Jimmy Fllon took to Instagram on August 21 to share his latest painful-looking mishap.
The Tonight Show host had another injury in late June, when he caught his ring on a desk countertop and nearly tore off his finger.
The new injury is actually related to the old one.
Jimmy Fallon, 40, wrote on Instagram: “Chipped front tooth trying to open tube of scar tissue repair gel for recovering finger injury.
“Thank you Dr. Jobe DDS! #BestSummerEver Brand new Tonight Show tonight!”
Photo Instagram
In July, Jimmy Fallon shared that his horrifying hand injury required a six-hour surgery and a 10-day stay in the ICU.
“Apparently, the odds aren’t great and usually they just cut your finger off,” Jimmy Fallon told the Tonight Show audience.
He added: “I won’t get feeling back for eight weeks.”
Due to the massive success of his first year taking over the Tonight Show, NBC announced last week that Jimmy Fallon’s hosting contract has been extended for six more years.
North Korea and South Korea are planning to hold top-level talks amid growing tension, the South’s presidential office has announced.
Senior aides to Kim Jong-un and President Park Geun-hye will meet at the Panmunjom truce village on the border at 09:00 GMT, the Blue House said.
North Korea had threatened “strong military action” if South Korea did not stop border loudspeaker broadcasts.
Following an exchange of fire on August 20, North Korea declared a “semi-state of war”, state media reported.
South Korea said that it would be represented by national security adviser Kim Kwang-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo, and North Korea would send senior officials Hwang Pyong-so and Kim Yong-gon.
North Korea had earlier issued a deadline for the dismantling of banks of loudspeakers, which have been blasting news bulletins, weather forecasts and music from South Korea. It had moved artillery into positions to fire on them.
South Korea has evacuated almost 4,000 residents from border areas and warned that it would “retaliate harshly”.
US and South Korean fighter jets have been flying in formation near the border.
The two Koreas remain technically at war, because the 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
In 2004, South Korea and North Korea reached an agreement to dismantle their propaganda loudspeakers at the border.
The broadcasts were part of a program of psychological warfare, according to South Korean newspaper Korea Times, to deliver outside news so that North Korean soldiers and border-area residents could hear it.
On August 10, South Korea restarted broadcasting in an apparent reaction to two South Korean soldiers being injured in a landmine explosion in the demilitarized zone that was blamed on North Korea.
According to military authorities, days later North Korea also restarted its broadcasting of anti-South propaganda.
However, some reports said that the quality of the North Korean loudspeakers is so bad that it is difficult to understand what they are saying.
South Korea had previously threatened to restart broadcasts in 2010 but although the loudspeakers were reinstalled at that time, they were not put into use, with the South using FM broadcasts into North Korea instead.
Americans Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos have received medals for their bravery and hailed as heroes for overpowering a heavily-armed gunman on a train in northern France.
The incident happened on the high-speed Thalys service near Arras, and the attacker was arrested at Arras station.
President Barack Obama praised the passengers, who included two off-duty US military personnel.
The man arrested was a 26-year-old Moroccan. Anti-terrorist officers have taken over the case.
The gunman’s weapons were said to include a Kalashnikov, a knife, an automatic pistol and cartridges.
French authorities said three people were injured, two of them seriously – one with a gunshot wound, the other a knife wound.
France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the attack took place at 17:45 local time on August 21.
French media said the arrested man was known to the intelligence services but he has so far refused to talk to police in Arras.
Photo AFP
Two of the American men who overpowered the gunman, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, are members of the Air Force and the National Guard respectively.
Their friend, Anthony Sadler, was travelling with them and described the scene: “As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, <<Spencer, go!>> And Spencer runs down the aisle.
“Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.”
Chris Norman, a British man living in France, was also hurt while trying to subdue the attacker.
“I came in at the end of it all and helped get him under control,” he said at a news conference in Arras.
“The guy pulled out a cutter and started cutting Spencer – he cut behind his neck and nearly cut his thumb off.”
Spencer Stone remains in hospital.
The passengers included French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, the star of Betty Blue and Nikita, who was lightly wounded breaking glass to sound the alarm.
The American men and Chris Norman were awarded medals for bravery by authorities in Arras.
Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the passengers were “particularly courageous and showed great bravery in very difficult circumstances”, adding: “Without their composure we could have been confronted with a terrible incident.”
“The president expressed his profound gratitude for the courage and quick thinking of several passengers, including US service members, who selflessly subdued the attacker,” the White House said in a statement.
“It is clear that their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy.”
Belgian PM Charles Michel called the incident a “terrorist attack”.
Images shared on social media appeared to show a man being restrained on the station platform in Arras.
One photograph showed an injured man in a blue top and jeans lying on the floor of the train.
French rail firm SNCF said there had been 554 people on board the train.
Thalys said several trains had been delayed in the wake of the attack.
France has been on edge since the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January, which left 17 people dead.
ISIS deputy leader Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali has been killed in a US military strike in northern Iraq, the White House announces.
Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz, is described by US officials as the second in command of the group.
They said he was killed in an attack on his car in Mosul on August 18, and that his death would damage ISIS operations.
A number of ISIS leaders have been killed by US-led air coalition strikes in both Iraq and Syria in recent months.
Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali was a primary co-ordinator for moving large amounts of weapons, explosives, vehicles and people between Iraq and Syria, the US National Security Council’s Ned Price said in a statement.
In Iraq, Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali was “instrumental in planning operations over the past two years, including the IS offensive in Mosul in June 2014”, Ned Price said.
Photo NY Times
Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali is described as “the senior deputy” to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was reportedly seriously injured in another air strike by the US-led coalition in March 2014.
“Hayali’s death will adversely impact IS’s operations given that his influence spanned IS’s finance, media, operations, and logistics,” Ned Price added.
A second ISIS member who co-ordinated media, known as Abu Abdullah, was killed in the same air strike as Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali.
It comes several months after Iraqi defence officials declared another “IS second-in-command”, Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed, dead in an air strike in northern Iraq.
Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed, also known as Abu Alaa al-Afari, was killed inside a mosque hit by a strike in Tal Afar in May, they reported.
At the time, there were unconfirmed reports Abu Alaa al-Afari had taken temporary charge of ISIS operations amid reports its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had become incapacitated.
In June 2015, the US reported that more than 10,000 IS fighters had been killed since the international coalition began its campaign against the group last summer.
When you’ve exhausted all legal resources, the only solution is physical combat. At least, that’s what one New York lawyer has suggested after two years of ‘absurd’ legal battles with another attorney. Richard Luthmann, 35, has been embroiled in a legal dispute with another lawyer for the last two years, after Luthmann’s former client, David Parker, skipped out on the damages he owed. The attorneys on the winning side of the lawsuit accused Luthmann of helping Parker hide his assets, a charge Luthmann took as an assault on his honor. They decided to sue Luthmann, in a case he calls “baseless”. Since then, he’s been filing motions and counter motions against one of the lawyers. As the attorneys duked it out, the case began to look more and more ludicrous, and became something of a personal grudge between the two.
“This is not a lawsuit anymore; this is an absurdity,” Luthmann told the NY Post. “So I will give them absurdity in kind.” To that end, Luthmann has certainly delivered. He proposed a Game of Thrones style trial by combat, and made the case that such a dispute would be totally legal. In a brief, Luthmann contended that trial by combat, in which two parties agree to settle a dispute in a one-on-one physical fight, has never specifically been outlawed in the state of New York.
Photo Source: heavy.com
“The common law of Britain was in effect in New York in 1776,” he said. “And the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution recognizes the penumbra of those rights. It’s still on the books.” In the brief, filed at the state Supreme Court, Luthmann employs the court to “permit the undersigned (Luthmann) to dispatch plaintiffs and their counsel to the Divine Providence of the Maker for Him to exact His divine judgment once the undersigned has released the souls of the plaintiffs and their counsel from their corporeal bodies, personally and or by way of a champion.”
The brief certainly contains some epic language, and Luthmann gets bonus points for the Game of Thrones references. But will the court ever allow it? It seems Luthmann doesn’t necessarily expect them to, but is using the brief as a form of protest against what he considers unlawful litigation against him. He’s totally willing to settle for his case to be dismissed.
Luthmann also says it’s an experiment concerning the ninth amendment. “The judge may look askance at it, but I’m prepared to take it to the highest level,” Luthmann said. Essentially, he’s seeking to push the envelope and break new ground in the legal arena by setting a precedent. “I’d love to have a court determine whether we have those rights under the Constitution.” He further states that if, by some miracle, the judge actually granted his request, he would prepare for combat by dressing like Robert Baratheon, his favorite Game of Thrones character. This, he says, despite his physical resemblance Gregor Clegane, who we all remember for crushing Oberyn Martell’s skull in the show’s fourth season.
Luthmann’s official website offers a brief biography:
“Mr. Luthmann serves as counsel for several high profile and high net-worth individuals and families including athletes, celebrities, stars of stage and screen, and as advisor to several financial companies and their principals. His practice focuses on trusts and estates, tax planning, asset protection, corporate and securities law and regulation and international financial architecture.”
That’s all well and good, but it fails to answer a question that’s no doubt on the mind of the general public: What is his weapon of choice? According to the NY Post, Luthmann favors a warhammer.
Even before Kids Company went under, people were suspicious the group wasn’t spending money wisely. The UK charity group did indeed have questionable accounting practices, and wasn’t very transparent about where donations and public grants were going. Nobody, however, expected the extent of the charity’s wastefulness to be as dramatic as one former employee claims it was. Notably, she says founder Camila Batmanghelidjh personally wasted money by paying for five personal assistants and a lavishly decorated office.
“Her office was like an Aladdin’s den, with a tree in the middle, it was bizarre,” a former intern told The Telegraph. “I was so pro-Kids Company, but even on day one I just couldn’t believe the waste. The ethos is great and when she first started I think she was very well-intentioned, but having the attention of celebrities around her, her ego seems just to have got bigger and bigger.”
