I feel deeply ashamed that a rightwing party will now sit in our parliament, 72 years after the Nazis destroyed Europe and killed millions of people. It seems that a lot of Germans are racist and blame everything on foreigners. We’re a rich country and able to help refugees. AfD voters want to turn back the clocks, they’re full of hate against everything that’s different.

In our weekly look at people’s travels through three of their Instagram shots, Damon Beckford captures revealing images from India

Trump has railed in several instances against "chain migration" and lotteries for green cards. His administration is moving to alter a program for the spouses of high-skilled visa holders. And the White House and Congress remain far apart on how to address DACA.Trump team immigration push undercut by NY attack facts, critics sayIn mid-September, Trumpwrote, "Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?"But since then, he has insisted on controversial immigration reduction proposals that would have a hard time passing even among some Republicans, including drastically cutting the overall number of green cards given out annually and transforming the way they are given out, placing a heavy emphasis on only highly skilled, English-speaking immigrants and not low-skilled individuals. Groups that have long advocated for reducing overall immigration are energized."We're excited about how the administration has held firmly to these issues," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "We've put almost $1 million into ads. ... This is the moment we've been waiting for four decades."Stein was especially pleased with Trump's recent insistence that any deal to save DACA, which protected young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, include cuts to family-based immigration, or "chain migration," and the diversity visa program, which allows up to 50,000 individuals from countries with low levels of immigration to the US to come on visas distributed by lottery. JUST WATCHEDMax Boot's GPS interview in fullReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHMax Boot's GPS interview in full 06:30The administration also was quick to point out that two recent terrorist attacks in New York City were committed by individuals with connections to family-based migration and the diversity lottery. "You think the countries' giving us their best people?" Trump said Friday in a speech to law enforcement personnel. "No. What kind of system is that? They come in by lottery. They give us their worst people, put them in a bin, but in his hand when he is picking them is really the worst of the worst."The theme of the dangers of immigrants -- despite no research showing them to be more prone to crime than the native-born population -- has been particularly hammered by longtime immigration hardliner Attorney General Jeff Sessions."If we accept lawlessness, then we encourage lawlessness. When people break our laws without consequences, we shouldn't be surprised when they continue breaking our laws," Sessions said in a speech last week. "We should give priority to those who are likely to thrive here -- such as those who speak English or are highly skilled -- not someone chosen at random or who happens to be somebody's relative."White House claims Trump's immigration plans could have prevented NYC attackIn reality, individuals in those countries are selected randomly but still must meet the security and eligibility requirements placed on all immigrants to actually get their visas. Diversity recipients specifically must also have at least a high school education or equivalent and job experience. The process includes an in-person interview, and anyone that is found to be a security threat would be inadmissible to the US.While the diversity lottery only affects about 50,000 of roughly 1 million green cards given out to the US annually, Trump has supported legislation from two GOP senators that would drastically reduce family visa categories, cutting yearly numbers in half. The administration has also made its own efforts to reduce immigration levels without Congress, including setting a historically low number of refugee admissions for next year, instituting the travel ban and submitting would-be visitors and immigrants to "extreme vetting." DHS explores ways to transform immigration system without CongressLate last week, the Department of Homeland Securityrevealed it intends to do away withwork permits for spouses of high-skilled visa holders who are waiting in a years-long green card backlog. The announcement also said the agency intends to set a higher bar for the high-skilled visa itself.New Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen spent last week establishing her hardline immigration bona fides, touting security at the border and attacking sanctuary cities and immigrant-related crime. Her tour came after weeks of broadsides from Trump-aligned sources like Breitbart, which had pejorativelynicknamedher "Lady DACA."Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and Obama administration alum, said that while there may be some fraud in the immigration system, the Trump agenda goes beyond reasonably trying to resolve it. "They're not just fixing the system, they are signaling a belief that regardless of their skills and talent, people from foreign countries are not welcome," Fresco said. "Many of these reforms that are being implemented are simply out of the wishlist of the anti-immigrant groups and are not serving a legitimate purpose of reforming the immigration system. ... The goal is to reduce the total number of foreigners."

Donald Trump has repeatedly assured the American public that he is not a racist. However, the immigration policies he proposed during his State of the Union address on Jan. 30 would dramatically cut the number of black and Hispanic immigrants, according to an analysis by the Center for Global Development.The Washington, D.C.-based think tank looked at the demographic profile of immigrants currently admitted under programs that Trump wants to end. These programs include the diversity program, which grants green cards to 50,000 immigrants through a lottery system, and the family reunification program, which allows US citizens and green-card holders to apply for visas for close relatives.A big share of the immigrants in those categories come from Latin America and Africa, so they would be disproportionately affected if those visas disappear. The number of Hispanic and black immigrants who come under those two programs would drop by more than 60% under the proposed changes; the number of white immigrants, by 43%, according to the center’s data.The center did a broader analysis based on cuts proposed in a Republican bill dubbed “Securing America’s Future Act,” which in addition to ending the visa lottery and cutting back family-based immigration, would reduce the number of refugees and asylees admitted into the US by more than half. It would also admit a bigger number of skilled workers.Those policies would have a similar effect on black and Hispanic immigrants, while white immigrants would be even less affected.The bill, if enacted, would also slash the number of Catholic and Muslim immigrants—again, because many of the beneficiaries of the visa lottery and family-based migration come from places in Africa and Latin America where those religions are common. Republicans who support ratcheting back immigration say their goal is to prevent criminals and terrorists from entering the US, and to encourage more highly-skilled people to come. But the center’s data shows that the average years of immigrants’ education would actually fall, by .15 years.Although the cuts would be much sharper for people without a high school diploma, the number of college-educated immigrants would also drop.

