping these dreams become a reality.”For people such as Joshi who work on the frontlines of immigration activism and law, the whirlwind of changes has inspired constant legal action.One day after the White House announced it would bar people from seeking asylum outside designated ports of entry, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the ban.One month before the Trump administration formally announced its zero-tolerance policy that made mass family separations possible, ACLU lawyers had brought a lawsuit on behalf of at least 429 parents who alleged separations had already happened.In November, a court ruled the Trump administration must continue a program for undocumented people who came to the US as children, known as Dreamers, which allows them to go to college and work temporarily in the US. That case is almost guaranteed to head to the supreme court, more than a year after the Trump administration said it was ending the program.Joshi cautioned that issues that end up at the supreme court will be determined by nine justices that include two Trump appointees. “I think the courts are a necessary, temporary, protective measure, but I don’t think we can rely on the courts to save us,” Joshi said.The revised travel ban, after all, was held up by the supreme court in June despite being one of two immigration issues that brought Americans nationwide to the street in protest. The other issue that inspired such outrage, family separations, could happen again, as the Trump administration has floated reviving the practice in a different form.And while Trump is heading into the new year without funding for his border wall despite his demands having shutdown 25% of the US government over the holiday period, there are no indications the pile of policies shaping the invisible wall will slow.Chen of AILA said: “The administration’s train is just getting out of the train station and is moving at a rapid clip at full steam ahead.”• This story was updated on December 27 2018 to clarify the scope of the new USCIS guidance Topics US immigration Donald Trump US-Mexico border US federal government shutdown 2019 features

Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed James Comey’s new tell-all book and reports that the National Enquirer paid off a former doorman to squash a rumor that Donald Trump fathered a child with an employee in the 1980s.Stephen Colbert began: “Just before I came out here, James Comey news broke. Apparently, in Comey’s new book, Comey reveals that while he was still in office President Trump asked him to investigate the pee tape to reassure Melania.”He went on: “According to Comey, he brought up what he called the ‘golden showers thing’, adding that it bothered him if there was even a 1% chance his wife Melania thought it was true.“Yes, it would bother him, because she’d be off by about 99%.”Colbert said: “Ever since the election, people have been speculating whether Trump’s presidency would be taken down by what he did with a member of the Russian government. Turns out he may go down because of what he did with his member.”The host then discussed Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels before explaining that Cohen and Trump “also had help from their friend, National Enquirer publisher and guy-who’s-name-is-a-little-too-on-the-nose, David Pecker”.Pecker, Colbert noted, had a scheme where he paid women for damaging stories about Trump and never published them. Karen McDougal, a former model, was paid $150,000 to keep quiet about a nine-month affair with Trump.“Wait, 150 Gs to keep quiet about a nine-month affair? Didn’t Stormy Daniels get almost that much and she only had to have sex with Donald Trump once? I’ve said it before: these women need to unionize.”Colbert also discussed the latest report that the National Enquirer paid a former doorman $30,000 to stop him from going public with a rumor Trump had a child with his housekeeper in the 1980s.“Wow,” Colbert said. “The president must be really ashamed of this scandal considering the children he is willing to claim.”Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah also spoke of the report.“Trump might have a secret kid?” he said. “I bet everyone who doesn’t know their father right now is panicking.“Every week we seem to find out that someone else got money to keep quiet about one of Trump’s affairs. Everyone’s getting paid: doormen, porn stars, lawyers.”Noah then said that the big question is whether these payments constitute illegal campaign contributions.He said: “But for me there’s a bigger story here: you realize if you were born in the 1980s, you might be Donald Trump’s child. You could be in line to inherit billions of dollars in debt.”Noah then moved on to cover Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress this week.He explained that “Facebook CEO and less-charismatic-Rain-Man” Zuckerberg had spent two days of hearings before 44 senators and 55 representatives, and said: “Some of the congresspeople seemed to have done their homework, but even when they did they still didn’t seem to know how to ask the right questions.“By the looks of it, even Congress doesn’t believe that they can take on Facebook.”The host pointed to Louisiana senator John Kennedy, who said it’s “up to” Zuckerberg whether bills regulating Facebook pass or not.Noah said: “What Senator Kennedy said there is both depressing and refreshingly honest at the same time. He knows that lobbyists rule Washington and Facebook can afford a shit ton of lobbyists, so all lawmakers can really do is chastise Facebook publicly and then ask them nicely to go and think about what they’ve done.”Finally, Jimmy Kimmel discussed the National Enquirer’s payment to the doorman Dino Sajudin.Reading from Sajudin’s official statement on the matter, Kimmel said Sajudin was “instructed not to criticize President Trump’s former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child”.Kimmel quipped: “If Trump did have a secret lovechild with an employee in the 80s, I’m going to guess that the lovechild is Eric and that employee is none other than Gary Busey.”He then described the idea of “another Trump kid out there” as “crazy to think about”. Topics Late-night TV roundup Stephen Colbert Trevor Noah Jimmy Kimmel Donald Trump James Comey US television blogposts