Photo Source: www.tampabay.com
Batmanghelidjh founded Kids Company in 1996, and she’s been highly critical of the government and media for not doing more to save the charity from bankruptcy. Critics say the charity was overemploying people, and some reports estimate £800,000 of a £3,000,000 grant went to paying employee salaries.
“I feel that the charity may have become caught up in the attention of the media and powerful politicians,” says the ex-intern, “as well as becoming overzealous when hiring staff. I felt that it was extremely overstaffed and that the money from salaries could be better spent elsewhere.”
The woman also claims Kids Company coerced children into filling out satisfaction questionnaires to make the company look better, thereby doctoring their own statistics. She thinks the good the charity is actually doing for children remains unknown.
Batmanghelidjh is increasingly coming under fire for her management style and alleged lack of dedication to the cause. “It seemed to me that people really are scared of her. She seemed to have favorites and if you weren’t one that was made clear.”
Phil Frampton, of the White Flowers Campaign Group, said the child care community has grown to resent Batmanghelidjh and her organization. “I think the Government and Batmanghelidjh have behaved despicably in letting the children down,” he said, adding: “They should have ensured that the kids and service users were guaranteed a transition.”
Batmanghelidjh herself has responded to the allegations of waste and resource mishandling, as well as defending her need for five assistants.
“I have very severe learning difficulties so I can’t use a computer and so I have to dictate everything,” she said. “Consequently because I am working from around eight in the morning to about 11 or 12 at night, the PAs have to rotate. When I fundraise I write each letter personally – or I sign it personally, so everything I have to dictate. The reason I have several PAs is that, first, they share the morning and evening slots and, second, one of them has to be a clinical PA because I work therapeutically with children. Because fundraising is so difficult I also have to do a bit of work on a Saturday and a Sunday so the PAs share the Saturday and the Sunday slot as well.”
She adds: “I think all this stuff about waste is unjust – we are actually quite under-resourced. What you’ve got to bear in mind is that we were processing from this office 10,0000 volunteers a year who come in to do all sorts of activities with Kids Company, we have partnerships with 270 companies, from whom we receive volunteers. Then we’ve got another team who are responsible for 500 students from nursing and therapeutic courses coming in to do their work experience, they get processed from the head office.”
She also defended her office decorations, stating:
“The reason the office is quite childlike is that it is not meant as an administrative office only – I also see children for therapy in it and therefore it has got play equipment. It has got a little duck pond so that kids can do their ‘family setting’ stuff there – if they can’t talk directly about something they can use the toys. It has got a lot of trinkets for the kids and the teenagers to use. It is there in that fashion for good reason.”
It’s been a popular TV trope for decades, but for thousands of estranged orphan siblings, the desire to reconnect with their long-lost brother or sister is all too real. One program in San Diego seeks to make reconnecting easier. It’s called Camp Connect, and it saw its biggest turnout yet in the month of August. On the 6th, one hundred and ten children currently in foster care boarded a bus and headed to the campground, where foster children and their siblings converged. Some of them were meeting for the very first time.
14-year-old Anthony Racine was there to reconnect with his two sisters, who had been placed in separate foster homes. “Hang out, as much as possible,” he said, “without getting too attached. Because we all don’t live together.” His 17-year old sister, Tiffany, added: “A bunch of things have happened to our family. There may be cracks and small fissures, but we’re not broken, and we never will be.”
Photo Source: www.fernieconnections.com
The three attended the camp last year, where they spent four days together enjoying being a family once again.
In San Diego County, there are at least 3,195 children in foster care. Recent changes to California state law encourage social workers to keep siblings together whenever possible, but thousands of children are live apart from their siblings, separated when authorities stepped in to handle cases of abuse, abandonment, or unfit living conditions.
Camp Connect’s official website explains the goal of the program:
“Each year, Camp Connect organizes a fun-filled four-day summer camp in the mountains of Julian. At this special camp, siblings connect through activities such as horseback riding, swimming, music therapy and zip lining, among others. Camp provides these children with an environment of fun and safety, allowing them for a short time to set aside their trauma and experience the joy of being a kid. Children not only bond with each other, but also with their adult mentors. Hundreds of San Diegans volunteer their time and energy to work Camp Connect events each year, dedicating themselves to these foster children and supporting a program that provides the best experience possible for brothers and sisters to reconnect and bond.”
They add that of the 2,849 foster children who have siblings, some 500 are eventually separated. “The same brothers and sisters that most often helped them survive their traumatic abuse or neglect, are not there to offer comfort while in foster care,” a statement on their website reads. Indeed, prolonged battles between the state and San Diego family attorneys can leave children in foster care “limbo”, where children aren’t sure if they’ll ever reconnect with their families. During these times, younger children especially rely on comfort and support from their siblings, who share the heartbreaking experience with them.