Apple appears to have doubled its headcount in artificial intelligence and related fields since 2014–and more than tripled its number of PhD holders in the sector–as tech companies race to build a generation of smarter products.That’s one conclusion from an analysis of more than 600 Apple employees who specialize in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and other disciplines related to AI. To help us understand where Apple is getting its AI talent, Fast Company created a database from publicly available LinkedIn profiles, searching for employees who either defined their jobs as “scientist” or “researcher” or listed AI-related skills in their resumes.This analysis certainly does have some limitations: It won’t account for employees who have defined their jobs in vague terms on their profiles, self-reported inaccurately or incompletely, or have avoided sharing their employment information on LinkedIn entirely. Apple has reportedly discouraged employees from announcing their AI jobs on LinkedIn in the past, so blind spots in our study are inevitable. Still, this analysis provides a broad snapshot of Apple’s response to a growing AI arms race in the tech industry.Despite widespread fears of a university brain drain as tech companies raid prestigious schools for AI talent, Apple still gets most of its new hires directly from other tech companies. This holds true for both PhD and non-PhD holders. By comparison, university and government hires and hires-by-acquisition represent a much smaller share:Within the tech sector, it’s not surprising that Amazon and Microsoft appear to be Apple’s top hiring sources. It’s also not surprising that Apple would poach talent from Yahoo and eBay, two formerly mighty tech companies that have been struggling a bit lately. However, Google, Facebook, and Netflix don’t appear in the top 10 hiring sources, according to our analysis:When Apple has hired from universities, the company hasn’t shown an overwhelming preference for any particular school, or made any dramatic moves akin to Uber’s hiring of 50 Carnegie Mellon robotics researchers–at least, not as far as we can tell. Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, appear near the top of the list–perhaps because of their geographic proximity to Apple’s HQ in Cupertino–and the prestigious Carnegie Mellon and MIT make obligatory appearances, but otherwise, the origins of Apple’s latest academia hires are well-distributed around the country and overseas:Those trends hold up when you look at Apple’s entire base of AI talent with PhDs who listed their credential on LinkedIn:And while acquisitions represent the smallest share of AI hires at Apple, they still seem to be a significant source of new talent for the company.Other top acquisition-based AI hires for Apple include workers from Metaio, an AR startup whose work may have contributed to Apple’s new ARKit developer tools; Lattice, a startup that tries to extract knowledge from unstructured data; the motion capture and facial recognition firm Faceshift; and VocalQ, a developer of speech-related artificial intelligence.How does Apple’s AI hiring compare to other tech titans? Chris Bolte, CEO of a salary-tracking firm called Paysa, says Apple is still behind Amazon and Google when it comes to seeking out and paying for new AI talent, based on data from his company’s own resume and salary database. (When we shared Fast Company‘s analysis with Bolte, he said that “nothing looks strange” about our conclusions. Apple declined to comment on this story.)“The two most aggressive [companies], in terms of open jobs, far and away, have been Google and Amazon, with Amazon leading the pack,” Bolte says of the AI world. “And what was most surprising to us was that Facebook was not a dominant player on that list, nor was Apple.”In general, Bolte says competition among tech companies for AI talent has been fierce, with skyrocketing salaries and an average of three to four offers from different companies for each prospective employee. For Apple, and for all tech companies, continuing to ramp up new hires may be a challenge.“There are way more jobs open in AI then there are people available to fill them, at least domestically,” Bolte says.In other words, it’s a very good time to be an AI genius.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said at least 10 civilians may have been killed by an airstrike in the northern city of Kunduz last week, despite a US military investigation that found no civilian deaths.In a series of messages on Twitter, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said interviews with multiple survivors, medics, elders and others gave it strong reason to believe that civilians were among the victims of Saturday’s attack. “Credible reports that at least 10 civilians killed in Kunduz Afghanistan air strike 4 Nov, UNAMA initial findings show,” it said.The statement contradicts comments from some local and Afghan military officials as well as a US statement on Tuesday, which said that an investigation had found no evidence of civilian deaths. The episode underlines the lack of clarity over reports of civilian casualties, an issue which is likely to become increasingly prominent as the United States steps up airstrikes against the Taliban and other insurgent groups.Captain Tom Gresback, a spokesman for the US military, said the Pentagon stood by its previous statement that found no civilian deaths. But he added: “US Forces Afghanistan will examine and consider any credible evidence when allegations of civilian casualties are presented. We take all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously and take necessary steps to ensure that we mitigate the loss of civilian life.“ On a visit to Kabul in September, the US defense secretary, Jim Mattis, said that commanders would be given greater freedom to use American firepower against the Taliban but that “everything humanly possible” would be done to avoid civilian casualties. Former president Hamid Karzai, who clashed bitterly with the United States over the issue in past years, condemned the airstrikes but the government of President Ashraf Ghani has so far made no public comment. Accounts from some local officials and residents indicated that as many as 13 people were killed in airstrikes in Chahardara district outside Kunduz city. Some Afghan media have reported much higher figures, without independent confirmation.Afghan special forces and the local provincial governor say 48 militants were killed but deny any civilians were killed.In its most recent report, the United Nations said there had been a 52% increase in civilian casualties from airstrikes in the first nine months of the year to 205 killed and 261 wounded. The issue has particular resonance in Kunduz because it was there that 42 civilians were killed in a US airstrike on a hospital run by medical aid group Médecins sans Frontières during fighting to regain the city from the Taliban in 2015. Topics Afghanistan US military United Nations South and Central Asia news

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

At a panel discussion on fighting racial injustice last week, Denise Young Smith, Apple’s first-ever vice president of diversity and inclusion, made a surprising remark.“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blonde men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” she said at the panel, held in Bogotá, Colombia and moderated by Quartz.The comment followed Young Smith’s broader response to a question about where her diversity and inclusivity efforts would focus. “I focus on everyone,” she said. “Diversity is the human experience. I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”At the session, Young Smith’s answers were met with applause. But on Saturday (Oct. 14), she issued an apology to her Apple team members for “some comments” she made at the event. “I regret the choice of words I used to make this point,” she wrote in an email obtained by TechCrunch. “I understand why some people took offense. My comments were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it.”Young Smith doesn’t specify which remarks she regrets, but her comment about “white, blue-eyed, blonde men” certainly received the most pushback. You can read her full email below:Colleagues,I have always been proud to work for Apple in large part because of our steadfast commitment to creating an inclusive culture. We are also committed to having the most diverse workforce and our work in this area has never been more important. In fact, I have dedicated my twenty years at Apple to fostering and promoting opportunity and access for women, people of color and the underserved and unheard. Last week, while attending a summit in Bogota, I made some comments as part of a conversation on the many factors that contribute to diversity and inclusion. I regret the choice of words I used to make this point. I understand why some people took offense. My comments were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it. For that, I’m sorry. More importantly, I want to assure you Apple’s view and our dedication to diversity has not changed. Understanding that diversity includes women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and all underrepresented minorities is at the heart of our work to create an environment that is inclusive of everyone. Our commitment at Apple to increasing racial and gender diversity is as strong as it’s ever been. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made, but there is much work to be done. I’m continually reminded of the importance of talking about these issues and learning from each other. Best,Denise

In August, Donald Trump crossed his arms and proclaimed that North Korea would face “fire, fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen” should it continue to threaten the United States.Today, North Korea continued to do just that, launching its most advanced ICBM yet and boasting that all of mainland America is now within its range.Now what?Given Trump’s earlier rhetoric, the question now is whether he’ll feel the need for even more dramatic language. “That’s what I worry about,” Philip Coyle, a senior fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told Wired. “That this sets off a chain of responses and counter-responses that keeps escalating.”Such fears are not unjustified. In September, Trump suggested in a tweet that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “won’t be around much longer.” North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, then told reporters the tweet was “clearly a declaration of war,” adding for good measure that his country has “the right to shoot down the United States’ strategic bombers even when they’re not yet inside the airspace border of our country.”Interpreting the tweet as a declaration of war was “absurd,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later. But misinterpretation and miscalculations are entirely possible in international affairs.Trump has shown himself more than willing to use bluster even though nuclear weapons are involved, making the stakes of a misinterpretation unthinkable. A few weeks ago, senators from both sides of the aisle held a hearing on whether the president should continue to have the sole authority to launch a nuclear attack—the first such hearing in more than 40 years.So far, Trump has reacted with unusual restraint to North Korea’s latest missile test, telling reporters, “I can only tell you that we will take care of it… It is a situation that we will handle.”Whether he can refrain from using more colorful language in the days ahead remains to be seen.