AILSA CHANG, HOST: A warning about the next four minutes - we're going to examine a grisly, tragic crime in northern India, one that also touches upon larger issues in that country. It's the story about the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl.JEFFREY GETTLEMAN: This 8-year-old girl, she is from a nomadic community, and she was taking her horses out to pasture one day, and she was kidnapped by several men. They dragged her to a nearby Hindu temple, and for the next two or three days, several men gang raped this little girl inside this Hindu temple.CHANG: The accused are Hindus, the girl was Muslim, and Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times says her body was found days later.GETTLEMAN: And it immediately ignited tensions between these two communities of these nomads who are Muslim and the people who live in this area, most who are farmers and are Hindu.CHANG: And just so I understand, this area, Jammu, is primarily populated by Hindus, so the rape and murder of this young girl was a way, authorities are describing, to drive Muslims out of the area. Is that what this crime was ultimately about?GETTLEMAN: It was, and it's very complicated up here. This is part of the state Jamul and Kashmir. India and Pakistan both claim this larger state. And for decades, there's been conflict in this part of the region. Now, the specific place where this crime happened was a Hindu stronghold. But the state is controlled by a Muslim political party more or less. So Hindu people in this area feel very threatened by that. And there was this fear that these Muslim nomads were trying to take over land and push the Hindus out. So according to police, these men hatched this horrible plan as a way to terrorize an entire community to get out of this area. And it's created a ton of fear. And some people have already left because of it.CHANG: And outside of that region, there have been protests all across India about this crime. A lot of the uproar has been focused on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Can you explain how he's gotten caught up in all of this?GETTLEMAN: Narendra Modi is known as somebody who uses Twitter and social media constantly to address the Indian public. And it wasn't until months after this happened and protests were growing that he finally said something, and it was pretty anodyne. He said justice will be served. And it just didn't satisfy people that he really cared enough about what happened to this girl and the motivation.CHANG: I'm just thinking back to the brutal gang rape of a woman on a bus in New Delhi back in 2012, and there were also widespread protests in the country after that. And there was a sense that in that moment that those protests would be some kind of catalyst for change. Was it a catalyst? What has changed since then, since 2012?GETTLEMAN: I think there's a lot more awareness about sexual violence. I think many people know it's a serious problem in India, and they're willing to speak out against it. It's just - there's the challenge of using the state police and investigative agencies to really prosecute and put offenders behind bars. And that just doesn't seem to be happening. And the question is will the government use its levers and its, you know, resources to try to change this? And there's a lot of frustration that it just hasn't.CHANG: Jeffrey Gettleman is the South Asia bureau chief for The New York Times. Thank you very much for joining us.GETTLEMAN: My pleasure.Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Analysts have been worrying in recent weeks about weak sales of the iPhone X (and maybe iPhones in general) after the holidays. Well, Apple reported results for its January-through-March quarter today, and pointed out that the iPhone X remained its best-selling phone throughout the first three months of 2018.The company narrowly exceeded analysts’ expectations for revenues, but only after it guided down its own revenue expectations a few months ago. It came very close to expectations for iPhone unit sales, but only after analysts had adjusted down their unit sales expectations.Here are the top lines: Reported revenue of $61.1 billion in the quarter. (Apple guided between $60 billion and $62 billion; analysts expected $60.8 billion.) That’s 30% more than in the March quarter last year, and the highest March-quarter revenue number in Apple history. Sold 52.2 million iPhones during the quarter (analysts had expected sales of 52 million). Approved a new $100 billion share repurchase plan, and a 16% increase in its quarterly dividend. Forecast the June quarter‘s revenue at between $51.5 billion and $53.5 billion. Thomson Reuters analysts expect $51.6 billion. Sold 9.1 million iPads, and 4.07 million Macs More to come after the earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific Time.