The camp is a joint effort from San Diego County and the private charitable organization Promises2Kids. It was developed in 2008, when the county and Promises2Kids combined forced and “researched ways to support children in maintaining their family bonds when it is impossible for them to live together in the same placement.”
Their website offers some impressive statistics regarding the program’s success:
70% of children maintain some form of contact (text, email, phone) with siblings between events
70% of children report positive self-esteem and confidence
50% of caregivers notice improved behavior in participant
90% of children describe themselves as happy to see their siblings
70% of children report these events were new experiences
Following the summer program, Camp Connect also offers year-round daytime camps, allowing siblings to stay in touch and engage in fun activates like ice skating, museum trips, and attending ball games.
Stuart “The Brand” Baggs’ funeral was a celebration of the former Apprentice star’s life and achievements, his mother said.
About 200 people attended the service in Douglas which included a montage of childhood photographs set to his favorite Backstreet Boys song.
All those who attended the service at St Ninian’s Church followed his family’s wishes to wear blue.
Stuart Baggs, an entrepreneur from Plymouth, died following an asthma attack last month.
Rosemary Baggs said: “We didn’t want people to wear black – Stuart wouldn’t have wanted that.
“His favorite color was blue so it seemed fitting.”
Stuart Baggs launched his company Bluewave Communications in 2007 and, days before his death at the age of 27, held a press conference to launch his latest product.
When he was aged 21 in 2010, Stuart Baggs became the youngest ever candidate to appear on The Apprentice show.
Stuart Baggs, who was fired in the semi-final, became famous for his one-liners, which included “Everything I touch turns to sold” and “I’m Stuart Baggs the brand”.
Jimmy Carter has revealed he is to be treated for cancerous tumors on the brain, in his first public comments on his illness on August 20.
The former president said he would start his radiation treatment later in the day.
Jimmy Carter, 90, was recently treated for liver cancer, after which it was discovered the disease had spread.
He said he would “cut back fairly dramatically” on public works.
“It is in the hands of God and I am prepared for anything that comes,” he said.
Democrat Jimmy Carter was a relative unknown in the US political world when he was elected president in 1976. He served from 1977 to 1981.
Jimmy Carter told a press conference on August 20 he had at first thought the cancer was confined to his liver and that an operation this month had completely removed it.
However,an MRI scan the same afternoon showed four spots of melanoma on the brain.
“I just thought I had a few weeks left, but I was surprisingly at ease. I’ve had a wonderful life,” he said.
“I have got thousands of friends and I have had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence.”
Jimmy Carter said it was likely doctors would find cancer elsewhere in his body as his treatment continued.
However, the former president said: “I feel very good. I have had no pain or debility.”
Since leaving the White House in 1981, Jimmy Carter has remained active, carrying out humanitarian work with his Carter Center in recent years.
Syriza rebels will form a new party trying to govern Greece, local media reports.
Former Prime Minister and left-wing Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras stood down on August 20, paving the way for new elections.
The move came after Alexis Tsipras lost the support of many of his own members of parliament in a vote on the country’s new bailout with European creditors earlier this month.
Greek media reports say 25 rebel Syriza members of parliament will join the new party, called Laiki Enotita (Popular Unity).
The party will be led by former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, who was strongly opposed to the bailout deal.
At a press conference in Athens, Pangiotis Lafazanis said he was ready to respect the result of a referendum held in July, in which 61% of Greeks said they would not support the terms of the bailout.
“If it is necessary for us to cancel the memorandum, we will follow the course of exiting the euro,” Pangiotis Lafazanis is quoted by Kathimerini newspaper as saying.
Syriza won 149 seats in Greece’s 300-seat parliament in the last election in January.
The conservative New Democracy party came second, with 76 seats.
The new Popular Unity party becomes the third largest in parliament.
In exchange for a new €86 billion ($95 billion) from European partners, Alexis Tsipras had to agree to painful state sector cuts, including far-reaching pension reforms – and keep Greece in the eurozone.
Close to a third of Syriza’s members of parliament abstained or voted against the terms of the new deal last week.
At the time, Panagiotis Lafazanis said he was determined to “smash the eurozone dictatorship”.
On August 21, the head of conservative New Democracy party, Vangelis Meimarakis, met Greece’s president and he will now have three days to form a government.
Observers say he does not have enough support and elections will be called.
Reports suggest the election – the fifth in six years – will be called for September 20.
If Vangelis Meimarakis fails to form a government, the chance will be given to the new party, analysts say, and then the far-right Golden Dawn party.
They, too, are unlikely to be able to gain enough allies to establish a government.
All parties can waive the right to negotiate and allow the president to approve a snap election.
Vangelis Meimarakis, however, has said he will try and use his mandate to form a government in the next few days.
Dimitris Stratoulis, one of the new members of Popular Unity, told Reuters that his party would also try to use the mandate and put a government together.
Thailand’s Nation TV has apologized for re-enacting the Bangkok bomb attack at the Erawan shrine with a staff member dressed as the main suspect.