For a man who describes himself as a master deal-maker, Trump’s first year in office has seen remarkably few deals.Much of this is down to the Republican party’s distrust of Trump. But while some members of Congress, of the Senate, and of the conservative commentariat have chuntered behind closed doors before eventually falling in line with the president, others have stood up to Trump and actively resisted his goals.These people aren’t exactly liberal heroes, and they have their own reasons and agendas for their resistance. But in one way or another, some conservatives have stood up to the Trump government. Here we highlight a few of them.The Arizona senator released a book in August that criticized Trump and the Republican party as a whole. Flake said he was concerned about the “nationalism,” “populism,” and “xenophobia” he saw in the GOP, and compared Nixon’s “madman theory” – a strategy the 37th president used to convince his enemies that he was dangerous, to Trump’s behavior.“Absent strategy, we are left with no theory, just the madman,” Flake wrote.Flake opposed Trump during the election and in the early months of his presidency, but since October, when Flake announced he was not seeking reelection, he has emerged as an even more powerful anti-Trump voice.“I will not be complicit,” Flake said in a Senate speech announcing his decision. “We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country – the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations.”When Trump retweeted a series of anti-Muslim videos originally posted by a far-right British politicians, Flake was one of the few to call out the president’s behavior as “inappropriate”.And in the Alabama special election earlier this month, Flake backed Doug Jones – writing a $100 check to the Democrat’s campaign. After Jones’s victory was confirmed Flake posted a two word tweet: “Decency wins.”The long-time Fox News journalist has punctured Trump’s balloon time and again during his midday show Shepard Smith Reporting. In December Smith said it was “a lie” that the Russia collusion investigation was, as Trump has called it “fake news”.In November Smith debunked a conspiracy theory – promoted by Trump – that Hillary Clinton had approved the sale of uranium to Russia in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.And in July, Smith, referring to the Trump administration’s statements on the infamous meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower, asked on his show: “Why is it lie after lie after lie?” (He also described “the deception” by the government as “mind-boggling”.)Smith’s show serves as a rare dose of truth telling on a Fox News channel that has firmly thrown its weight behind Trump. It hasn’t gone down well with some viewers however – many of whom have used social media to call for Smith to be fired.Collins is the Republican senator who has most frequently voted against the president’s wishes. According to FiveThirtyEight the Maine senator has voted in line with Trump 81.5% of the time – while the majority of her GOP colleagues have stuck with the president’s position in over 90% of their votes.Most importantly, Collins was one of the senators who doomed Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the Senate, repeatedly voting against her own party and outspoken in her criticism of her colleagues. Announcing her opposition to a GOP healthcare bill in September, Collins described the legislation – which the CBO said would strip health insurance from millions of Americans – as “deeply flawed”. The Maine senator added that the bill would have a “substantially negative impact on the number of people covered by insurance”. It was a surprising – and brave – stance against something which had essentially been the GOP’s platform for the previous eight years.On the president himself, Collins said during the election campaign that she would not vote for Trump, and more recently has been critical of Trump’s use of Twitter – even if that criticism was rather tepid. “The president needs to remember that his every word he speaks matters now that he is president of the United States,” she said in October.Like many on this list, Collins’ opposition to Trump has not been consistent. In December she voted for the Republican tax bill – which would grant disproportionately benefit the wealthiest.The conservative commentator, Republican operative and founder of the conservative Weekly Standard supported Sarah Palin for John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. But Donald Trump was a step too far for Kristol, who was a vocal critic of the New York businessman during the presidential election campaign and has not let up since the president took office.In June, after Trump tweeted a video of him beating up a human figure with a CNN logo for a head, Kristol said the US was “recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome”. He has regularly used his column in the Weekly Standard to denounce Trump – he called him a “talented demagogue” in a September post, and as recently as November Kristol claimed that Trump was “bringing out my inner liberal” in a post on Twitter.Earlier in the year Kristol was also said to be in discussions about creating a “Committee not to renominate the president” in 2020. We’ll have to wait to see if that happens.The Arizona senator has always been known as an independent voice in the Republican party. But his readiness to go against the president has taken observers by surprise. After Collins, McCain is the GOP senator who has most often voted against Trump, and like Collins, he voted against the Republicans’ attempt to repeal Obamacare in September.McCain voted against a different version of the GOP healthcare bill in July. Less than two weeks after undergoing surgery for recently diagnosed brain cancer, McCain returned to DC to cast his “no” vote in a moment of high political drama.The Arizona senator has at times seemed emboldened since his July return to the Senate, and has repeatedly criticized Trump – most forcefully in a September op-ed in the Washington Post. In the current climate, McCain wrote, “Congress must govern with a president who has no experience of public office, is poorly informed and can be impulsive in his speech and conduct.” It was as succinct a takedown as any a Democrat could manage. Topics Donald Trump Republicans US Senate US Congress features

