Hong Kong Police Make Fresh Attempt to Clear Barricaded Roads

Hong Kong:  Hong Kong police made fresh attempts on Tuesday to unblock streets that have been occupied for two weeks by pro-democracy protesters, removing more barricades a day after clashes broke out as opponents of the protest movement tried to reclaim roads.

Police, criticised for using tear gas and batons in the first 24 hours of the protests, have adopted a more patient approach, counting on protesters to come under public pressure to clear some of the Chinese-controlled city's major arteries.

Pro-democracy protesters believe Monday's clashes, which occurred after police removed some barricades, were co-ordinated and involved triad criminal groups.

They said some police stood by or did not act quickly enough as hundreds of people, some wearing surgical masks and armed with crowbars and cutting tools, dismantled barricades.

Students reinforced barricades late on Monday, erecting bamboo scaffolding four metres high along one major thoroughfare, while others mixed concrete to pour over the foundations of their road blocks.

The protesters, mostly students, are demanding full democracy for the former British colony. The protest initially gained wide public support but that has waned as frustrations build over traffic gridlocks gripping the Asian financial hub.

On Tuesday, police cleared some barricades from the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bays as protesters remained largely calm, according to a Reuters witness.

At the main protest site in Admiralty, next to government buildings and the business district, scores of police stood guard surrounded by hundreds of students, some still sleeping.

Taxi and truck drivers were among those who tried to dismantle barricades on Monday afternoon and some have threatened to return if the protesters do not quit by Wednesday.

The protesters have called on the city's embattled leader, Leung Chun-ying, to step down after Beijing in August ruled out free elections for Hong Kong's next leader in 2017.

China rules Hong Kong under a "one country, two systems" formula that accords the former British colony a degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, with universal suffrage set as an eventual goal.

Leung has vowed to remain in office and warned that there was "zero chance" that China's leaders in Beijing would change an August decision limiting democracy in Hong Kong.

© Thomson Reuters 2014

Islamic State Demands for US hostage Cannot be Met, Parents Say

The parents of an American hostage threatened with beheading by Islamic State militants said in an interview with "CBS This Morning" on Monday that they are unable to meet the financial and other demands of their son's captors.

The parents of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, an aid worker abducted on Oct. 1, 2013, did not elaborate on what Islamic State had demanded in exchange for their son's freedom.

"Their demands have always been ones that we cannot accommodate," Paula Kassig, the captive's mother, told the TV programme.

"CBS this Morning" reported that Kassig's parents received an audio recording of their son two weeks ago in which he warned that he was in danger if the United States did not halt its air strikes.

The 26-year-old captive, an Indiana native, was threatened in a video issued earlier this month by Islamic State that showed the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, 47.

Kassig's parents told the TV programme that they had kept his capture secret for roughly a year on orders from Islamic State militants but that the recent beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff after his family had followed similar instructions moved them to change tactics.

Kassig's family on Monday also made public additional portions of a letter from their son they received earlier this year from a hostage released by Islamic State.

In it, Kassig said he is kept together with other hostages, with whom he plays chess and trivia games, but that the mental strain of captivity has been "incredible."

"Don't worry Dad, if I do go down, I won't go thinking anything but what I know to be true. That you and mom love me more than the moon and the stars," the letter said.

A former US Army soldier who deployed to Iraq in 2007, Kassig was doing humanitarian work through Special Emergency Response and Assistance, an organization he founded, when he was taken captive while on his way to the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, his family has said.

Kassig's first name was Peter before he converted to Islam while in captivity, the family has said.

Henning's beheading was the fourth such killing of a Westerner by Islamic State, following the deaths of two US journalists and another British aid worker.

New York Ratty About Rats, Complaints up 10 Percent

New York:  The rat race is making New Yorkers ratty.

Complaints about rodents shot up by 2,000 or more than 10 percent last year and health officials are failing to implement pest control measures, a watchdog warns.

In an audit unveiled over the weekend, New York comptroller Scott Stringer says the city received 24,586 online and telephone complaints about rats in 2013, up from 22,300 in the previous year.