To achieve this, a fully baked, not-soggy crust is essential. A sturdy crust (like the one on a baguette) can often be chewy and tough. The genius of the traditional method for making pie crust — with large, flat flakes of flour and butter — is that, once baked, it is both strong and tender.A thick crust demands a heavy, heat-conducting dish. Thin metal does not provide the even, steady heat that’s needed to cook this crust through. Thick glass is fine if you want to check the color of the crust, but heavy ceramics (like stoneware, earthenware and porcelain) are actually better at browning, according to Ms. McDermott. Her trick of baking the pie on a preheated baking sheet (to ensure that heat reaches the crust quickly) means that there’s no reason to doubt that the bottom crust is cooked when the other signs of doneness (bubbling filling, brown top crust) are there.However, you do not need a pie pan to bake a pie, especially a deep-dish pie. The sloped sides of a traditional pie dish are there to make it easier to slice and serve, but they are certainly not necessary. Any baking dish of any shape can be used, as long as it is at least two inches deep and holds 2½ to 3 quarts. Use your most-loved casserole or cast-iron skillet. Your favorite dish may not have a rim, but you don’t need one — this pie’s crust is thick enough to make its own.And which apples? A pie made with a dozen Granny Smith apples may be inedible, but a pie made with four Granny Smith apples may be irresistible. Generally, a mix of tart and sweet apples gives the best odds of a great filling. Though some claim that ancient breeds like sweet Bramleys and tart Pippins make the best pies, many of the newer apples on the market — Honeycrisps and Pink Ladys, Ginger Golds and Cameos — offer a good balance of sweet and tart.These new apples also hold their shape in baking, because snacking apples are bred to be firm and “explosively crunchy,” according to Rowan Jacobsen, author of “Apples of Uncommon Character.”“Crispness has become super-valued,” he said.An interplay of sweet and sour flavors, plus firm and soft textures, is the goal. “You need the mortar and you need the bricks,” Mr. Jacobsen said of a good filling. If using crunchy apples, toss in a McIntosh, Idared or Cortland. Those apples will break down during baking and bind the filling. (A spoonful of applesauce will do the same thing.)And when it comes to maximizing apple flavor, Ms. McDermott takes no chances, boosting it at every opportunity. Instead of lemon juice, commonly added to balance the sweetness of added sugar, she uses unfiltered apple cider vinegar; she also deploys a shot of apple liqueur, schnapps or brandy, like French Calvados. Cider syrup, apple cider and apple juice are perfectly fine nonalcoholic alternatives.“Pie is very forgiving,” she said. “It is happy as long as it is made.”Recipe: Deep-Dish Apple PieFollow NYT Food on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.

She wasn’t even sure what art was for. She said the issue bothered her quite a bit. Also, the male Y.B.A.s were getting most of the attention. “I was quite reconciled to people not being so interested in me, but that freed me up,” she said. “I could experiment with materials, only pleasing myself.” She came to realize, she added, that “I could really have a lot of fun, humor, between me and me.”By 1991, Ms. Lucas was making big collages from the most offensive Sport spreads. (An example, “Fat, Forty and Flabulous,” is in the retrospective.) Reading the feminist Andrea Dworkin helped her “see the extent to which everything is stacked against women,” she said. Dworkin also wrote about exploitive tabloid images, which encouraged Ms. Lucas to think she “could mobilize this hateful stuff to my own purpose,” she added. Part of that purpose was to explore an unsettling ambiguity: Are such images titillating, offensive, tragic or some combination thereof? Ms. Lucas feels that the tabloid spreads symbolize the position of all women, not just those in the images. And more: “You can identify with men as much as women,” she said. “They coexist.”Since then, Ms. Lucas’s art has specialized in rudeness — although unvarnished honesty with a moral undertone may be more accurate. The phallus — whose depiction in Western art has been one of the most persistent taboos since the end of the Classical era — is a ubiquitous form in her work. (You might think that she wants to equal the attention male artists have lavished upon female breasts throughout history.) Intercourse is frequently intimated, and a tender sarcasm is the prevailing tone. Titles can include profanities and other slang learned on the streets of Islington, the London borough where she grew up. Her materials are cheap and familiar: old furniture, toilets, cinder blocks, underwear, cans of Spam and the stuffed pantyhose. Cars, traditionally a male obsession, also figure in: variously crushed, bisected, burned or carefully collaged with a layer of cigarettes, as are other objects. Fruits and vegetables, kebabs and whole raw chickens do double service, portraying erotic body parts.