Bang in the middle of India’s biggest festival season, Amazon has thrown a surprise.The American e-commerce giant picked up a 5% stake in Shoppers Stop, a Mumbai-based departmental-store chain, for an estimated Rs179.25 crore ($27 million), according to a filing made (pdf) to BSE on Sept. 23 by the two companies. The stake purchase is routed through Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings, the e-tailer’s investment arm.The Jeff Bezos-led firm, through its local entity Amazon Seller Services, has also entered into a retailing partnership (pdf) with Shoppers Stop. Under the partnership, the two companies will run joint marketing campaigns. Also, Shoppers Stop will list its entire portfolio of over 400 brands on Amazon.in and the e-commerce portal will open its “experience centers” at the offline retailer’s stores.At a time when online retailers are taking the omnichannel route, this deal is likely to give Amazon an edge over competitors, particularly its closest rival, the home-grown Flipkart.“Online retailers have realised that they need some kind of offline play. With this deal, Amazon has made a very intelligent start while Flipkart is still trying to figure out its strategy,” Ankur Bisen, vice president at management consulting firm Technopak, told Quartz.Of late, Indian e-commerce has slowed down. Online retailers have struggled to make inroads into smaller cities, particularly due to poor infrastructure and slow internet speeds.Many have realised the need for an omnichannel strategy, selling online as well as offline, which helps reach even those who like to touch and feel before buying. Stores on high streets and in prominent markets also help retailers first grab shoppers’ attention and then convert them into online buyers.Among e-tailers that have so far opened physical stores are Urban Ladder, PepperFry, Zivame, Nykaa, and Firstcry. Not surprisingly, India’s largest home-grown e-commerce firm, Bengaluru-based Flipkart, has been keen, too.“Basically we want to have some sort of a connect with the offline world as well—this is one of our upcoming initiatives, but it’s not something that’s out there yet. As we are looking ahead and trying to grow the market and win over the next three-five years, there are a few things we need to do,” Flipkart’s engineering chief Ravi Garikipati told the Mint newspaper in October 2016.In March, the company’s fashion subsidiary, Myntra, opened its first store in Bengaluru.However, with the Shoppers Stop stake in its kitty, Amazon now has access to a wide offline presence with established footfalls.Amazon will set up its own experience centers across Shoppers Stop’s 80 outlets across India, a company statement (pdf) said, without sharing functional details. These stores will now “bring in the touch and feel aspect on Amazon.in’s exclusive assortment,” it said.“The Shoppers Stop deal is in line with Amazon’s global strategy. The company recently bought organic groceries chain Whole Foods in the US. So they are experimenting with the same strategy in India,” Bisen of Technopak said. “Even though the stake is small, there is no doubt that Amazon will leverage from its deal with Shoppers Stop.”Meanwhile, Amazon is not the only party benefiting from the deal.Shoppers Stop posted a revenue of Rs3,648.04 crore and a Rs19.94 crore loss in the financial year 2017. It will use the funds from the Amazon deal to expand its offline and online business. The partnership will also help it expand into tier 2 and 3 cities.

Mr. Trump has encouraged Saudi Arabia and its allies “to be more forceful against Iran, and to take more charge of their own neighborhood, and they have taken that to heart,” Mr. Jordan said. “They know America will have their back.”Saudi Arabia also said Monday that it would “temporarily” close Yemen’s land, sea and air ports of entry in response to the missile firing, in order to tighten inspections and stop any weapons shipments. It pledged to provide for “the continuation of the entry and exit of humanitarian supplies and crews.”However, the United Nations said that two aid flights scheduled for Monday had not been allowed to depart for Yemen.“We’re trying to see whether we can get our normal access restored,” Farhan Haq, a United Nations spokesman, said at a daily briefing. “We underscored to all parties the need for regular humanitarian access.”The United Nations considers Yemen, the Middle East’s poorest country, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian emergencies. Roughly 17 million people — 60 percent of the population — need food assistance, and seven million are at risk of famine. Nearly 900,000 Yemenis have been sickened by cholera.Saudi Arabia accompanied its accusations against Iran with the announcement that it would pay bounties of up to $30 million for information leading to the capture of 40 Houthi leaders in Yemen.“We fear nothing,” one leader on the list, Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, said in a defiant speech on Monday in the Yemeni capital, Sana.

Israel’s political and military leadership appears to have concluded that a conflict with Lebanon’s Hezbollah is becoming increasingly likely, despite months of growing warnings that a third Lebanese war would be more dangerous and deadly than the last war in 2006. The mounting tensions on the northern border with Syria and Lebanon have increased in recent months as Israel has recognised its assumption that Hezbollah – a key ally fighting with the Assad regime – would be chewed up in a protracted Syrian conflict is badly mistaken as the war has turned rapidly in Bashar al-Assad’s favour.Instead the Iranian-backed group appears to be emerging from the Syrian war as a battle-hardened and largely conventional military force whose missiles have been heavily resupplied by Tehran despite dozens of Israeli airstrikes on convoys and depots.Amid threats by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel would intervene rather than allow Iran or Iranian-backed groups to establish themselves on Israel’s border, the sense of growing risk of conflict has been given added impetus in the recent convergence of Israeli, Saudi Arabian and US rhetoric against Iran.In Israel, however, the talk of war with Hezbollah has escalated. with top military and political figures detailing the probable shape of a future conflict, and Israel’s then air force chief suggesting that Lebanon could be subjected to a huge aerial bombardment in the opening days of a campaign with civilian casualties highly probable.“If a war breaks out in the northern arena we need to act with full force from the beginning,” Israel’s outgoing air force commander, Maj Gen Amir Eshel, told the Herzliya conference in June shortly before stepping down. “What we could do in 34 days during the second Lebanon war we can now do in 48 to 60 hours. The growth of our strength has not been linear.“This is potential power unimaginable in its scope, much different to what we have seen in the past and far greater than people estimate.”Speaking at a ceremony in October, Israel’s combative rightwing defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, suggested that the Lebanese military could also be considered an enemy combatant alongside Hezbollah.“We’re talking about Hezbollah and the Lebanese military and, unfortunately, this is the reality,” he told soldiers at Israel’s military headquarters, suggesting that the Lebanese army had lost its independence and had become an integral part of Hezbollah’s network. “If war breaks out in the north, we have to open with all our strength from the start,” Lieberman said.The reality, however, is that despite remarks by Netanyahu in talking up the coincidence of Saudi-led Sunni opposition to Iran and its proxies in the Middle East, the recent bellicose Saudi moves complicate issues for Israel. Israeli commentators – as well as the former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro – have also warned of the risk of Israel getting sucked into a conflict on Saudi terms.“It is plausible that the Saudis are trying to create the context for a different means of contesting Iran in Lebanon – an Israeli-Hezbollah war,” said Shapiro in an op-ed.He added: “Israeli leaders will want to take care not to find themselves backed into a premature confrontation by the manoeuvres of their allies who sit in Riyadh.”Shapiro has not been alone in warning of the risk. The military commentator of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Amos Harel, delivered a similar warning, not least over an unplanned escalation from “a local incident gone out of control”. “If Saudi Arabia is deliberately stoking the flames between the sides [Israel and Hezbollah], this becomes a tangible danger.”Other commentators have pointed to Saudi Arabian policy in Syria, Yemen and Qatar that has been as reckless as it has been ineffective, warning an intervention in Lebanon would result in a stronger Iranian influence there.The reality, as made clear by the head of the Israeli military’s intelligence directorate, Herzl Halevi, in a speech last year is that any conflict in the north with Hezbollah would “not be simple or easy”.Since the war in 2006 Hezbollah has emerged as the most capable and resilient non-state military actor, with 20,000 full-time and highly trained fighters, 25,000 reservists and upwards of 100,000 missiles, according to estimates.Recent large-scale Israeli war games suggest too that any conflict could play out in an entirely different way to the last war, with 1,500-2,000 rockets being fired per day and even efforts to infiltrate Israeli communities by fighters crossing the border.Then there is the wider question of whether a limited war could be contained without bringing in other actors.Writing in Foreign Affairs in October, Dmitry Adamsky, who teaches diplomacy and strategy at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, asked a question long festering in the background.“Israeli strategists do not question the likelihood of a war with Hezbollah,” wrote Adamsky. “But they wonder how Russia, which is a comrade-in-arms with Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, would respond to such a conflict.”Finally, if there is one thing mitigating in favour of rhetoric rather than military action, it is the reputation of Netanyahu for being as chronically risk averse as he is fond of making big threats over the years. Topics Israel Lebanon Hezbollah Iran Syria Middle East and North Africa Benjamin Netanyahu analysis

