English Baccalaureate Certificates: Out go GCSEs, in comes the tough new six-subject Baccalaureate

• 600,000 pupils will start EBaccs in English, maths and science from 2015
• Exams could take three hours to finish compared with 90 minutes for GCSEs
• Marks will also be awarded for spelling, grammar and punctuation
• Gove insists exams will remove 'bite-sized, spoon feeding'

SA footballer critical after nightclub fall

A young South Australian football player is fighting for his life after jumping from the second storey of a nightclub, reportedly in a bid to escape security.

The club's owners claim Ricky Elley, 19, was being chased by bouncers after being earlier kicked out of Port Pirie nightclub The Family, according to Nine News.

Police have not confirmed this detail but a spokeswoman said it appeared to be a case of tragic misjudgement.

Mr Elley, who plays for Central Augusta Football Club, suffered critical head injuries when he fell through a shade cloth, crashing to the ground, in the early hours of Sunday.

Mr Elley had been on the roof for up to 20 minutes before he fell, according to witnesses.

"It was pretty traumatic, as you can imagine. There were lots of his mates there," a witness told Nine News.

The nightclub posted a statement on Facebook yesterday.

"After last night's incident, our thoughts and well wishes are with the friends, family and the young man involved," it read. "Out of respect for the family and friends affected and also the young man himself, the page will not be displaying anything from this weekend.

"We would like to thank everyone for your understanding in this matter."

The incident comes one week after Port Adelaide football player John McCarthy died in a similar accident, after misjudging a jump from the roof of a Las Vegas hotel.

Advokats ærkerival frygtes dræbt

Lettisk politi mener at have fundet liget af en russisk-født rigmand, der sagsøgte den danske advokat Jeffrey Galmond og en russisk teleminister for mordtrusler, før han forsvandt Skandalen om den danske advokat Jeffrey Galmond og hans forbindelser til inderkredsen omkring den russiske præsident, Vladimir Putin, tager nu en makaber ny drejning.

Facebook and Twitter: A No-No for Federal Jurors

Were you hoping to waste away your hours of jury duty on Facebook or Twitter?

Federal judges are hoping you won’t, and have a new list of instructions from the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on how to discourage social networking in the courthouse throughout cases. While you may just be browsing breaking news or your friends’ updates, judges are concerned you’ll engage in external research or leak details about the case.

The new guidelines, drafted in June and issued Friday, instruct judges how to best deter jurors from using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube to research and communicate about the cases for which they’re serving. Judges are told to review these instructions before the trial, at the close of each day before they return home, at the end of the case and at any other time deemed appropriate.

“Jurors should be told why refraining from use of social media promotes a fair trial,” said Judge Julie Robinson, the Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management chair, in a statement. “Finally, jurors should know the consequences of violations during trial, such as mistrial and wasted time.”

These instructions follow the results of a national survey of federal judges who reported that juror use of social media was most often reported by a fellow juror. Judges are encouraged to ask jurors to out fellow jurors who violate the instructions against social networking.

GOP delegates want tough talk, yearn to party like 1980, when Democrat was ousted after 1 term

 Republicans heading to their party convention are eager to hear an earful about the shortcomings of President Barack Obama’s record, the woeful U.S.

economy and the competing visions of the two presidential candidates. What they aren’t looking for is any mention of compromise, which most Americans say is

necessary to get the nation back on track.

The Republicans want a party like in 1980, when the GOP ousted a Democratic president after one term.


Delegates from around the country have big dreams for the Aug. 27-30 gathering in Tampa, Fla., where Mitt Romney will accept the party’s nomination and

Republicans will kick off their final push to defeat Obama. They sketched out a sharp message they want to hear from speaker after speaker — onetime White

House hopefuls, GOP governors, congressional leaders and the party’s top recruits angling to win a job in Washington.

Conventions are four-day slugfests directed at the opposing party and its candidate. The rhetoric is brutal, vitriolic and far from conciliatory. Some lines

are memorable.

“Poor George, he can’t help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth,” quipped Texas state treasurer Ann Richards to laughs and applause at the

Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988. Her target was the well-heeled GOP nominee, Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Twenty years later, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., and compared her

mayoral experience in Wasilla, Alaska, to that of nominee Obama.

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” she said.

The crowd roared.

Ed Cox, the chairman of the Republican Party in New York, wants speakers at the convention to echo the message that Romney delivered after he won the

Wisconsin primary in April. Romney cast the election as a choice between what he called Obama’s “government-centered society” and the “opportunity

society” the former businessman said he would pursue as president.

“This is the crux of our message, that we are for an opportunity society of free people and free enterprise,” Cox said in an interview with The Associated

Press. “America has always been about people having dreams, going out and working to make them. To do that they don’t want the heavy hand of government on

top of them, whether it’s in taxes or regulations.”