Donald Trump has vowed to cut the US business tax rate to 15%, in a speech otherwise short on specifics but heavy on “America first” rhetoric.Addressing workers in Springfield, Missouri, the US president – who is yet to release his own tax returns – sought to take up the mantle of Ronald Reagan, the last president to oversee a major tax reduction, even though he has sharply criticised Reagan’s measures in the past.Trump claimed that America has gone from a tax rate lower than its economic competitors to one that is more than 60% higher. “When it comes to the business tax, we are dead last: can you believe that?” he said. “So this cannot be allowed to continue any longer. America must lead the way, not follow from behind.”Emphasising a theme of restoring lost glory, the president continued: “We have totally surrendered our competitive edge to other countries. We’re not surrendering any more. Ideally, and I say this for our secretary of the treasury, we would like to bring our business tax rate down to 15%, which would make our tax rate lower than most countries but still by no means the lowest, unfortunately, in the world. But it would make us highly competitive.”Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was present, is one of the main architects of the tax reform, but Trump’s figure seems to be a stretch. Some members of Congress have already said any plan would be likely to cut business taxes to no lower than 20%, while experts say 25% is more likely.Reagan pulled off tax reform in 1986 but only after two years of haggling and developing relationships with House speaker Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill and other Democrats to achieve bipartisan support. He was also in the sixth year of his presidency, had fewer distractions than Trump and was more reluctant to add to the government deficit.Trump, who has shown little interest in reaching across the aisle, said: “In 1986, Ronald Reagan led the world by cutting our corporate tax rate to 34%. That was below the average rate for developed countries at the time. Everybody thought that was a monumental thing that happened. But then, under this pro-America system, our economy boomed. It just went beautifully, right through the roof. The middle class thrived and median family increased.”Other countries emulated America’s success, he argued, and cut their taxes to become more competitive. “They are taking us, frankly, to the cleaners. So we must, we have no choice, we must lower our taxes.”Instead of a Reaganesque olive branch, he then issued a threat to a Democratic Senator in her home state. “Your senator, Claire McCaskill, she must do this for you. If she doesn’t do it for you, you have to vote her out of office.”The crowd cheered and whistled. Trump added: “She’s going to make that commitment. We just can’t do this anymore with the obstruction and the obstructionists. The Dems are looking to obstruct tax cuts and tax reform.”But Trump was not always so enthusiastic. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 1999, he described Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986 as “one of the worst ideas in recent history”.Trump set out four priorities: simplifying the tax code and closing loopholes exploited by the wealthy and special interests (“I’m speaking against myself when I do this”); a lower tax rate that will give Americans a pay rise and the business tax reduction to make the US competitive; tax relief for middle income families, “the forgotten people”; and bringing back trillions of dollars that US companies currently park off shore.Trump is striving to recover from a humiliating defeat in his attempt to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Whereas he made no major public speech during that process and blamed Congress for the failure, Wednesday’s event at a manufacturing company is expected to be the first aiming to drum up support.“This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said. “I am fully committed to working with Congress to get this job done and I don’t want to be disappointed by Congress.”His voice rose and his hand sliced the air then pointing to the audience, which included several members of Congress. “Do you understand me? You understand? Understand.”The crowd cheered and applauded. Trump, shaking his head a little wearily, hands gripping the lectern, added: “Congress. I think Congress is going to make a comeback. I hope so.” There was some laughter. “I tell you what: the United States is counting on it.”The audience included his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump. “I see my beautiful daughter’s in the audience,” the president said. “Stand up. She working very hard. I’m very proud of Ivanka.”In a hard-edged speech that characteristically pushed US self-interest, Trump declared that his reforms would would “bring back Main Street by reducing the crushing tax burden” and spur economic growth to benefit both companies and workers.Appealing to “every member” of Congress to get on board, Trump added: “Instead of exporting our jobs, we will export our goods. Our jobs will both stay here in America and come back to America. We will have it both ways. Millions of struggling Americans will be lifted from welfare to work. I want Americans to wake up happy to go to work for a big fat beautiful pay cheque. I want them to be proud again.”But Democrats condemned what they see as an attempt to benefit corporations and the top 1%. Nancy Pelosi, minority leader in the House, said: “Instead of offering the American people a plan for real, job-creating tax reform, President Trump is pushing a billionaires-first, trickle-down tax scheme that hands out massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, at the expense of American families. “If Republicans have their way, they will blow a huge hole in the deficit, gut Medicare, Medicaid, social security and the Affordable Care Act – all just to fund deficit-busting tax breaks for the high-end.” Topics Donald Trump Trump administration US economy Economics news

"Certainly, inspired by ISIS, we know that and recently over about the last week we've become a lot more energized," Ashton said.Two of the suspects had no criminal history, while a third had only been cited for a minor offense,CNN affiliate Nine News Australia reported.The arrests come as scores of Victorians gathered to mourn Sisto Malaspina, who was stabbed to death in a terror attack two weeks ago in Melbourne's central business district.The hearse carrying the body of Sisto Malaspina leaves during the state funeral for Sisto Malaspina at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Tuesday in Melbourne.Malaspina, the co-owner of the popular Pellegrini's Espresso Bar, received a state funeral Tuesday. Among those in attendance were Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews, Bill Shorten -- the leader of the opposition Australian Labor Party and a member of Parliament who was born and educated in Melbourne -- and Melbourne Mayor Sally Capp,according to Nine News.Malaspina was killed by 30-year-old Hassan Khalid Shire Ali, who stabbed three people in an incident police said was also "inspired by ISIS." His other two victims survived the attack.Ali drove a truck full of gas canisters into a crowded street on November 9 but the canisters failed to explode as planned.After stabbing the trio, Shire Ali was shot dead by police after a dramatic stand off. The attacker's passport had been canceled in 2015 after he had planned to fly to Syria.Australian Federal Police (AFP) said there was no suggestion the newly foiled attack was directed by ISIS."If we had not acted early in preventing this attack we will allege that the consequences would have been chilling ... with a potential significant loss of life," AFP Assistant Commissioner Ian McCartney said.