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs during a visit to the world headquarters of Snap-On Inc, a tool manufacturer, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S., April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque(Reuters) - A group of chief executive officers at the largest U.S. companies expressed serious concern about the Trump administration’s immigration policy and said the rules increase uncertainty and undermine economic growth. In the letter signed by 59 CEOs including Tim Cook of Apple Inc (AAPL.O), JPMorgan Chase & Co’s (JPM.N) Jamie Dimon and Doug Parker of American Airlines (AAL.O), the executives said that many of their employees were now facing uncertainty due to issues such as ‘inconsistent immigration decisions’ that would likely curtail work permits for spouses of skilled immigrants. “As the federal government undertakes its legitimate review of immigration rules, it must avoid making changes that disrupt the lives of thousands of law-abiding and skilled employees, and that inflict substantial harm on U.S. competitiveness,” the CEOs said in a letter dated Wednesday. The CEOs are a part of the Business Roundtable, which is a lobbying group and is currently chaired by Dimon. While Business Roundtable has been discussing immigration policy for years, the letter was prompted by specific recent regulatory actions taken by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is soon expected to revoke work authorization eligibility for spouses. “Together, the USCIS actions significantly increase the likelihood that a long-term employee-who has followed the rules and who has been authorized by the U.S. government multiple times to work in the United States-will lose his or her status,” the letter said. “At a time when the number of job vacancies are reaching historic highs due to labor shortages, now is not the time restrict access to talent,” the letter added. The government should not change the rules in the middle of the process as it could result in unnecessary costs and complications, the executives said in a letter to the Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Nielsen, a Trump appointee, told reporters at a White House briefing on Thursday that the administration was only strictly enforcing the law. “This administration did not create a policy of separating families ... What has changed is that we no longer exempt entire classes of people who break the law,” she said. Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in BengaluruOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

“I don’t think this will hurt from a business perspective,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a former prosecutor who specializes in legal ethics. “It is not going to harm his reputation with most clients. When you hire Boies, you are hiring an aggressive lawyer.”That assertive, sometimes belligerent, style has made Mr. Boies a favorite in the business world. Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire investor, hired him to do battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission when it was deciding how long to bar him from the securities industry for failing to adequately monitor employees charged with insider trading. Maurice R. Greenberg, the former head of American International Group, tapped Mr. Boies and his team to deal with a long-running civil fraud case filed against him.And Mr. Boies is no stranger to controversy. His decision in 1997 to leave Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a longtime legal powerhouse, came about because he wanted to represent George Steinbrenner, who owned the New York Yankees, in a suit against Major League Baseball. Lawyers at Cravath objected because the firm also represented Time Warner, which owned the Atlanta Braves.So Mr. Boies started his own firm, which grew quickly. Some critics said his affinity for high-profile cases led him to take on more work than he could handle.“My wife says I have a hard time saying no,” Mr. Boies said in a 2002 interview.Occasionally, he worked for little or no money. He charged a reduced fee, for instance, to represent the federal government in its failed attempt to break up Microsoft on antitrust grounds. His videotaped deposition of Bill Gates, one of the company’s founders, is remembered as a classic example of the art of cross-examination.And a casual follower of his career might take Mr. Boies for a champion of progressive causes. He represented Al Gore in the 2000 recount litigation that culminated in the Supreme Court decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush.

A family in India needs fresh water. But this family can’t just turn on a tap. Instead, the women in the household must walk to fetch it, sometimes travelling miles carrying plastic or earthenware pots, possibly with a child or two in tow, to the nearest safe source—regularly repeating the journey up to three times a day. In the scorching summer months of April and May, when temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees, it is a particularly gruelling daily ritual—and when they get home they must complete their other household chores: cooking, washing, bringing up the children, even helping on the family farm.These women are reminiscent of the many-armed Hindu goddess Durga—they have so many daily tasks, they could doubtless do with an extra set of hands. But they aren’t the exception. This is the reality for millions of women in India. From the Western Ghats and the mountainous north-east to the arid desert state of Rajasthan, women across the country act as water collectors. And this gender-specific role has a severe impact on every aspect of their lives, from their health and social life to education and their ability to have a real say in the community.It is estimated that 163 million Indians still don’t have access to clean, running water. Until that’s fixed, this significant national problem will prevail, with women paying the biggest price.Water collection in India is a woman’s job, irrespective of her physique—and there’s no respite, even when she’s menstruating, ill, or has something else to do. As groundwater resources are placed under increasing pressure due to over-reliance and unsustainable consumption, wells, ponds and tanks can also regularly dry up, escalating the water crisis and placing a greater burden on women to travel long distances. Access to unsafe drinking water also results in the spread of water-borne diseases. And women are often the first victims of both water scarcity and water pollution.In urban areas, long queues of women with colourful plastic water pots are eye-catching. But such images also highlight problems of water scarcity and the long waits they endure for the water tankers that deliver it in cities.When girls have to drop out of school to help their mothers collect water and perform other household tasks, they are denied their right to education—which is now a fundamental right under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. The saying goes: “Educate a woman, and she shall educate her family”—well, not these women. And because they’re missing out on the opportunities education provides, so are their other family members.Collecting water is an irksome journey, especially in dry areas during heat waves. But it can be a dangerous one, too. Women may risk physical attack, for example, or abuse. The situation is made worse by the lack of adequate sanitation facilities both at home and en route to the water source. And things are even worse for women from the lower strata of society who are even denied access to water sources like public wells. This caste discrimination persists even though the Indian Constitution—which ensures equal access to public wells without any discrimination based on religion, race, caste, and sex—is 70 years old.India is a federal democratic country divided into the centre (or union government), 29 states, and seven union territories. The power to make laws is divided between the union government and the states as per Schedule 7 of the Constitution of India, 1950. Accordingly, state governments can legislate on issues related to water, except for those matters involving inter-state rivers and water disputes.However, the central government has also initiated several programmes and policies to ensure universal access to water in rural and urban areas, such as the National Rural Drinking Water Programme. Access to water is, after all, a fundamental right, covered by the “right to life” that is guaranteed by the Constitution. Indeed, Indian law far predates the international human rights regime on this. The broader human right to water was only recognised in 2002 under General Comment 15 of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).The three obligations on states regarding the human right to water—“respect, protect and fulfill”—have been recognised by the Indian courts in several cases (such as Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar, 1991 and Vishala Kochi Kudivella Samprakshana Samiti v State of Kerala, 2006). However, there is no legislation in India that explicitly recognises and implements this fundamental right to water. Instead, every five years, each new government brings with it its own pet programmes for water supply—and none of them has genuinely addressed the issue of water collection for women nor suggested any practical way to ease their burden.Several parts of India face severe water scarcity and drought during the summer months. The reason for this water scarcity lies at the grass-roots level—unsustainable water consumption and unscientific ways of managing water supply. Traditional water sources and groundwater recharging points, such as tanks, ponds, canals and lakes, are either neglected, polluted or used or filled in for other purposes.Only with the constructive involvement of all of society’s stakeholders can this problem be solved. And it must be solved soon. With the increasing threat of climate change, water scarcity could soon be an irreparable issue—and not just for women, but for everyone in society.Gayathri D Naik, research scholar, School of Law, SOAS, University of London. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