The re-enactment on August 20 sparked outrage among Thais at the Erawan shrine and online.
Executives at Nation TV have since acknowledged it was insensitive and disrespectful to the dead.
The bomb blast on August 17 killed 20 people and injured scores more. Police are hunting for the suspect.
Nation TV presenters read out an apology on television on Thursday night.
Photo Twitter
An evening news editor with Nation TV said in a statement posted online a team was sent out to re-enact the bombing at around 18:00 local time on August 20.
A member of staff was dressed up to look like the suspect, the statement said. The team stopped filming when people at the scene “expressed frustration” at them.
The president of Nation Broadcasting Corporation Adisak Limprungpatanakij said separately that the plan was made “without consideration for the sensitivity of the public and with disrespect for the dead”, AP reported.
He added that the station would consider disciplining those responsible.
The incident was the second controversy involving identification of the suspect in the days following the blast.
Australian actor Sunny Burns, who teaches English in Bangkok, was mistaken as the main suspect earlier this week after a Thai journalist pointed out that Burns resembled him.
Sunny Burns said he later found that private details including his home address were being spread online.
He went to the police to give a statement on August 20, and posted a picture of himself at the station “to share any evidence in case something went wrong”, he said.
Sunny Burns later posted CCTV video stills showing he was at his apartment building at the time of the blast.
Thai police have released a sketch of the suspect and say that he is a foreigner.
Two other men earlier identified as suspects in the bombing have since been cleared of involvement.
Gene Simmons’ Beverly Hills home has been searched by Los Angeles police on August 20.
A task force investigating Internet crimes against children served a search warrant at the home of the Kiss bassist in Benedict Canyon, but neither Gene Simmons nor anyone in his family is suspected in the case, LAPD said.
Lt. John Jenal says the detectives involved want to emphasize that Gene Simmons and his family were “extremely cooperative” and none of them are suspected of a crime.
Police would give no further comment on the investigation.
Gene Simmons, 65, has been a central member of Kiss since the early 1970s. His family was the subject of a reality TV series that aired for several years.
Kim Jong-un has ordered the North Korean frontline troops to be on a war footing after an exchange of fire with South Korea across their heavily fortified border, state media reports.
The North Korean leader declared a “semi-state of war” at an emergency meeting on August 20, the KCN reports.
North Korea threatened action unless Seoul ends its anti-Pyongyang border broadcasts.
The secretive country often uses fierce rhetoric when tensions rise and it has made similar declarations before.
At the emergency meeting of the central military commission, Kim Jong-un had ordered that troops be “fully ready for any military operations at any time” from August 21 at 17:00 local time, the KCNA reports.
Photo Twitter
Earlier, North Korea warned that it would take strong military action if South Korea does not end border propaganda broadcasts and dismantles the broadcast facilities “within 48 hours”.
However, in a separate letter Pyongyang said it was willing to resolve the issue even though it considers the broadcasts a declaration of war, South Korea’s unification ministry said, according to Reuters.
The tensions were ratcheted up after North Korea on August 20 shelled across the border reportedly to protest against the propaganda broadcasts which restarted after a hiatus of 11 years.
In 2004, South Korea and North Korea reached an agreement to dismantle their propaganda loudspeakers at the border.
The broadcasts were part of a program of psychological warfare, according to South Korean newspaper Korea Times, to deliver outside news so that North Korean soldiers and border-area residents could hear it.
On August 10, South Korea restarted broadcasting in an apparent reaction to two South Korean soldiers being injured in a landmine explosion in the demilitarized zone that was blamed on North Korea.
Military authorities say days later North Korea also restarted its broadcasting of anti-South propaganda.
However, some reports said that the quality of the North Korean loudspeakers is so bad that it is difficult to understand what they are saying.
South Korea responded with artillery fire. There were no reported casualties.
Meanwhile, South Korea ordered the evacuation of residents from an area of its western border.
South Korea and the US also began annual joint military exercises on August 17 – they describe the drills as defensive, but North Korea calls them a rehearsal for invasion.
France’s far-right Front National (FN) has expelled its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, following a feud with daughter and party leader Marine Le Pen.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was honorary president, was dismissed after a three-hour extraordinary party congress.
He was initially suspended back in May, after he repeated his view that the Holocaust was “a detail of history”.
Photo Reuters
Marine Le Pen took over as leader in 2011 and has tried to steer the party away from its racist and anti-Semitic past.
The FN was founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972. He still holds a seat in the European Parliament and a post as a regional councilor in the south of France.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, 86, launched a legal challenge against his suspension, and on July 2, a court decided to overturn it.
The judge ruled that the correct procedure had not been followed and ordered that an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) be held to discuss his future.
That meeting took place on August 20, and Jean-Marie Le Pen has now been expelled.
His dismissal follows a series of remarks regarded as inflammatory and a feud with his daughter.
Earlier this year Jen-Marie Le Pen restated his characterization of the Holocaust as a “detail” – a view he first expressed in 1987 – and also said he had never considered France’s wartime collaborationist leader Philippe Petain a traitor.