This post was updated on April 17.The past year has been a harrowing one for India’s oldest private airline, Jet Airways.The carrier has been in the red for several quarters. Its founder Naresh Goyal had to give up the reins last month after lenders took charge of the organisation. The Mumbai-based carrier has now run out of money to continue operations, it said in a statement today (April 17).Here’s a look at everything that’s gone wrong with India’s second-largest carrier by market share in the last year: When What March 2018 Jet Airways reports a loss of Rs1,036 crore in the Jan-March quarter as revenue declines and costs increase significantly. The company defers the March salaries of some employees citing “circumstances beyond its control.” April 2018 Bows out of bidding for Air India citing the complex process. May 2018 The government refuses to approve Jet’s merger with its subsidiary JetLite, nearly three years after the proposal was made. June 2018 Jet announces new check-in baggage norms. The 15kg of free check-in luggage for economy class will have to be in one bag. Business class passengers can carry 30kg in two bags. August 2018 Considers a 25% pay cut for employees. August 2018 Indefinitely defers announcement of financial results for the April-June quarter of financial year 2019. August 2018 On Aug. 12, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation announces an audit to assess Jet’s financial health. State Bank of India asks the firm to provide enough collateral for emergency funding. August 2018 On Aug. 27, the company announces losses of Rs1,323 crore for the April-June 2018 period. September 2018 On Sep.19, the income-tax department conducts surveys in the company’s Mumbai and Delhi offices over allegations of financial misappropriation. September 2018 The next day (Sep. 20), around 30 passengers on a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Jaipur suffer nose and ear bleeding after the cabin crew forgets to activate the internal pressure control. India’s civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu orders a safety audit of all airlines and airports.

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PingWest品玩12月18日报道，近日网上有消息称，苹果已同意对今年购买的Apple Watch Series 3蜂窝版用户进行退货。品玩针对此消息真实性联系了苹果售后客服 ... 品玩致电苹果官方400电话，得到的消息是以官网公告为准。随后，品玩联系苹果在线技术支持，得到的是消息是，目前Apple是已经有文件通知可以进行退费，且不受14天的限制，只要通过正规渠道购买，均可退货

At 6ft 8in tall, James Comey is hard to miss. But two days after the inauguration of Donald Trump, Comey, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, tried to hide from the president at a White House reception, by standing in front of blue drapery that matched his blazer, he later told a friend.Comey was anxious not to appear chummy with Trump as accusations rippled that he had handed the Republican the election by keeping Hillary Clinton’s email habits in the public eye, he explained.Inspired as it was, however, the camouflaging tactic failed. Trump spotted Comey, opened his arms, called him across the room, grabbed his hand, pulled him in for an awkward hug and, according to Comey, whispered in his ear: “I really look forward to working with you.”Less than four months later, Trump fired him. And now, Comey is about to step out from the curtains for good, with the release of a memoir that seems destined to set up a dramatic and very public clash with the president, and trigger another cycle of alarm and discomfort in the United States over the direction of Trump’s leadership.Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership, which promises “never-before-told experiences from some of the highest-stakes situations of his career”, has already demonstrated huge popular appeal, shooting to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list in the weeks before its publication on 17 April. Tickets to a Comey appearance in New York City later this month are being offered online for as much as $1,000, rivalling resale prices for the best-selling show five streets north, Springsteen on Broadway, and the first bookstore he will visit has hatched a wristband scheme to deal with the anticipated crowds.Comey has done his part to stoke interest by framing the book as a showdown with Trump, whose presidency appears more at risk every day of being swallowed by the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Mr President, the American people will hear my story very soon,” Comey tweeted in March. “And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.”Given all this intrigue, A Higher Loyalty could land with an even greater splash than the previous insider account to spill from the Trump White House, journalist Michael Wolff’s controversial Fire and Fury.But as Comey prepares to embark on a coast-to-coast book tour, he also risks playing into the hands of critics, some of whom discern in his painstakingly upright posture an untoward love of the spotlight, and who warn that his joining in a mudslinging match with Trump could further politicize the FBI, whose independence he has vowed to defend.“I think he has to be careful,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University specializing in American politics. “For him, and for the publicity of the book, obviously all that attention is terrific. But I do think he has to be careful, because it’s not hard to imagine how President Trump will caricature that, if Comey’s out there selling really expensive tickets for people to see him on kind of a celebrity interview book tour.”Many people connected with the FBI, whose reputation Trump has attacked as “worst in History!”, are rooting for the former director, said Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent and a lecturer at Yale University.“I think that people took it very hard when he left, and to the extent that he is a voice speaking on behalf of the bureau – I do think that that is a function of the book, and I do think that most agents will be grateful for that, because they can’t comment, they can’t fight back when the president is slamming them,” Rangappa said. There were exceptions, though, she said. For every two people with their hopes riding on Comey, it seems one skeptic can be found.Trump may have branded Comey a “showboat” and a “grandstander”, in a preview of attacks sure to come, but Comey has been just as unpopular with supporters of Hillary Clinton, many of whom are convinced his interventions in the closing stages of the last election helped cost her the White House.The former Democratic candidate herself told an interviewer last year that Comey had “forever changed history” with his public statements about the investigation into her use of a private email server.