The Obama administration in its first year “ignored what they were elected to do, which was to pay attention to jobs and the economy,” said Cox, who has

seen his share of conventions as the son-in-law of President Richard M. Nixon.

Jim McErlane, a lawyer from Chester County, Pa., said convention speakers should keep it simple.

“The economy, the economy, the economy,” he said in an interview. “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Shawn Steel, a lawyer from Palos Verdes, Calif., wants the convention to remind Americans of 1980, when Ronald Reagan accepted the nomination in Detroit and

then scored a landslide victory that knocked out President Jimmy Carter and helped Republicans seize control of the Senate.

Ibaka's new deal with Thunder reportedly for $48M

 The Oklahoma City Thunder took a big step toward sticking around as an NBA championship contender.

The Thunder and general manager Sam Presti still face difficult decisions in the team's quest to remain a title threat for the long haul after reaching the

NBA Finals last season, but reaching a contract extension with blocks leader Serge Ibaka is certainly a good start.

Ibaka came to terms on the deal on Saturday as the Thunder locked up another key member of their nucleus while also putting into question whether the small-

market team can afford to keep Sixth Man of the Year James Harden beyond next season..

Ibaka posted on Twitter that he was happy for the chance to play for the Thunder for five more years. Presti didn't provide details of the contract, citing

team policy, but Yahoo! Sports first reported that the deal is for four additional years and $48 million.

"At 23 years old (by the time next season starts), we really do expect his best basketball to be in front of him," Presti said in a conference call, hours

before his wedding.

Presti dismissed the notion that Ibaka's signing means that Harden's departure is inevitable. But with more than $50 million committed per season to All-

Stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and starting center Kendrick Perkins, there is not much room left in the budget for Harden, who earned a spot on the

U.S. Olympic team that won gold in London.

Ibaka played for Spain's silver-medal winning Olympic team. Both he and Harden were eligible for extensions to their rookie contracts for the first time this

summer and were set to become free agents after next season.

"We're going to continue our conversations with James. We very much value him," Presti said. "We want him to be a part of our organization moving forward.

We're excited that he's a member of the Thunder and we're hopeful that he'll be with us for years moving forward."

To make that happen, Oklahoma City would likely have to go over the salary cap - set at about $58 million for next season - and pay a luxury tax or make

other moves, such as using the amnesty clause to erase Perkins' contract.

The Thunder have already let veteran free agents Nazr Mohammed and Royal Ivey sign elsewhere, and Derek Fisher remains unsigned. Backup point guard Eric

Maynor, who missed most of last season due to a knee injury, also would become a free agent after next season.

"There's still a commitment for us to try to find a way to make it work for everybody, but we know there's going to be some difficult decisions that have to

be made," Presti said. "We're looking forward to trying to figure those things out, and having Serge in place is certainly a benefit for our organization

moving forward knowing that we have another core player that will be with us for the foreseeable future."

Ibaka was the No. 24 pick in the draft in 2008, the same year Presti selected Westbrook. A native of the Republic of Congo, Ibaka remained overseas for a

year before joining the Thunder and developing into a defensive stopper.

He led the NBA with 198 blocks in the 2010-11 season and finished second in the voting for Defensive Player of the Year last season after recording a league

-best 241 - a franchise record 3.65 per game.

"He's come a long way in a short amount of time, but I've seen a lot of hard work that's gone into that on his behalf, and that gives us confidence that he's

going to continue to work at it," Presti said.

Ibaka has steadily improved his offensive game, adding a mid-range jumper while starting to develop effective post moves. But he's best known for his

defensive impact, particularly after blocking at least 10 shots in three games last season - once as part of a triple-double.

"I think with Serge, he does so many things," Presti said. "Obviously, his shot-blocking is a statistic that's most pointed to because it's objective,

because it's measurable, but there's a lot of things he does for us in terms of just, I would say, deterring shots.

"He really helps our pick-and-roll defense and bails us out a lot of times."

Record-Breaking Phoenix Galaxy Cluster: By the Numbers

 The faraway Phoenix galaxy cluster may be the biggest and brightest such structure ever discovered, and it's forming stars at an unprecedented rate,

scientists announced today (Aug. 15).

Here's a by-the-numbers look at the Phoenix cluster — formally known as SPT-CLJ2344-4243 — which researchers say could yield key insights into how galaxies

and colossal clusters evolve:

2.5 quadrillion: How many times more massive the Phoenix cluster is than our own sun. This may be an all-time record for galaxy clusters — the most massive

structures in the universe, composed of hundreds or thousands of individual galaxies bound together by gravity — researchers said.
 "I would say it's in a dead heat for the most massive galaxy cluster," Michael McDonald of MIT, lead author of the study describing Phoenix's remarkable

properties, told SPACE.com contributor Charles Choi. "The record-holder, 'El Gordo,' is slightly more massive, but the uncertainty in this estimate is high

— it could turn out that with more careful measurements, Phoenix is more massive."