Marine Le Pen has said in the past that her father should “no longer be able to speak in the name of the National Front”.
Finland is planning to start a pilot project that would see the state pay people a basic income regardless of whether they work.
The details of how much the basic income might be and who would be eligible for it are yet to be announced, but already there is widespread interest in how it might work.
Finland’s PM Juha Sipila has praised the idea.
“For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system,” he said.
The scheme is of particular interest to people without jobs. In Finland, they now number 280,000 – 10% of the workforce.
With unemployment an increasing concern, four out of five Finns now are in favor of a basic income.
In Finland, taking on work can cost you money if you are unemployed.
A paid temporary job means lower welfare benefits.
If that job comes from a low-wage sector, you lose out because there is a delay before the authorities allow your benefits to be restored once you have left the job.
Many Finns nowadays have what are described as atypical working lives, in that few spend their entire lives in the same occupation and with the same employer.
This fundamental change has prompted a need for reforms to the social security system.
Supporters of the basic income believe it could offer an alternative to Finland’s complex and costly benefit models.
The prime minister has expressed support for a limited, geographical experiment. Participants would be selected from a variety of residential areas.
One obstacle to staging a pilot project is Finland’s constitution, which states that every citizen must be equal.
Even a small-scale experiment would put its participants in an unequal position.
Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has announced he is stepping down and has called an early election.
Alexis Tsipras had faced a rebellion within his ruling hard-left Syriza party over a new bailout deal which has been agreed with international creditors.
Greece received the first €13 billion ($14.5 billion) tranche on August 20, allowing it to repay a debt to the European Central Bank (ECB) and avoid a messy default.
However, the austerity measures needed for the deal angered many in his party.
Alexis Tsipras had to agree to further painful state sector cuts, including far-reaching pension reforms, in exchange for the bailout – and keeping Greece in the eurozone.
The overall bailout package is worth about €86 billion over three years. The payment of the first tranche was made on August 20 after the bailout deal – Greece’s third in five years – was approved by relevant European parliaments.
Photo AP
Alexis Tsipras made the announcement in a televised state address on August 20.
The prime minister said that with the first tranche of the bailout arriving, he now had the moral duty to ask the Greek people to deliver their judgment.
He said he would seek the vote of the Greek people to continue his government’s program.
Alexis Tsipras said Greeks would have to decide whether he had represented them courageously with the creditors.
He will visit President Prokopis Pavlopoulos later in the evening to submit his resignation. Greece will then be run by a caretaker government.
Reacting to the news, Martin Selmayr, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief-of-staff, tweeted that “swift elections in Greece can be a way to broaden support” for the bailout deal.
Some 43 of Syriza’s 149 members of parliament had either opposed the bailout or abstained in the August 14 parliamentary vote that approved the deal.
The rebellion meant Alexis Tsipras, who was elected this January, had effectively lost his parliamentary majority.
Alexis Tsipras had won power on a manifesto of opposing the stringent austerity conditions that he has now accepted.
He said he was forced to do so because a majority of Greeks wanted to stay in the eurozone, and this could not be achieved in any other way.
Greece remains under strict capital controls, with weekly limits on cash withdrawals for Greek citizens.
According to the Greek constitution, if a government resigns within a year of election, the president will ask the second-largest party – in this case the conservative New Democracy – to try to form an administration.
If this fails, the next largest party must be given a chance.
However, analysts say both parties can waive this and allow the president to approve the snap election.
Thai police have cleared two men identified as suspects in the Bangkok bombing attack at the Erawan Shrine.
The two men, a Chinese tourist and his Thai guide, were filmed by security cameras standing near the prime suspect in August 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine, which killed 20 people.
A police spokesman said they were now satisfied the men were not involved.
The main suspect remains at large, but authorities said they believe he is still in Thailand.
Dozens of people were injured in Monday’s explosion, with some losing limbs.
Police had said that at least 10 people were suspected of involvement in the attack, and that their prime target was foreign.
The two former suspects were captured standing in front of the main suspect as he left his backpack under a bench at the scene.
The footage led police to believe the pair may have been the attacker’s accomplices.
One of the men “met police and was released”, according to police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri.
He told them he had taken the Chinese man to the Erawan shrine on behalf of a mutual friend.
Earlier reports suggested both of the men had presented themselves for questioning.
The Chinese national returned home a day after the bomb, Prawut Thavornsiri said.
Neither were “likely involved”, he added.
Earlier, Col. Winthai Suvaree, a spokesman for the ruling military junta, said the preliminary conclusion was that it was “unlikely” the attack was the work of an international terror group.
However, he later told Associated Press that a global terrorism link had not been ruled out, saying: “We still have to investigate in more detail.”
Police are also questioning a tuk-tuk taxi driver who drove the main suspect to the shrine, but are making slow progress in identifying the name and nationality of the man in yellow.