Finally, some fake news I can get behind. Indeed, I can’t help feeling it is fake news I am literally behind, having pointed out the top-level conspiracy last Friday evening, within seconds of NBC tweeting a video of Donald Trump being interviewed at a Secret Service training facility while Melania stood silently next to him. “Absolutely convinced Melania is being played by a Melania impersonator these days,” my painstaking investigation read. “Theory: she left him weeks ago.”Imagine my pride to find that by Thursday morning, this cobblers had percolated all the way up to news Valhalla – AKA sections on Good Morning Britain and Sky News – having been fanned by various nutjob social media accounts in the US. Furthermore, it had been smartened up for appearance in the Washington Post and USA Today and so on. In the case of Sky News, the entire backdrop was given over to a splitscreen of “Melania” at the Secret Service facility and a verified Melania image, with the chyron demanding: “DOES THE FIRST LADY HAVE A BODY DOUBLE?”Well, now. To be honest, I had feared the process of creating conspiracy-based fake news would be a lot more inconvenient – I was concerned I’d have to go to that Macedonian town and hang out with the emo teens or whoever it was whose fake news farm skewed the US election for the Russkies. But I needn’t have worried. It turned out to be something I could do in a few moments while exiting South Kensington tube station.As you will note, this lone act of rogue content creation has now given me an item for this week’s column. In business terms, I have vertically integrated, and now control my own supply line of facetious bullshit, about which some more facetious bullshit can be written in due course. It is, quite simply, the dream. In five years’ time I will have taken this column completely off the standard news grid, growing all its own content, and running a China-level trade surplus with fringe lunacy outlets like Infowars and the Daily Express.Not that the episode doesn’t raise serious questions. Specifically, where is actual Melania? Alas, according to several other photos taken at the Secret Service training facility – which show the First Lady without her sunglasses and looking exactly the same as always – the answer is: she is with her husband in the White House. But in my parallel fake news universe, I think we all know our plucky heroine has masterminded an escape akin to that effected by Julia Roberts in Sleeping With the Enemy. I imagine that Melania is currently blonde, hyper-cautious, and attempting to settle as unobtrusively as possible into the population of a small town somewhere in Missouri, where she works on a volunteer basis at a centre offering counselling and support to refugees and immigrants.Please don’t try to find her. Not least because I plan to engage a looky-likey to be photographed doing just this, then release my findings into the news stream at the precise moment that will make next week’s column the perfect moment to discuss it all. Topics Celebrity Lost in showbiz Melania Trump Donald Trump The news on TV Television features