3 trillion: The number of stars that reside in the Phoenix cluster's central galaxy, compared to 200 billion or so in our own Milky Way. [Gallery: Chandra

Spies Fastest-Growing Galaxy Cluster]

10 billion: The low-end estimate of the mass of the huge black hole at the heart of Phoenix's central galaxy, in solar masses. That's about as massive as the

biggest black hole ever discovered.

For comparison, the Milky Way's central black hole weighs in at about 4 million solar masses.
 5.7 billion: The approximate distance of Phoenix from Earth, in light-years. The cluster is found in the Phoenix constellation, partly explaining its

informal name.

However, researchers also chose the moniker as a nod to the mythological bird that rises from its own ashes, since Phoenix's central galaxy has seemingly

come back to life with a huge burst of star formation.

2010: The year in which astronomers discovered Phoenix, using the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded South Pole Telescope. But it took the team a little

while to learn just what they had found.

"We really didn't realize how remarkable it was until late last year and early this year, when we got follow-up X-ray and optical and ultraviolet and

infrared measurements that constrained the star-formation rate," McDonald told reporters today.

740: The approximate number of stars generated per year by the galaxy in Phoenix's center, a new high for the middle of a cluster.

"This extreme rate of star formation was really unexpected," McDonald said. "It's nearly five times higher than the next most star-forming central-cluster

galaxy, in Abell 1835. So it's really crushing the record."

Our own Milky Way galaxy produces just one to two new stars every year on average, McDonald added.

An Initiative to Predict Solar Flares Much in Advance

When solar flares occur, their dangerous radiations imperil satellites, astronauts, and power grids. In order to warn them in advance so that they could take

sufficient precautions, U. S. scientists have developed a new method, which will help them, forecast solar flares more than a day before their actual

occurrence.

When atoms in radioactive elements decay or lose their energy, they produce gamma radiations. This newly derived system will measure the difference in these

gamma radiations and will indicate the occurrence of solar flares. The main theory behind this system is that the rates with which radioactive elements

decay, depends upon any kind of activity that takes place in the solar system and this most of the times could be brooks of subatomic particles, known as

solar neutrinos.

Ephraim Fischbach, a Purdue University professor of physics said, "This influence can wax and wane due to seasonal changes in Earth's distance from the sun

and also during solar flares".

Solar flare is a condition, when suddenly huge amount of energy discharging lightening is observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb. According to

scientists, it is generally 36 hours prior the beginning of a solar flare, when radioactive samples start varying.

Obama returns, Obama returned to Iowa to rekindle the passion, Iowa to rekindle the passion

This prairie state is the place where his unlikely bid for presidency began. But now it is 2012, and the big question for President Obama is whether, four

years after that historic run, Iowa can do for him what it did in 2008.
 Midway through a three-day bus tour in which he is traveling from the Nebraska border through windmill farms and dried-out cornfields east toward Illinois,

Mr. Obama is trying hard to reignite that fire, using the considerable arsenal at his disposal.

He is using the executive reach of the presidency — he began his trip on Monday announcing $170 million for aid to farmers and ranchers afflicted by the

drought. He is using the natural props that this state has always provided for the legions of politicians who flock here — posing for a photo with the Iowa

State Fair pageant queen and loudly demanding, in front of reporters at the fairgrounds, his helping of “pork chop on a stick.”

(He got two on Monday evening, but alas, they were on a paper plate instead of a stick, and no one remembered to supply the president with utensils, leaving

him to wail plaintively at the crowd: “Someone’s got to have a knife and fork!”)

And he is using his own well-known gift as an orator to try to get the flame going again.

“The centerpiece of Mr. Romney’s entire economic plan is to give another $5 trillion tax cut,” mostly to the rich, Mr. Obama told a campaign audience of

around 800 here. “Understand this is not asking you to pay more taxes to reduce our deficit, or to help kids get an education, or rebuild some roads — it’

s asking you to pay more to give an extra tax break to people making $250,000 or more a year.”

The president is mixing in campaign rallies with tête-à-têtes with local business owners. At Coffee Connection in Knoxville, Mr. Obama even talked with a

Republican, the cafe’s owner, Mark Raymie. (A campaign aide told amused reporters afterward that “we don’t party-ID people when we go to local

establishments.”)

He chatted with patrons of the coffee shop about White House beer — apparently brewed on the grounds at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and when one man evinced

an interest, the president sent out to his bus, Ground Force One, to get him a bottle. Then he wrote an excuse slip for a woman who was going to be late for

work because of her presidential shoulder-rubbing.

It remains anyone’s guess whether Mr. Obama can replicate the magic of 2008, and to become a two-term president, he dearly needs Iowa. A swing state, it has

one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, though its booming farm economy has been hurt by the drought.

Mr. Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, sent his new running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, here on Monday on Mr. Ryan’s first

solo foray on the campaign trail, a sign of how much the Republicans want to win this state’s six electoral votes.