Twelve of the 20 dead in Monday’s attack were foreigners, including nationals from China, Hong Kong, the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
According to Greek media, PM Alexis Tsipras is set to call a snap election for September 20.
Alexis Tsipras has faced a rebellion within his ruling hard-left Syriza party over a new bailout deal which has been agreed with international creditors.
Greece received the first €13 billion ($14.5 billion) tranche on August 20, allowing it to repay a debt to the European Central Bank (ECB) and avoid a messy default.
However, the austerity measures needed for the deal angered many in his party.
Alexis Tsipras had to agree to further painful state sector cuts, including far-reaching pension reforms, in exchange for the bailout – and keeping Greece in the eurozone.
The overall bailout package is worth about €86 billion over three years. The payment of the first tranche was made on August 20 after the bailout deal – Greece’s third in five years – was approved by relevant European parliaments.
Alexis Tsipras is to make a televised state address later on Thursday.
The prime ministere is set to submit his resignation to the president to clear the way for the elections, the media reports said.
Energy and Environment Minister Panos Skourletis said on state TV: “The certainty is that the need for elections has arisen.”
Reacting to the reports, Martin Selmayr, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief-of-staff, tweeted that “swift elections in Greece can be a way to broaden support” for the bailout deal.
Some 43 of Syriza’s 149 members of parliament had either opposed the bailout or abstained in last Friday’s Greek parliamentary vote that approved the deal.
The rebellion meant Alexis Tsipras, who was elected this January, had effectively lost his parliamentary majority.
Alexis Tsipras had won power on a manifesto of opposing the stringent austerity conditions that he has now accepted.
The prime minister said he was forced to do so because a majority of Greeks wanted to stay in the eurozone, and this could not be achieved in any other way.
Greece remains under strict capital controls, with weekly limits on cash withdrawals for Greek citizens.
According to the Greek constitution, if the government resigns within a year of election, the president will ask the second-largest party – in this case the conservative New Democracy – to try to form a new government.
If this fails, the next largest party must be given a chance.
However, analysts say both parties can waive this and allow the president to approve the snap election.
Oil prices and stock markets around the world have seen further falls, sparked by the renewed fears over the health of the global economy.
China shares fell 1.5% after the authorities intervened again on the stock market to little effect.
Expectations of a US interest rate rise dimmed after the Federal Reserve said the economy was not ready yet.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index opened 1% lower, while markets in Paris and Frankfurt fell more than 2%.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index shed 0.56%, while the price of Brent crude oil was down 0.4% at $46.97 a barrel, although US crude recovered from earlier falls to stand 0.6% higher at $41.35.
On August 19, the Fed released minutes from its meeting on July 28-29, showing that one policymaker was ready to vote for an interest rate rise at the meeting.
Overall, the Fed thought conditions for a US rate rise “were approaching”, but the economy was not ready yet.
Other policymakers remained concerned that inflation would remain weak because of the strong dollar and falling commodity prices, which act as a double depressant on imports.
The Fed’s key interest rate has been kept near zero since December 2008.
There has been speculation that the Fed will raise rates at its meeting in September, and last month Fed chair Janet Yellen said she thought a rate rise this year was likely.
Following the release of the Fed’s minutes, US stocks rallied briefly but then fell back, while the dollar weakened on the currency markets. The Dow Jones index ended August 19 trading down 0.9%.
The committee also cited China as a potential problem, saying that a “material slowdown” in the Chinese economy could affect the US economic outlook.
The FOMC’s meeting came before last week’s action by China to weaken its currency.
After days of volatility, Chinese stock market traded lower once again on August 20, despite Beijing’s efforts to calm markets.
China’s Shanghai Composite closed 1.5% down at 3,735.92 points.
The fall comes after the index saw strong volatility earlier in the week.
Traders appeared not to respond to efforts by the central bank to provide more liquidity to stabilize markets.
In assessing the strength of the US economy, the Fed has been keeping an eye on the US jobs market – where the unemployment rate has been falling and is now 5.3%. However, inflation is still below the Fed’s target of 2%.
The minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) July meeting noted that the labor market “had continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment”.
However, when assessing inflation, it said that “some members continued to see downside risks to inflation from the possibility of further dollar appreciation and declines in commodity prices”.
The FOMC said it would continue to monitor inflation “closely, with almost all members indicating that they would need to see more evidence that economic growth was sufficiently strong and labor market conditions had firmed enough for them to feel reasonably confident that inflation would return to the committee’s longer-run objective over the medium term”.
Inflation figures released earlier on August 20 showed that consumer prices rose by 0.1% in July, and were 0.2% higher from a year ago.
So-called core inflation, which ignores changes in food and energy prices, also rose 0.1% last month, but was up 1.8% over the year.
Laibach has become the first western rock group to play inside North Korea after August 19 concert in Pyongyang.
Photographs seem to show that the audience at the Ponghwa Theatre was appreciative, if not completely sure of what to make of the concert.
The Slovenian band describes itself as “a music and cross-media group” and is known for playing eclectic cover versions of famous songs.