Enlarge this image Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh prepares to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday on the third day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh prepares to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday on the third day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Updated at 10:55 p.m. ETSupreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh weathered another long day of questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.He was pressed once again for his views on presidential power.Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sought a promise from Kavanaugh that he would be willing to serve as a check on the president who nominated him."Give us some reassurance about your commitment to the democratic institutions in this country, in the face of a president who seems prepared to cast them aside," Durbin said. "Whether it's voter suppression, the role of the media — case after case, we hear this president willing to walk away from the rule of law in this country." Analysis Kavanaugh's Confirmation Hearings: What's Wrong With This Picture? "No one is above the law," Kavanaugh replied. "I've made clear in my writings that a court order that requires a president to do something or prohibits a president from doing something under the Constitution or laws of the United States is the final word in our system."Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, complained that the Supreme Court had been unduly deferential to President Trump this summer when it upheld his travel ban, despite what she called the administration's "obviously bogus" justification. She pressed Kavanaugh on when the high court should question a president's national security claims. Politics Kavanaugh Hearings, Day 2: More Protests As Senators Press On Precedent "National security is not a blank check for the president," Kavanaugh said, pointing to a number of cases in which the court had overruled the administration. "Even in the context of wartime, the courts are not silenced. Civil liberties are not silent."Kavanaugh told lawmakers he is so committed to judicial independence, he stopped voting in national elections after he became a judge.Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., again asked Kavanaugh if he'd ever spoken with anyone at the law firm of Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, renewing a line of questioning she'd opened Wednesday night. Politics Kavanaugh Defends Controversial Abortion, Gun-Control Dissents "The answer is no," Kavanaugh said.As he's done throughout the hearing, Kavanaugh declined to answer a series of questions from Harris about issues that might come before the high court, including abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration.The White House issued a statement late Thursday praising Kavanaugh."Through long hours and days of questioning, Judge Kavanaugh consistently reinforced his firm belief in the bedrock principles of judicial independence and the rule of law," deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in the statement.Kavanaugh was asked repeatedly during the televised hearing about whether he would support opening the Supreme Court to TV cameras. He promised to keep an open mind, but said he would also want to consider the views of the eight current justices.Thursday's session began with Democrats on the committee in open revolt over the handling of documents from Kavanaugh's tenure in the George W. Bush White House.Some documents have been withheld altogether. Others have been provided to the committee on "confidential" terms, meaning senators can see them but they can't be made public.Democrats object that the confidential label has been applied to a wide swath of records, many of which contain no personal or sensitive information. They also complain that classification decisions were made by former President Bush's attorney, William Burck, a former deputy of Kavanaugh's. Politics Kavanaugh Hearings, Day 1: Protesters Focus On Roe; Attempted Handshake Goes Viral Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., released some of the confidential documents Thursday morning. Hirono also released "confidential" documents, drawing a stern rebuke from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who called them "irresponsible and outrageous.""This is no different from the senator deciding to release classified information," Cornyn said Thursday morning. "No senator deserves to sit on this committee, or serve in the Senate, in my view, if they decide to be a law unto themselves and willingly flout the rules of the Senate and the determination of confidentiality and classification."Read the documents released by Sen. Hirono here and the documents released by Sen. Leahy here. Politics Kavanaugh Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings Off To A Raucous Start For all the theatrics on both sides, the debate over documents fizzled by Thursday afternoon, once it became clear their release had been authorized by Bush's attorney overnight."We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker's staff asked us to," Burck said in a statement. "In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public."And an aide to Grassley told NPR that "counsels for the senators who requested waivers last night/this morning for particular documents were notified that their requests had been honored beginning at around 3:50 this morning."But a spokesperson for Hirono said the senator was not informed that the documents released by her office Thursday morning had been approved to be made public. Politics Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings To Focus On 6 Hot-Button Issues It is not clear whether Booker knew the documents he released had already been approved before his statements Thursday morning at the beginning of the hearing — when he said that his decision to release the documents was a form of civil disobedience and that he was aware he was risking expulsion from the Senate for making the documents public."Cory said this morning that he was releasing committee confidential documents, and that's exactly what he's done," Booker spokeswoman Kristin Lynch said in an email to NPR. "Last night, he was admonished by Republicans for breaking the rules when he read from committee confidential documents. Cory and Senate Democrats were able to shame the committee into agreeing to make last night's documents publicly available, and Cory publicly released those documents as well as other committee confidential documents today. And he'll keep releasing them because Republicans are hiding Brett Kavanaugh's record from the American people." Enlarge this image Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. — sitting next to Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. — questions Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. — sitting next to Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. — questions Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Jacquelyn Martin/AP The documents released by Booker include a batch of emails concerning racial profiling, affirmative action and other race-conscious government programs. Politics Brett Kavanaugh Investigated A President, Then Voiced Concerns About Doing Just That In a 2002 email, Kavanaugh wrote that security procedures adopted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks should ultimately be race-neutral, though he acknowledged that developing such procedures could take time. Others in the White House suggested racial profiling might be legally justified if it enhanced security.In a 2001 email, Kavanaugh addressed a legal challenge to an affirmative action program within the Department of Transportation."The fundamental problem in this case is that these DOT regulations use a lot of legalisms and disguises to mask what in reality is a naked racial set-aside," he wrote.Kavanaugh had sidestepped questions from Booker on Wednesday night about the circumstances in which government can and cannot use race-conscious measures to address past discrimination.He conceded that hopes he expressed nearly two decades ago for a color-blind society have not been fulfilled."We see on an all-too-common basis that racism still exists in the United States of America," Kavanaugh said. "Our long march to racial equality is not over."Separately, The New York Times reported on leaked emails from the "confidential" file. One is an email drafted by Kavanaugh in 2003, in which he questioned whether the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion should be described as "settled law of the land."Pressed on that email by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Thursday, Kavanaugh explained he was simply summarizing views of legal scholars and not offering his own view.On Wednesday, Kavanaugh said he understands the weight that many people attach to Roe. But he declined to say whether that case was properly decided. Law Who Is Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's Pick For The Supreme Court? Throughout the hearing, Kavanaugh has avoided commenting on Trump's behavior, despite urging from Senate Democrats."I'm not going to get within three zip codes of a political controversy," he said Thursday, when Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked him about Trump's attacks on judges, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."I've spoken about my respect and appreciation for the eight justices on the Supreme Court," Kavanaugh said. "I know they're all dedicated public servants who have given a great deal to this country."Barring surprises, Kavanaugh appears likely to win confirmation in time to take his place alongside those eight justices when the Supreme Court begins its fall term next month.Not seeing the video? Click here.

Racially motivated crimes in Northern Ireland now exceed those connected to traditional sectarian bigotry, police figures show.Between July 2016 and June 2017, there were 1,062 racist incidents reported to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). In the same period, police recorded 938 incidents involving traditional religious sectarianism.Yet 83% of recorded race hate crimes did not result in a prosecution nor even a warning to offenders, according to the latest data from the PSNI.The figures appear to be back anecdotal evidence of a rise in racially motivated attacks in the region. They show that every day in Northern Ireland someone from an ethnic minority is either being assaulted or having their property attacked.Human rights organisations said the low level of prosecutions for race crimes was due in large part to the involvement of loyalist paramilitary organisations or those connected to these terror groups.Amnesty International said the presence and continued existence of paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland was “a major part of the backdrop to the problem”. Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty’s programme director for Northern Ireland, said racists were operating with “near impunity” given the lack of convictions. “Uniquely, compared to the rest of the UK, we have the presence of paramilitaries here, which is clearly a large factor in why there is such a low rate for convictions or even cautions being given out to offenders,” Corrigan said.“Obviously, in certain communities, if the people involved in racist intimidation are connected or perceived to be connected to paramilitary organisations then there is reluctance among the public to give evidence against them. Because people prepared to come forward would know that they could be next.”The PSNI told the Guardian it would like to see an increase in prosecutions in terms of detecting race hate reports and crimes. Superintendent Emma Bond of the PSNI said the force had reviewed its training and procedures to ensure that officers put forward the best possible evidence to the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland.She said: “However, we also recognise that a prosecution isn’t always the only outcome victims want, which is why we work closely with our partners to ensure that the needs of every individual victim are heard and taken into account throughout the criminal justice process. “For example, in some cases victims do not wish for a prosecution to take place, only that the person responsible is spoken to.”On the issue of loyalist paramilitary connections to rising racism, Bond added: “There may be a range of reasons why a victim does not wish to progress matters through the courts, and while some hate crimes could be attributed to individuals with links to criminal organisations, it is a very small number. “There is, however, strong evidence that in certain parts of Northern Ireland there has been direct involvement by members of Ulster loyalist terror groups in racist intimidation.So far this year there has been a spike in racist attacks in predominantly loyalist east Belfast, which have been directed against mainly eastern European immigrants. In a single night last month, there were three racially motivated hate crimes in a number of streets close by to each other. In what appeared to be a coordinated series of arson attacks, two cars and a minibus owned by immigrants were set on fire in the Woodstock/Ravenhill area.These incidents occurred shortly after a local unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force was blamed for intimidating four Catholic families out of a proposed religiously mixed housing development close by. Nationalist politicians said the same UVF unit, connected to the organisation’s East Belfast Battalion, was behind the series of racist attacks a few days later. Topics Northern Ireland Hate crime Police Race Crime news