New York is no stranger to rats.

Rodents are regularly spotted scampering in and out of subway tracks and although rarely seen in daylight they can also hide out by the bins or among trash bags dumped on the street for collection.

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene did not adequately follow procedures for addressing complaints, and inspections were not performed consistently or in a timely manner, the report found.

Twenty-four percent of cases were not inspected within the target time of 10 days, including 160 complaints where there was no evidence there was ever an inspection, it said.

"You've got to attack this problem in a very serious way and a very quick way," Stringer said.

But the department strongly disagreed with the audit's assessments.

It said auditors reached "incorrect conclusions" because they focused only on complaints and ignored non-complaint inspections, which it said account for more than 85 percent of inspections done.

North Korea Leader Kim Jong Un Makes First Appearance in 40 Days

Seoul:  North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un has made his first public appearance in five weeks, the country's official news agency reported on Tuesday, ending an absence that fueled global speculation that something was amiss with the country's most powerful person.

Resuming what had been a regular practice before he stopped showing up in media reports for 40 days, Kim "gave field guidance" at the newly built Wisong Scientists Residential District, according to a dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency released in the early morning hours. The agency didn't say when the visit happened, but added that Kim made another visit the same day to a newly built natural energy institute.

These kinds of inspection tours had been typical of Kim, thought to be 31 and the third generation of his family to rule, until he began laying low after last appearing Sept. 3 at a concert.

As the weeks passed, the apparent vanishing act of a man long caricatured in foreign media as an all-powerful overlord sitting on a nuclear arsenal while his people starved proved endlessly fascinating.

And while there was plenty of informed analysis from experts and frequent visitors to Pyongyang that said it probably wasn't anything that serious, there seemed to be even more thinly sourced speculation.

Kim was, by turns, reported to be suffering from gout, from diabetes, from a brain hemorrhage, from a heart ailment, from a leg injury that required surgery from a French doctor, from mental illness or, according to a head-turning British report, from a cheese addiction. There were rumors of coups.

The KCNA report on Tuesday made no mention of Kim's health, only detailing his routine comments about the construction projects.

The speculation during his absence was fed by Kim missing several high-profile events that he normally attends and his description in an official documentary last month as experiencing "discomfort." Archive footage from August showed him overweight and limping.

At a South Korean parliamentary hearing Monday, Choi Yoon-hee, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a lawmaker that whatever health problems Kim might have, they "are not severe enough to disrupt his status as the ruler of the country."

Analysts pointed out that there were no signs to indicate any major problems.

No unusual troop movements or other signs of a possible coup emerged. Diplomacy at the highest level continued: Three members of his inner circle made a surprise visit to the South, something analysts say would be impossible without the leader's blessing. Foreign tourists and aid workers still traveled to the North, and there were no reports of new restrictions or warnings for diplomats.

There's also nothing particularly unusual about North Korean leaders laying low for extended periods. Kim's late father, Kim Jong Il, no fan of the limelight in his later years, would disappear at times; Kim Jong Un, who seems to genuinely like being at the centre of things, took off without a word for three weeks in 2012.

Kim Jong Un emerged as the anointed successor after his father disappeared from public view in 2008 - by most accounts because of a stroke. The elder Kim died in late 2011.

Four Northern California Faults Primed for Big Quakes

San Francisco:  Three fault segments running beneath Northern California and its roughly 15 million people are overdue for a major earthquake, including one section that lies near the dams and canals that supply much of the state's water, according to a geological study published on Monday.

The three fault segments and one other in the region are loaded with enough tension to produce quakes of magnitude 6.8 or greater, according to a geological study published on Monday.

They include the little-known Green Valley fault, which lies near key dams and aqueducts northeast of San Francisco. Underestimated by geologists until now, the fault running between the cities of Napa and Fairfield is primed for a magnitude-7.1 quake, according to researchers from the US Geological Survey and San Francisco State University.