It will be hard for Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan to outdo the Obama ground operation here — it remained largely in place after 2008 and was one of the first

places the Obama campaign revved up again for the 2012 cycle. But the Romney camp, sensing the potential to plug into a larger disenchantment with the

overall national employment picture, has blanketed the state in advertising and appearances by surrogates and the candidate himself.

At an appearance at the Nelson Pioneer Farm and Museum here on Tuesday, the president conceded that he was being outspent, saying, “They’ve got people

writing $10 million checks.”

Mr. Obama continued: “All the ads are the same. They say ‘the economy’s not doing well and it’s Obama’s fault.’ ” He called that a strategy to win an

election, not a plan to turn around the economy.

At the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s bus tour is his broader electoral strategy: to hold the states won by Democrats in the last three elections, and then to

find the additional 28 electoral votes he needs from a combination of other swing states, like Iowa (6 votes), Ohio (18 votes), Virginia (13 votes) or New

Hampshire, Colorado and New Mexico.

Polls in Iowa are very close to the national average, showing a tight race, with more showing Mr. Obama holding a slight lead rather than Mr. Romney.

Mr. Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to extend expiring tax credits for wind energy production. A White House spokesman said a new Energy Department

report indicated that wind power installations surged in 2011, but warned that fear that the tax credit would expire could lead to a slowdown with

accompanying job loss.

The report seemed timed to coincide with the president’s trip to Iowa, where his motorcade whizzed past countless windmills as it traversed Interstate 80

and rural roads. The report said that 75,000 jobs in the country now depend on wind power.

Mr. Romney has opposed extending the credits, a position that Jennifer Psaki, the Obama campaign press spokeswoman, labeled surprising enough to leave even

some Republicans in “utter disbelief.”

Romney campaign aides say that he would boost the wind industry through deregulation by rewarding technological innovation.

What Romney’s run with the Big Dig tells us about how he’d manage America

Mitt Romney was used to summoning state officials and having them appear. So when the head of a troubled agency stood him up in the middle of an emergency,

the Massachusetts governor was furious.

A tunnel ceiling collapse in July 2006 had killed a mother of three, the latest crisis for the massive Boston construction project known as the “Big Dig.”

But Matthew Amorello, the official overseeing construction, had ignored Romney’s summons and instead held a televised news conference at the accident site.


Romney took off for the tunnel, his face red and his jaw set, aides said. He stormed out of his car so fast his staffers scrambled to keep up, and upbraided

Amorello in a scene captured on Boston television. “It was the one time I saw him explode,’’ said Thomas Trimarco, a Romney cabinet member.

It was also the moment Romney took control of the Big Dig, one of the state’s most infamous and vexing problems, and one that had hung over him for 3 1 / 2

years. The project was billions of dollars over budget, years behind schedule and riddled by allegations of corruption — a mess that Romney had inherited

and vowed to fix when he became governor.

Romney’s plunge into the Big Dig offers a case study of his management style, one molded by the private sector experience he promises to bring to the White

House. Faced with a crisis, he set out to diagnose the problem and master the engineering details, then ordered a top-to-bottom safety review.

As a former business consultant, the frenzied atmosphere “played to his skills,’’ said Kerry Healey, Romney’s lieutenant governor: “He’s a smart guy,

and the whole notion of consulting is, you go into a business you don’t know, and learn it so well that you can quickly tell the people whose business it is

how to do it better.’’

Yet after the crisis faded, his attention receded as well, a critique that dogged him at other points during his governership. When he took office in 2003,

for example, the novice politician faced what he called a “financial emergency,’’ a nearly $3 billion state budget gap.

Working closely with the Democratic-controlled legislature, Romney rapidly won sweeping emergency powers to cut spending. But after the immediate budget

crisis passed, his relationships with legislators frayed when he targeted many of them for defeat in midterm elections.

Romney also zeroed in on a Massachusetts judicial nominating system he saw as riddled with patronage and favoritism. He announced widely hailed reforms, yet

reversed them as he geared up to run for president in 2008 and appointed some lawyers with political or personal ties to the bench.

The governor’s business background was perhaps most apparent in his effort to revamp what he saw as a highly inefficient higher education system. He brought

in consultants from his former firm, Bain & Co., who helped craft far-reaching proposals.

But Romney’s plan to privatize some schools and merge others quickly died in the Democratic-controlled legislature, and he never reintroduced it.

4 Updates from Mars

In the last week, little has captivated people more than Mars. Since last Sunday, images and news have been pouring out of NASA about Curiosity, the rover

that will spend the next two years exploring the red planet, sampling geology and looking for evidence of microbial life.

Here are the latest updates involving the remarkable mission.
Geology That Looks Like Death Valley

Curiosity has transmitted back to Earth its first high-resolution color mosaic that shows the environment around its landing site on Mars. It shows a Death

Valley-like landscape that includes a northern section on the crater wall where valleys believed to have resulted from water erosion protrude into Gale

Crater.