The death knell may have sounded over The Weinstein Company (TWC) name but Hollywood rivals believe the business has a secure future – without its disgraced co-founder – due to a legacy of hits including The King’s Speech and Silver Linings Playbook, as well as a strong slate of upcoming releases.The independent studio, mired in the Harvey Weinstein abuse scandal, has put itself up for sale and this week TWC secured an emergency injection of cash from private equity firm Colony Capital, which is also in talks to buy all or part of the business. Last year, Weinstein said that the business, including its library, was worth up to $800m (£600m) and had no debt. What is certain now, however, is that the brand is worthless. Harvey’s brother Bob, who owns a combined 42% of the business with his sibling, has already said the company will be renamed but entertainment industry investors are more interested in the Weinstein back catalogue. A string of titles, including Quentin Tarantino’s most recent films such as Django Unchained and Oscar winners such as The Artist, are being eyed by bidders, as well as a TV division that co-produced Netflix’s Marco Polo and the BBC’s War & Peace. “The death star is imploding,” said Eric Schiffer, chief executive of Los Angeles-based private equity firm Patriarch Organization. “The old company will be burnt to ashes but the assets will survive. There are some very valuable properties.”However, the problem with attempting to value future exploitation of any films or TV shows associated with TWC is that the scandal shows no signs of abating.An allegation of sexual harassment has been levelled at Bob Weinstein and he denies the claim. And TWC president David Glasser, whose close ties with the Weinsteins have seen him called the “third brother”, is under pressure over what he knew of Harvey’s decades-long behaviour.Any deal will have to be structured to insulate the buyer from the potentially crippling costs of legal action arising from the 30-plus allegations. An outright acquisition of the company could include a stipulation that a sum of money is set aside to cover legal liabilities. Or TWC could file for bankruptcy, with a buyer such as Colony waiting in the wings to buy the main assets, which would protect it from inheriting legal liabilities.Of immediate focus is the fate of the seven films that the Weinstein Company has scheduled for release over the next five months. Bob Weinstein has guaranteed that the company will back the release of horror film Polaroid, Paddington 2 and Robert De Niro comedy War with Grandpa.There is also a question mark over an awards contender starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The Sherlock actor plays inventor Thomas Edison in The Current War and has said he is “utterly disgusted” by Weinstein’s actions. The film was due to be released next month, but has now been put back to 2018 in a bid to spare its awards ambitions from being affected by the scandal.There have been reports that agents have been pushing the company to sell the other finished, or nearly finished films, due for release by March. Those films include: The Upside, a comedy starring Kevin Hart and Nicole Kidman; and Mary Magdalene starring Rooney Mara. Mark Wahlberg’s Six Billion Dollar Man, a remake of the hit 1970s TV show, is pencilled in for release in 2019.An executive working on one upcoming Weinstein project said that no stars or production companies want to have their films tainted by association with TWC. “It is like the plague, no one wants to catch it,” said the executive. Citing two established Hollywood studios and two independent producers as potential destinations, he added. “Everyone would rather take their work to a Fox, Universal, A24 or a Bleecker Street if they could.”However, films within a few months of release are typically paid for and locked into TWC contracts. But if Colony agrees a rescue deal it is likely to focus on two factors: retaining the best TWC films that are currently in development; and making money from the intellectual property, whether earning revenues from TWC’s extensive back catalogue in sales to broadcasters and streaming companies, or making spin-offs of existing titles.“Can they afford to make delivery payments and the often tens of millions of dollars to market each of the theatrical releases coming up?” said the executive. “The Weinsteins and Colony will try and cherrypick the films and projects they want to pay for and hold on to, valuable ones – there is no way they would give up on a Paddington for example.”The first Paddington film came out in 2015 and grossed $268m globally and was the Weinsteins’ eighth biggest film success in the US. The sequel, which comes out in the UK in December and the US in January, is likely to be another cash cow – its biggest since Django Unchained in 2012 – and the company has already made it clear it wants to hold on to the US distribution rights.The Weinsteins have put out 94 films since 2010 with the top five grossing more than $1.5bn internationally, according to Box Office Mojo. Analysts estimate that the lifetime value of a film can be as much as double what it makes at the box office. For example, The King’s Speech made just over $400m globally in cinemas but has probably amassed about $1bn once its post-multiplex takings are included. About 25% of the $1bn is from the ever-shrinking DVD market, maybe 15% to 20% from pay-TV broadcasters for premiere rights and 10% (and growing) from services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple, according to Ampere Analysis.Colony has invested in Weinstein properties before. In 2010 it bought their original studio, Miramax, long after the brothers had sold it to Disney in 1993. Colony made a quick profit on the $660m deal, selling the business and its 700-film back catalogue – for hits such as Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction – to Qatari broadcaster BeIn Media last year for a rumoured $1bn.The Miramax deal shows why TWC could yet survive in a different form, and make a sizable return for the disgraced Harvey Weinstein.“It is about the library,” says Patriarch Organization’s Schiffer. “In a year from now when what has been the greatest of abuses of power has dissipated from the memories of the majority of the public those movies will live on, especially with The Weinstein Company excised from credits. Investors know this. Acquiring some of these assets now might look to be one of the best investments in modern Hollywood history.”1. Django Unchained (2012) Worldwide box office: $425m (£323m)Director: Quentin TarantinoStars: Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprioNominated for five Oscars, won two2. The King’s Speech (2010)Worldwide box office: $414mDirector: Tom HooperStars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey RushNominated for 12 Oscars, won four3. Inglourious Basterds (2009)Worldwide box office: $321mDirector: Quentin TarantinoStars: Brad Pitt, Mike MyersNominated for eight Oscars, one win4. Paddington (2015)Worldwide box office: $268mDirector: Paul KingStars: Hugh Bonneville, Sally HawkinsNo Oscar nominations5. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)Worldwide box office: $236mDirector: David O RussellStars: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer LawrenceNominated for eight Oscars, one win6. The Imitation Game (2014)Worldwide box office: $233.5mDirector: Morten TyldumStars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira KnightleyNominated for eight Oscars, one win7. Scary Movie 4 (2006)Worldwide box office: $178mDirector: David ZuckerStars: Anna Faris, Regina HallNo Oscar nominations8. Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013)Worldwide box office: $176.6mDirector: Lee DanielsStars: Forest Whitaker, Oprah WinfreyNo Oscar nominations9. The Hateful Eight (2015)Worldwide box office: $155.8mDirector: Quentin TarantinoStars: Zoe Bell, Demian BichirNominated for three Oscars, one win10. Lion (2016)Worldwide box office: $140mDirector: Garth DavisStars: Dev Patel, Nicole KidmanNominated for six Oscars11. The Artist (2011)Worldwide box office: $133mDirector: Michel HazanaviciusStars: Jean Dujardin, Berenice BejoNominated for 10 Oscars, five wins Topics Harvey Weinstein Film industry Mergers and acquisitions news