The water supplies of the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and the farm-rich Central Valley depend on the man-made water system that links to the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, noted James Lienkaemper, the US Geological Survey geologist who was lead author of the study. The Green Valley fault is last believed to have ruptured sometime in the 1600s.

The study shows the state "needs to consider more seriously" the earthquake risk in that area, Lienkaemper said by phone.

All four vulnerable fault segments belong to the San Andreas fault system, the geological dividing line that marks where the western half of California shifts northwest and away from the rest of North America at about 2 inches a year.

The other fault sections that have built up enough tension for a temblor with a magnitude of 6.8 or greater are the northern Calaveras and Hayward faults in the east San Francisco Bay Area and the Rodgers Creek fault to the north, scientists concluded in a study published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

Geologists reached their conclusions partly through regular data readings that geologists and San Francisco State University geology students began in 1979 along fault lines. The tracking now features annual readings at 80 monitoring sites at 29 sections of faults in northern California.

The surveys measure fault creep, movements of fractions of inches that slowly release strain on some faults. When no fault creep is recorded, a fault is considered locked, and stress builds until an earthquake unlocks it.

Roughly two-thirds of the 1,250 miles (2,011 kilometres) that comprise the five major branches of the San Andreas fault feature fault creep, the study concludes.

Northern California recorded its biggest earthquake of a quarter-century Aug. 24, when a magnitude-6.0 quake hit Napa, north of San Francisco. Seismologists estimate seven quakes of 7.3 magnitude or more have hit California just since the 1800s, most of them when the state's population was a fraction of what it is now.

Obama Girls, Malala, Lorde Make Time's 'Influential Teens' List

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, in Birmingham. (Reuters)

Los Angeles:  The daughters of US President Barack Obama, entertainers, a Nobel laureate and a girl baseball player all made Time's annual list of most influential teenagers, the magazine said on Monday.

First daughters Malia, 16, and Sasha, 13; Grammy-winning New Zealand singer Lorde, 17; and Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai, 17, the Pakistani education activist winner, were all on the unranked list dominated by 20 females.

Time said it compiled its list of 25 teens - 29, counting accolades shared by siblings and partners - by analyzing their social media following, business successes and cultural importance.

The youngest were Sasha Obama and fellow 13-year-old Mo'ne Davis, a pitching sensation who led her Philadelphia boys' baseball team to the Little League World Series and landed a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Tavi Gevinson, the 18-year-old fashion writer and founder of popular online magazine Rookie, was noted as emblematic of the contemporary teen in the Internet age, while transgender activist Jazz Jennings, 14, and Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, 18, also made the list.

The dominant categories were athletes, actors and singers.

Actors taking center stage were Kiernan Shipka, 14, of "Mad Men," Rico Rodriguez, 16, of "Modern Family" and "The Equalizer's" Chloe Grace Moretz, 17.

Pop singers Becky G, 17, and Austin Mahone, 18, earned plaudits as did New Zealand pro golfer Lydia Ko, 17, and Afghan National Cycling Team member Salma Kakar, 17.

Teens noted for business success include 15-year-old Erik Finman, founder of the online tutoring site Botangle.com; YouTube fashion star Bethany Mota, 18, and actress-turned-stockpicker Rachel Fox, 18.

Irish trio Ciara Judge, 16, Emer Hickey, 17, and Sophie Healy-Thow, 17, were noted for their discovery of bacteria that deposits nitrogen from the atmosphere into soil.

Los Angeles teen chef Flynn McGarry, 15, joined stars of Twitter's Vine short-form video service, Nash Grier, and singer Shawn Mendes, both 16.

Jaden Smith, 16, son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, was recognised for acting and his Twitter following, while reality TV stars the Jenner sisters Kendall, 18, and Kylie, 17, were noted for their burgeoning Hollywood and merchandising careers.

Also in the spotlight were 19-year-olds Megan Grassell, founded of the Yellowberry clothing company that makes bras for teens, and South African-Australian YouTube star and actor-musician Troye Sivan.

© Thomson Reuters 2014

Should White Mom be Paid for Brown Baby Mistake?