A southern perspective shows the areas the rover will explore, “including the rock-strewn, gravelly surface nearby, the dark dune field and the layered

buttes and mesas of the sedimentary rock of Mount Sharp,” reports NASA in an announcement.
This 79-image mosaic was compiled from images taken within about an hour on August 8 with Curiosity’s 34-millimeter Mastcam, but doesn’t include all of the

130 1200-by-1200-pixel full-color photos it captured—some of which have yet to be returned to earth, resulting in the black patches.
Where the Sky Crane Descent Stage Crashed

Some of the first images Curiosity captured included a strange cloud that set the blogosphere abuzz about what it might be.
"We believe we've caught what is the descent stage impact on the Martian surface," Steve Sell, NASA's deputy operations lead for Curiosity's Mars landing,

told reporters Friday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)in Pasadena, California, reports Space.com.

Now, with the high-res images in hand, geologists are looking closely at the crash site that exposes underlying materials as well as an upper layer made up

of rock fragments embedded within finer substances.
Curiosity Gets a 'Brain Transplant'

This weekend the Mars rover has been getting what NASA calls a “brain transplant,” a new version of flight software that’s better suited for working on

the surface of Mars, such as driving and using Curiosity’s powerful robotic arm and drill. It will also give the rover better image processing ability so it

can avoid obstacles while driving as well as go on longer drives.

The software upgrade began the evening of August 10 and should be complete on August 13.

It’s a pretty big deal considering the remote update is happening from 350 million miles away and if something goes wrong it could mean the last contact

anyone has with Curiosity.

"It has to work," Steve Scandore, a senior flight software engineer at JPL, told Computerworld. "You don't' want to be known as the guy doing the last

activity on the rover before you lose contact."
Other Mars News

While Curiosity wasn’t involved, Mars enthusiasts might like knowing that a UCLA scientist has discovered plate tectonics exist on the planet.

"Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse of how the early Earth may have looked and may help us understand how plate tectonics

began on Earth," said An Yin, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and the author of the research.

 Yin made the discovery by analyzing about 100 satellite images from THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System), an instrument on board the Mars Odyssey

spacecraft, and from the HIRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The surface of Mars is home to the longest and deepest system of canyons in the solar system—nearly 2500 miles long—and scientists have long wondered how

it was formed. According to Yin, the long crack is where two plates abut.

"The shell is broken and is moving horizontally over a long distance. It is very similar to the Earth's Dead Sea fault system, which has also opened up and

is moving horizontally," he said.
How to Keep up with Mars

NASA has dedicated an entire section of its website to its Mars mission and really everything you’d want to know about it is right there.

Otherwise, PCWorld’s Ian Paul has put together a thorough guide on how to track the Mars rover using a plethora of online tools. Check out Mars Rover

Curiosity: A Complete Guide to Tagging Along Online.

Sneijder not looking for summer move

 The Dutch playmaker was strongly touted for a move to Manchester United last summer, but has apparently not attracted similar attention a year later after a

disappointing trip to the Euro 2012 finals with the Netherlands.

Andrea Stramaccioni is the Italian club's new coach and Sneijder said: "I want to start over and do well with Inter.

“I am an Inter player and have not thought about leaving. If a good offer comes in and I like it, then we’ll see…

“Currently I have not received any offers and I do not want to leave. My desire is to win it all here and provide great satisfaction to the president,

directors and fans.

“Last season I did not enjoy at all and also at the European Championships with the Netherlands I did not play well. At 28 I want to be playing me best, to

win everything. I cannot waste time.

“The team is a bit different this year, they are no longer the Inter of 2010. Compared to two years ago in have arrived players of quality, who are good,

but younger.

“Even the coach is new and we like how he trains and plays football. Together we are aiming to win.

“Yes, it is a new Inter because of the things that have changed. I see a nice mix of experienced and young players. We shall do well.”

Cognizant, HCA Net Up; The AES, Tesco Net Fall

Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY), the consumer goods retailer founder Richard Schulze offered to take the company private. Schulze currently holds 20% stake in the

retailer and proposed to acquire all the remaining stock for $24 to $26 per share in cash which represent a 36% to 47% premium of closing price of $17.64 on

Friday.

Blue Nile, Inc. (NILE) increased 2.4% or 78 cents to $32.78 after the online jewlery retailer on Friday reported net sales in the fourth quarter ending on

July 1 surged 13% to $91 million compared to $81 million in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter plunged 44.4% to $1.58 million or 11

cents per diluted share compared to of $2.84 million or 19 cents per share a year ago period.

Stocks surged 33% on Friday after the earnings and extended gains today by 2.4%.