The songs were accompanied by images styled from North Korean propaganda posters projected on to a screen, with translations in Korean.
As Laibach promised before travelling to North Korea, they played a number of songs from The Sound of Music, including Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi and The Hills Are Alive.
It is not the first time Laibach performed the songs – but the choice to sing them in Pyongyang was deliberate.
The tour’s organizer, Morten Traavik, said the movie “is very well known in North Korea”.
The 1965 musical is one of the few western movies people are allowed to watch in the secretive state.
When a Vanity Fair journalist visited Pyongyang in March, one North Korean complained to him that he had to watch The Sound of Music more than 100 times as it “was our English-language textbook at university”.
The fact that The Sound of Music is about a family escaping from Nazi Germany does not seem to have set North Korean alarm bells ringing.
Laibach also performed Opus’ Life is Life, Europe’s The Final Countdown and Beatles’ Across the Universe.
Residents from South Korea’s western border have been evacuated after an exchange of fire with North Korea, reports say.
North Korea fired a shell at a South Korean military unit on August 20, prompting South Korea to retaliate with several artillery rounds, the South’s defense ministry said.
South Korea’s National Security Council is due to hold an emergency session.
The western sea border has long been a flashpoint between the two Koreas.
North Korea fired a projectile towards Yeoncheon, a town north-west of Seoul, at 15:52 local time, the defense ministry said.
Reports suggest the target could have been a loudspeaker broadcasting anti-Pyongyang messages.
South Korea then fired “dozens of rounds of 155mm shells” towards where they thought the rocket was launched from, the ministry added in a statement.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries or damage on either side.
South Korea and North Korea remain technically at war, because the 1950-1953 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The two sides have exchanged cross-border fire several times in recent years.
A local official told AP news agency that about 80 residents in Yeoncheon had been evacuated, with other residents in the area also urged to take shelter.
The latest incident comes amid heightened tensions between the North and South.
Seoul has blamed the North for planting a landmine that injured two South Korea soldiers earlier this month.
Since then, the sides have begun blasting propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers along the border – restarting a practice both had suspended back in 2004.
South Korea and the US also began annual joint military exercises on August 17 – they describe the drills as defensive, but North Korea calls them a rehearsal for invasion.
The Oil Sands Safety Association was formed in July of 2003, with the main goal of unifying oil sands owners so that an agreed-upon set of safety training standards could be formed for use throughout the oil sands working community. The overriding goal of the creation of OSSA was to create a workforce that would have as few safety incidents as possible while working in the field. Through the Association, training provider receive accreditation necessary to train workers to work within these safety standards.
Photo Source: isafety.ca
Examples of the kinds of safety standards OSSA training available are:
Fall protection safety strategies
Safety procedures for working on an elevated work platform
Safety strategies for working in confined spaces
Fire awareness safety
For more information and to find a Training Provider accredited for each of these standards areas, check out the OSSA webpage. Under the “Workers” tab, you’ll find a list of all Training and Service Providers which you can search for by program. Contact your local Training and Service Provider directly for specific information about the cost and location of the training, and make the necessary registration arrangements. Note that the OSSA is not in charge of setting schedules or fees of any training and these may vary from place to place.
Once you have successfully completed the necessary training for the program of your choice, you will be issued a certificate that prove you have done so. Should you lose your credentials card contact the issuing provider to receive a replacement.
You’ll need to get recertified for each program every three years.
If your organization is seeking to become a Training Provider, consult the “Training” tab of the OSSA website.
The Oil Sands Safety Association is a non-profit organization. Members include representatives from Canadian Oil Sands companies Syncrude Canada, Suncor Energy, Shell Albian Sands and Canadian Natural Resources. In addition to these members, there are also volunteer members from learning providers, labour providers, unions and local area contractors.
The goals of the organization include:
Creating a workplace with zero injuries
Giving the Owners the ability to raise standards on health and safety without exorbitant costs. This includes creating a minimum standard of safety that must be met in order to work on any OSSA Member site.
To provide accreditation to workers to prove that they have successfully completed the training
To provide ways to effectively use human resources throughout the program while at the same time giving Training Providers the ability to deliver a product that adheres to standardized safety training guidelines.
Senegalese drummer Doudou Ndiaye Rose has died aged 85, his family has announced.
Famous for playing the sabar drum, Doudou Ndiaye Rose toured the world and played with jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and the Rolling Stones.
Doudou Ndiaye Rose led an orchestra of more than 30 drummers, many of them his children and grandchildren.
In 2006, UNESCO declared Doudou Ndiaye Rose a “living human treasure” for keeping alive traditional rhythms.
Doudou Ndiaye Rose continued to play up until his death and a few years ago explained how happy he was to have spawned a dynasty of percussionists.
According to AFP, Doudou Ndiaye Rose was born into a griot family of musicians and story-tellers, but his accountant father did not want him to continue in the tradition.
When Doudou Ndiaye Rose defied his father, they went for seven years without shaking hands, it reports.