It's an unusual question, arising from an Ohio woman's unusual lawsuit prompted by an insemination gone wrong. And it has set off an extraordinary discussion touching on sensitive issues of race, motherhood, sexuality and justice, though the debate begins with one basic premise: You should get what you pay for.

Jennifer Cramblett and her wife, Amanda Zinkon, wanted a white baby. They went to the Midwest Sperm Bank near Chicago and chose blond, blue-eyed donor No. 380, who looked like he could have been related to Zinkon. When Cramblett was five months pregnant, they found out that she had been inseminated by donor No. 330 - a black man.

"The couple did not get what they asked for, which was a particular donor. The company made a mistake, and it should have to pay for that," says Jessica Barrow, an information technology professional.

Barrow is black and lesbian, with a white partner. They considered insemination of the white partner before choosing to adopt. When looking at donors, they wanted sperm from a black donor, to create a biracial baby that would have shared some physical characteristics with both of them.

"They're not saying anything racist, they're not saying we don't want a black baby," Barrow said of Cramblett and Zinkon, who profess their love for their now 2-year-old daughter. "They're saying, we asked for something, you gave us something different, and now we have to adjust to that."

That "adjustment" is a major justification for Cramblett's lawsuit. It cites the stress and anxiety of raising a brown girl in predominantly white Uniontown, Ohio, which Cramblett describes as intolerant. Some of her own family members have unconscious racial biases, the lawsuit says.

That leads some to believe that Cramblett is asking to be paid for the difficulties that many black folks - and white parents of adopted black children - deal with for free.

"I don't think I deserve anything more being the white parent of a black child than any parent of a black child does," says Rory Mullen, who adopted her daughter.

Strangers have asked Mullen why she didn't adopt a white baby. One remarked in front of her white then-husband that Mullen must have cheated with a black man. Too many white people to count have pawed her daughter's hair.

"It's hard, but being a parent is hard," says Mullen, who is author of "Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care: A Parent's Guide to Beginning Natural Hair Styling."

"Being a parent is going to throw things at you that you never expected, and we make a decision that we're going to roll with it, because we love our kids and they deserve it," she says.

Mullen agrees that a company should be held liable for promising one thing and doing another. But she thinks the fact Cramblett waited more than two years to sue indicates that the experience of raising a black child is her real problem.

"When you say this is too hard, I didn't deserve this, this is too much for me to handle, then the child internalises it and it affects their self-esteem," she says. "It's my job to pour self-esteem into my daughter, not tear it down."

From the days of American slavery through the 1960s, white men fathering children with black women was commonplace and tacitly accepted - yet there were few things as scandalous as a white woman with a brown baby.

That history makes Denene Millner, author of the MyBrownBaby.com blog, say that the lawsuit is "rooted in fear ... stuck in the muck and mire of racism and the purity of white lineage."

"She simply cannot fathom dealing with what it means to, in essence, be a Black mom, having to navigate and negotiate a racist world on behalf of a human she bore, in an environment of which she is a product," Millner wrote.

Darron Smith, co-author of "White Parents, Black Children: Experiencing Transracial Adoption," says that the lawsuit reflects America's unexamined racist attitudes and Cramblett's angst over having a biracial child.

He notes that due to supply and demand, it costs about half as much to adopt a black child as a white one, and many black boys in foster care are never adopted.

"This lawsuit demonstrates quite nicely the value of skin colour," says Smith, a professor at Wichita State University.

Yet Cramblett's defenders say she should not be held responsible for being unprepared.

"White people who aren't affiliated with black people don't necessarily understand the challenges that black people face in all facets of their life. This couple wasn't expecting that, and now they have to deal with it," says Rachel Dube, who owns a youth sports business in New York.

"She didn't ask for a biracial baby. She was given one, she loves it, she adores it, now she's facing challenges and admits it. That doesn't make her a racist," Dube says.

"You can't fault her for what she was not exposed to," she says. "Her only obligation is to love and raise her child in the best environment possible. And if the money will help her do that, then good for her."

Story First Published: October 14, 2014 01:34 IST