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH), the outsourcing service provider reported revenue in the second quarter ending in June soared 20.9% to $1.80 billion

compared to $1.49 billion in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter surged to $251.9 million or 82 cents per diluted share compared to $208

million or 67 cents a share a year ago quarter.

The company anticipated third quarter revenue to be at least $1.875 billion and expected earnings per share to be between 86 cents and 92 cents. Revenue for

the fiscal 2012 are expected to be about $7.34 billion and above 20% compared to year ago and earnings per share to be at least $3.38 and $3.64.

Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (CNK), the motion picture theater chain operator reported revenues in the second quarter ending in June grew 10% to $649.6 million

compared to $620.6 million in the same period of last year. Net earnings in the quarter soared 20% to $51.6 million or 45 cents per diluted share compared to

$40.4 million or 35 cents per share a year ago period.

Dril-Quip, Inc. (DRQ), the drilling equipments maker reported revenues in the second quarter ending in June climbed 27% to $135.2 million compared to $106.6

million in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter jumped 34.2% to $29.8 million or 74 cents per diluted share compared to $22.2 million or

55 cents per share a year ago quarter.

The equipments maker raised its full year earnings per share to be in the range of $2.75 to $2.95 from previous guidance of $2.60 to $2.80 per share.

HCA Holdings, Inc. (HCA), the hospital operator reported revenues in the second quarter ending in June increased 11.9% to $8.11 billion compared to $7.25

billion in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter soared 70.7% to $391 million or 85 cents per diluted share compared to $229 million or 43

cents per share a year ago.

HCA estimated revenues for the fiscal year between $32 billion and $33 billion and adjusted earnings per share in the range of $3.57 to $3.77 from previous

guidance.

Health Care REIT, Inc. (HCN), the real estate investment company reported revenues in the second quarter ending in June increased 22.6% to $453.1 million

compared to $369.6 million in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter declined 21.6% to $54.7 million or 25 cents per diluted share compared

to $69.8 million or 39 cents per share a year ago earlier.

The AES Corporation (AES), the electricity provider reported total revenue in the second quarter ending in June slid 5.6% to $4.19 billion compared to $4.44

billion in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter dropped 19.5% to $140 million or 18 cents per diluted share compared to $174 million or 22

cents per share a year ago.

The AES reaffirmed its full-year earnings from continuing operations outlook range of $1.22 to $1.30 per share.

Tyson Foods, Inc. (TSN), the meat processor reported sales in the third quarter ending in June rose 0.7% to $8.31 billion compared to $8.25 billion in the

same period of last year. Net income in the quarter declined 61.2% to $76 million or 21 cents per diluted share compared to $196 million or 51 cents per

share a year ago period.

Tyson lowered fiscal 2012 revenues by $1 billion to $33 billion.

Tesco Corporation (TESO), the oil well service provider reported revenues in the second quarter ending in June increased 22.6% to $136.7 million compared to

$117.3 million in the same period of last year. Net income in the quarter declined 21.6% to $13.1 million or 34 cents per diluted share compared to $7.4

million or 19 cents per share a year ago earlier.

Romney camp doubles down in Ohio

Despite a spate of headlines out of Ohio that push back on the notion that President Obama's campaign is trying to strip military members of voting rights in

the upcoming election, Mitt Romney's campaign is drilling down on the claim.

In a memo out earlier from counsel Katie Biber, Romney's camp insisted that the suit the Obama camp filed - to restore early in-person voting rights to every

Ohio citizen - is targeting military members.

The suit doesn't actually say this, and papers the campaign has filed called it "appropriate" to give three extra days to military members. The suit argues

against creating two classes of voters, using the legal term "arbitrary," which Romney's camp is seizing on to make its point.

"We disagree with the basic premise that it is arbitrary' and unconstitutional to give three extra days of in-person early voting to military voters and

their families, and believe it is a dangerous and offensive argument for President Obama and the DNC to make," she wrote.

"It is not only constitutional, but commendable that the Ohio legislature granted military voters and their families this accommodation.  It is despicable

for the Obama campaign to challenge Ohio’s lawful decision."

She noted that a group of more than a dozen military groups is opposing the suit, which is an extremely complicated case related to the end of what had been

early in-person voting broadly (which would likely help Obama) being turned into solely military early in-person voting (which is likely to help Romney).

The lawsuit is not trying to end it for military members, but make it exist for everyone.

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, sent out a string of headlines that undercut the Romney campaign's claim, with statements calling it "shameful." Vice

President Joe Biden made a similar statement to Time's Mark Halperin yesterday, who notes that this is a clear play to try to recreate some of the military

voting outrage that existed in 2000.

So Romney's campaign is making two separate points - arguing based on the brief that Obama doesn't agree military members deserve special privileges, while

also claiming the campaign is trying to deny voters rights. The suit isn't about subtracting, it's about adding.

But whether the Romney campaign succeeds in making this a cause that breaks through remains to be seen.