“He can’t undo what he did,” said former Clinton adviser Philippe Reines, who among other things played Trump in debate practice against Clinton during the campaign. “You can’t be a savior when you’re undoing your own mess. It’s like giving a fireman a medal for his work as an arsonist.”The Clinton camp points to a surprise news conference in July 2016, in which Comey announced there was no case to prosecute Clinton but branded her email habits “extremely careless”. Then, 10 days before the election, Comey sent a letter to Congress announcing that the FBI was investigating newly discovered Clinton emails, which he followed with a letter two days before the vote saying the investigation was done and “we have not changed our conclusions”.In retrospect, the hand-wringing about Clinton’s email security seems quaint, at least. During the campaign, Trump personally endorsed a Russian hacking raid on Clinton’s emails, while Donald Trump Jr – it later emerged – traded direct messages with WikiLeaks.Comey’s role in the election brought multiple criticisms from Reines. “One, more than anything, I think he’s naive,” he said. “Two, I think he’s sanctimonious. And three, he’s very self-involved. And let me unpack those.” The conversation went on at greater length than can be quoted here.Comey’s defenders reply that in the tense climate of the presidential campaign, with partisan hackles high on both sides, the FBI director would have risked much more dangerous and conspiratorial charges of politicizing the bureau’s diligent work had he not gone public with its findings. Comey encountered a hard choice with terrible timing, and he acted in accordance with his lifelong record as a dedicated public servant, they say.For many Americans, indeed, Comey looks too much like the man of the hour to dwell on the question of how, exactly, it got so late. If the United States yearns for deliverance from Trump, no one, apart from Mueller himself, may be so well positioned to strike the crucial blow.Comey is a Republican, a former George W Bush appointee, a lifelong civil servant, a distinguished prosecutor, a foster parent and a sometime Sunday school teacher.If he is an unusually credible figure, he was also unusually present at key scenes whose retelling could focus the national attention on the competence and character of the president.Those scenes include a meeting in which Trump reportedly asked Comey to “let go” of an investigation into the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and an awkward private dinner at which Trump told Comey, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.”“The president begins by wanting to talk about my job and so I’m sitting there thinking wait a minute, three times we’ve already, you’ve already asked me to stay or talked about me staying,” Comey said, describing the dinner in testimony before Congress last year. “My common sense, again I could be wrong but my common sense told me what’s going on here is, he’s looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job.”Such scenes could establish a pattern of conduct by the president that could amount to an obstruction of justice by Trump, legal experts say. Both presidents to face impeachment proceedings in the last century, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, faced an obstruction of justice charge.Trump has disputed Comey’s version of events, which the lifelong prosecutor took care to record in writing immediately afterward. “I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document,” Comey testified.Even critics such as Reines say they don’t doubt the veracity of the story he has to tell.“I don’t impugn his motivations for being in public service,” Reines said. “I don’t think he’s an evil person. But it’s almost worse that he’s not an evil person. Because if he were evil and this was his plan, at least he could say he’s an effective evil person.”Unlike most elected officials, Comey has enemies and friends on both sides of the political divide, potentially enabling him to speak for example to Trump supporters who otherwise will brook no criticism of the president. In his book, he appears to have found a powerful platform to do so.“Books, publishing, television – that’s where a lot of politicians or ex-political figures make their point known,” said Zelizer. “Congressional hearings don’t equal a big book in this day and age.“More people will pay attention to this than when he testified. And if the book does well, it will continue for a long time.”5 July 2016 Comey calls a surprise news conference to announce that an FBI investigation had determined that Hillary Clinton and colleagues “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” but “we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts”.28 October 2016 Comey writes a letter to eight Republican members of Congress, immediately leaked, saying that the FBI has “learned of the existence of emails” relating to Clinton that it will investigate. 6 November 2016 Comey writes another letter saying the investigation is complete and “we have not changed our conclusions”.8 November 2016 Donald Trump is elected president.16 December 2016 Bill Clinton tells fellow shoppers at a small New York bookstore: “James Comey cost her the election.”3 May 2017 Testifying before Congress, Comey says, “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election.”9 May 2017 Trump fires Comey.8 June 2017 Comey testifies before the Senate about the circumstances of his firing, blasting the Trump administration for “defaming” him and attacking the FBI. “Those were lies, plain and simple,” he said. Topics James Comey Donald Trump Trump-Russia investigation FBI features