Movie Review: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Modern art long ago stopped being about recreating an image of reality and became about ideas. The key question always seems to be: Is art the thing itself?

Or the idea of the thing?

But what if you live in a society where the very ideas you harbor are punishable by imprisonment -- or worse? How much of being an artist becomes about

simply having the courage to express your ideas in verbal or physical form?

That's the notion at the heart of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a compelling documentary about the Chinese contemporary artist who seems to spend his life on a

blade's edge, dancing on a knife that's in the hands of the government of the People's Republic of China. One of the designers of the "Bird's Nest," the

stadium that was the centerpiece of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Ai is a seemingly fearless individual whose most prominent art work often involves giving the

finger to his own government, sometimes literally.

As Alison Klayman's film shows, he comes by his rebelliousness naturally. His father was a dissident poet under Mao Zedong, sent to reeducation farms to

learn the proper attitude. Ai Weiwei lives in a slightly more enlightened time, but the memory of his father's treatment still informs his work and his

opinion about his country.

Yet his art isn't about overthrowing the established order as much as showing its hypocrisy and cement-headed attitudes toward new ideas, such as democratic

free thought and expression. The film chronicles a couple of his post-Olympic artworks, such as a show in Germany that included a massive, building-size

quilt made of red, yellow and blue nylon backpacks.

The backpacks represent the thousands of school children who died in a 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province. They were killed when the government-built school

buildings in which they were housed collapsed because of shoddy construction. The government, however, refused to acknowledge the loss of life because of the

loss of face it would entail.

The backpacks were a follow-up to one of Ai Weiwei's other projects -- assembling a list of names of all the dead children, something the government refused

to do. The government feared embarrassment for sanctioning substandard construction and refused to reveal how many children had died in the earthquake. So Ai

Weiwei and a crew of volunteers gradually assembled the most comprehensive list around and posted it on the Internet -- until the government took it down.

No Great Divide at Citi

A letter from John Reed to Sanford Weill during the talks that created Citigroup Inc. in 1998 could have changed the course of banking history.

While on a trip to Singapore, Mr. Reed, then head of Citicorp, wrote to Mr. Weill, the boss of Travelers Group Inc., with a novel idea: After we merge the two companies, let’s quickly split them apart.

Under the plan, the combined behemoth would have been broken up along customer lines, Mr. Reed recalled last week.

One company would have housed the retail businesses: Citicorp’s consumer bank and Travelers’ brokerage and insurance units. Another would have contained the wholesale operations, combining Citicorp’s international corporate bank with Travelers’ securities unit, the old Salomon Brothers.

“I have always felt the retail side of the business would command the same kind of [valuation] multiple that you see in Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive or any other good consumer company,” Mr. Reed, who left Citigroup in 2000 after clashing with Mr. Weill, told me. “But if you add a Wall Street firm, your valuation suffers.”

Mr. Weill had spent the previous decades amassing assets in a ravenous quest to become the biggest player in global finance, so his answer was predictable. “Sandy didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Reed said. (Mr. Weill declined to comment.)

And thus Citigroup was born, the joint creation of a scrappy empire-builder from Brooklyn and a highbrow banker with an international outlook united by little more than the matching, umbrellas-dotted, ties they wore on merger day.

Mr. Weill and Mr. Reed (with a little help from then-Treasury Secretary and future colleague Robert Rubin) bulldozed through the Depression-era law banning the commingling of retail and investment-banking services and spawned a breed of financial conglomerates that proved hard to manage and potentially perilous for the global economy.

This tortuous history of daring deals and share-price rises followed by abject failures, regulatory problems and government assistance, culminated in last week’s televised admission by Mr. Weill that it would be good to break up these too-big-to-fail giants.

Mr. Reed, now 73 and at the helm of MIT Corp., the governing body of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had his own moment of reckoning years ago.

In an interview in April 2008, just before the 10th anniversary of the merger, he told me the deal had been “a mistake” that had shortchanged investors, employees and customers.

Having seen how the financial crisis unfolded since then, he agrees with his frenemy Mr. Weill about the need for structural changes at big banks.

“I think this is an issue whose time may be coming,” he said, noting that conglomerates in other sectors are often broken up when they are deemed to have lost their usefulness.

Unlike Mr. Weill, who didn’t flesh out his thinking and has gone mum since last week’s CNBC appearance, Mr. Reed’s analysis is both detailed and clinical. He stressed that the size of a bank needn’t be, in itself a problem, but pinpointed three related problems: complexity, concentration and connectedness.

“The system is too complex and there is no benefit to the complexity, in the sense that there are no major economic advantages to being together,” he said. “I saw it with Sandy after we put the companies together. It was an amazingly complex company to run.”

In Mr. Reed’s view, the issues during the crisis were compounded by the pervasive links among the few firms that dominated the financial landscape, so that when “one piece of the domino fell, everything fell.”