The Taliban and ISIS are both taking credit for a rocket attack on Kabul's airport early Wednesday just hours after U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis landed in Afghanistan for a surprise visit. Interested in Afghanistan? Add Afghanistan as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Afghanistan news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Afghanistan Add Interest A barrage of up to 40 rounds of munitions hit the airport, including 29 rocket-propelled grenades, according to a U.S. military official. In response to the attack, the U.S. conducted an airstrike to support an Afghan crisis unit on the ground, but "one of the missiles malfunctioned," causing injuries to Afghan civilians, the U.S.-lead coalition said in a statement. Mattis had left the airport hours before the attack took place. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who was in Afghanistan with the U.S. defense chief, was similarly out of harm's way when the rockets hit. A separate U.S. military official told reporters traveling with Mattis that the secretary's C-17 aircraft had already departed Kabul for Bagram Airfield when the attack occurred. A spokesperson for the U.S. military in Afghanistan told ABC News that there are no reports of damage to coalition or Afghan military aircraft. Though no U.S. personnel were injured, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesperson Najib Danish said one Afghan woman was killed and 11 civilians were wounded in the incident. Rockets hit two civilian homes close to the airport. A U.S. military official told ABC News that two Hellfire missiles were fired from an Apache helicopter. One missile hit its target, while the second accidentally struck a structure, killing the one civilian and wounding several others. "Resolute Support deeply regrets the harm to non-combatants," the coalition said in a statement on Wednesday. "We take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties, even as the enemies of Afghanistan continue to operate in locations that deliberately put civilians at very high risk. An investigation into the attack and the malfunctioning ammunition has begun." Danish said later that four people allegedly involved in the attack were killed by Afghan special forces in an operation near the airport.NATO Secretary General @jensstoltenberg together with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis is at RSHQ today visiting AFG leadership & troops pic.twitter.com/Saf5r7dIa2— Resolute Support (@ResoluteSupport) September 27, 2017 A Taliban spokesman tweeted that the attack was aimed at the secretary's plane. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the rocket barrage. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said at a press conference that his country's special forces are "dealing with" the incident. Mattis, standing with Ghani, called the attack a "criminal act by terrorists." "It’s designed to go after generally innocent people to make some sort of statement," the U.S. defense chief said. "This is a classic definition of what the Taliban are up to right now. It defines their approach to how they see their role here and if in fact this is what they have done, they will find the Afghan security forces continuing on the offensive against them in every district of the country right now. So it is what it is, but it’s also the reason why we band together, and we don’t question what we’re doing here.” This is Mattis' first trip to Afghanistan since President Donald Trump announced a new South Asia strategy that will send an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to the country. Speaking to reporters traveling with the secretary, a U.S. military official said the Afghan conflict is at a "stalemate." "We'd still put the conflict in this kind of bounds of the stalemate where neither side really has the capability right now to kind of have a decisive victory," the official said. There are approximately 11,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan now advising and assisting the country's military fight against the Taliban, as well as adding additional firepower to the counterterrorism mission against ISIS and Al Qaeda. Next month, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will enter its 17th year.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Days before masked agents arrested him, family and friends pleaded with Eulogio Del Pino to flee, warning that he could be next among executives detained or pursued, one after another, in a mounting purge of Venezuela’s faltering oil industry. FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's Oil Minister and President of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA Eulogio del Pino speaks during an agreement signing ceremony with representatives of oil companies: Venezuelan Delta Petroleum and India's ONGC Videsh Limited, in Caracas, Venezuela November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File PhotoBut the former oil minister, detained by police before dawn on Nov 30, was reluctant to believe he could soon be among those targeted in what President Nicolas Maduro has characterized as a cleanup of the all-important sector. “I told him: ‘Go!’,” said one of three people who described the leadup to the former minister’s detention. “But he told me ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I trust that they’re not going to do anything bad to me.’” That trust, the product of three years in which Del Pino held the top two jobs in Venezuela’s oil ministry, now appears alarmingly misplaced. Maduro is charging Del Pino and many other former industry executives with corruption and blaming them for economic woes now crippling the Andean nation. “I’m not going to shield anyone,” Maduro said in a speech on Nov 28, as he swore in a general who replaced Del Pino as oil minister. “If you’re corrupt, you have to pay with jail and return what you’ve stolen.” The crackdown has led to uncertainty, panic and paranoia across the sector, with as many as 65 former executives arrested over the past four months. Prosecutors, critics say, have provided scant evidence for the charges. Corruption has long plagued the OPEC member’s oil industry and much of the broader Maduro government, a leftist administration struggling with an imploding economy, soaring crime and debilitated public services. But critics of Maduro’s beleaguered administration, and many within the oil industry itself, see the purge as nothing more than an effort to eliminate rivals within the sector and consolidate control ahead of presidential elections next year. “Maduro wants control of PDVSA and control of its cash flow,” said opposition legislator and economist Angel Alvarado, using the initials for state-controlled oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. PDVSA and the oil ministry did not respond to requests for comment either. It is not clear whether any of the charges against Del Pino are substantiated. Prosecutors, without presenting any evidence, accused him of belonging to a “cartel” that operated a roughly $500 million corruption scheme in the western state of Zulia. But the Stanford-educated engineer, who led the ministry until Nov. 26 and PDVSA for three years before that, was previously known as a government loyalist, committed to Maduro’s vision for “21st century socialism.” Only after he was ousted from the ministry, the three people familiar with his arrest said, did Del Pino finally begin to believe that his time was probably up. His final days as a free man illustrate how swiftly fortunes can shift for even senior officials in Maduro’s government. Just after his firing, Del Pino told Reuters in a WhatsApp message: “I need a rest.” On Nov. 29, three days after his ouster, an exhausted Del Pino went to Avila, a verdant mountain that towers over Caracas, the capital, where he liked to hike, one of the people said. Del Pino found a quiet spot under a tree and recorded a video on his cell phone. He said he believed he was about to become a “victim” of an “unjustified attack.” Before sunlight the following morning, hooded and armed military intelligence agents burst into his home and arrested him. Footage of the detention showed Del Pino wearing the burgundy-colored soccer shirt of Venezuela’s national team. Later that day, the video Del Pino recorded appeared on his Twitter account. “I hope the revolution will give me the right to a legitimate defense,” he said, referring to the government in the militant terms embraced by Maduro. Del Pino did not respond to requests for comment on WhatsApp, where he had recently changed his profile picture from one of him in a PDVSA hat to one of his children. After Del Pino’s detention, stunned workers at PDVSA’s Caracas headquarters, where he was generally well-liked, watched the state TV footage on screens in company elevators. Fear has gripped employees at both institutions, according to a half-dozen current and former PDVSA insiders as well as foreign oil executives. Managers are scared to sign routine documents in case it could be used against them. Maduro promoted Del Pino, who was born in the Canary Islands and holds a Spanish passport, from PDVSA’s exploration and production division to the company’s top job in 2014. At the time, foreign oil executives and analysts largely welcomed the arrival of the genial and low-profile technocrat. He replaced Rafael Ramirez, a once-powerful loyalist of the late Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor. Ramirez, who dominated Venezuela’s oil industry for a decade, sought to make PDVSA “redder than red.” He urged workers to wear red shirts in support of Chavez’s socialist movement and to attend pro-government rallies. Del Pino, by contrast, eased up on revolutionary garb and attendance at militant gatherings. He also sought closer relationships with foreign partners frustrated by currency controls and a lack of professionalism at PDVSA. Still, many PDVSA insiders and oil executives were ultimately disappointed with Del Pino’s management. Instead of improvements, he presided over a major production fall that brought Venezuela’s oil output to near 30 year-lows. Del Pino ultimately found his hands tied at a company where intervention by the government is common. Last January, Maduro replaced many of his top executives with political and military appointees. Whether Del Pino and other arrested executives are ultimately found guilty or not, many in Venezuela see opportunism behind the ongoing purge, not a concerted effort to stamp out graft. The industry, after all, has been under tight control of the ruling Socialist Party since shortly after Chavez came to power in 1998. Although the government ridiculed a report last year by the opposition-run Congress, finding that some $11 billion went missing at PDVSA over a decade, it now recognizes that many voters support the anti-corruption stances espoused by rivals. “The opposition has been pushing for a fight against corruption, and now Maduro wants to appropriate that,” said Alvarado, the opposition lawmaker. After surviving major protests this year and pushing through a controversial pro-government legislative superbody, Maduro is feeling empowered, government officials said. He seeks to fortify his position for re-election next year. He is also expected to continue finding ways to target perceived threats to his political power. Some in Venezuela see Del Pino’s arrest as a way of getting at an old rival: Ramirez, the former PDVSA boss. Ramirez, until recently Venezuela’s envoy to the United Nations, is believed by many in the government to have presidential ambitions. Although Ramirez has not been mentioned by prosecutors, senior government officials increasingly refer to his time at PDVSA as a period when “mafias” were formed and executives like Del Pino grew ascendant. Slideshow (3 Images)This week, after Ramirez criticized the president in recent opinion articles online, Maduro fired him and summoned him back to Caracas, according to people familiar with the clash. Late Friday, police arrested Diego Salazar, a relative of Ramirez, in what prosecutors said was another corruption investigation. Ramirez did not respond to a request for information on Friday. Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston. Writing by Alexandra Ulmer.; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Paulo Prada.Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.