He isn’t convinced by those, like J.P.Morgan Chase chief James Dimon, who have extolled the advantages of financial supermarkets for customers. With more focused banks, clients “would continue to receive service, they would just get it from a variety of different providers,” he argued.

Although he has been out of the fray for some time, Mr. Reed remains one of the most lucid minds in finance. It is hard to disagree with his logic, informed as it is by both experience and hindsight.

The question, though, is how to get there. The political calendar and landscape make it unlikely Washington will go in the direction suggested by the architects of Citigroup or toward the U.K. plans to separate the business of deposit-taking from riskier investment-banking activities.

Even if the political will existed, determining banks’ sizes by government fiat would be controversial, as Sullivan & Cromwell LLP’s Rodgin Cohen, Wall Street’s most prominent lawyer, argued this week.

That leaves the spotlight trained on one actor: banks’ investors. After suffering huge losses on their investments, shareholders should ask Mr. Reed to see that Singapore letter.

Pro-Assad forces reportedly kill over 220 in assault on Syrian village

More than 200 Syrians, mostly civilians, were massacred in a village in the rebellious Hama region when it was bombarded by helicopter gunships and tanks and then stormed by militiamen, opposition activists said.

If confirmed, it would be the worst single incident of violence in 16 months of conflict in which rebels are fighting to topple President Bashar Assad and diplomacy to halt the bloodshed has been stymied by jostling between world powers.

The Revolution Leadership Council of Hama said the Sunni Muslim village of Taramseh was subjected on Thursday to a barrage of heavy weapons fire before pro-government Alawite militiamen swept in and killed victims one by one.

"More than 220 people fell today in Taramseh. They died from bombardment by tanks and helicopters, artillery shelling and summary executions," the regional opposition group said in a statement on Thursday evening.

Syrian state television said three security personnel had been killed in fighting in Taramseh and it accused "armed terrorist groups" of committing a massacre there.
    Fadi Sameh, an opposition activist from Taramseh, said he had left the town before the reported killing spree but was in touch with residents. "It appears that Alawite militiamen from surrounding villages descended on Taramseh after its rebel defenders pulled out, and started killing the people. Whole houses have been destroyed and burned from the shelling.

"Every family in the town seems to have members killed. We have names of men, women and children from countless families," he said, adding many of the bodies were taken to a local mosque.

Ahmed, another local activist, told Reuters: "So far, we have 20 victims recorded with names and 60 bodies at a mosque. There are more bodies in the fields, bodies in the rivers and in houses ... People were trying to flee from the time the shelling started and whole families were killed trying to escape."   

The reports could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities severely limit access for independent journalists.

Seventy-eight people were shot or stabbed dead or burned alive in the village of Mazraat al-Qubeir, a Sunni hamlet, by fighters of Assad's Alawite sect on June 6, and 108 men, women and children were massacred in the town of Houla on May 25.

Most of Assad's political and military establishment are minority Alawites, who form a branch of Shi'ite Islam. The revolt and the fighters behind it, and the street protesters who launched the revolt in March 2011, are mostly Sunni Muslims.

While the insurgents have been unable to match the Syrian army's firepower, they have established footholds in towns, cities and villages across Syria, often prompting Assad's forces to respond fiercely with helicopter gunships and artillery.

Defecting ambassador condemns Assad

Earlier on Thursday, the first ambassador to abandon Assad called on the army to "turn your guns on the criminals" of the government as troops backed by tanks swarmed into a suburb of Damascus on Thursday to flush out rebels.

Nawaf al-Fares, a Sunni Muslim who has close ties to the security services, was Syria's ambassador to its neighbour Iraq, one of its few friends in the region.

Coming just days after the desertion of Manaf Tlas, a Sunni brigadier general in the elite Republican Guard who grew up with the president, his defection gave the anti-Assad uprising one of its biggest political lifts.

But Assad's strongest strategic ally, Russia, stuck by him on Thursday with a clear warning to his Western and Arab enemies that it would not even consider calls for a tough new resolution by the U.N. Security Council in New York.

Britain circulated a draft on Wednesday, backed by the United States, France and Germany, that would make compliance with a transition plan drafted by international envoy Kofi Annan enforceable under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.

This would allow the council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.

British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant raised the fact that another massacre had reportedly taken place during Security Council negotiations on a resolution on Thursday.

"It goes to show that business as usual for the Security Council is not an option. The Security Council, as requested by Kofi Annan, now needs to apply joint and sustained pressure on the parties, with serious consequences for non-compliance," Lyall Grant said in a statement to Reuters.

But as council members began negotiating a resolution to renew the U.N. Syria monitoring mission, Russia's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Alexander Pankin warned it would use its veto if it had to. "We are definitely against Chapter 7," he said. "Anything can be negotiated, but we do not negotiate this, this is a red line."

Annan himself asked the 15-member council to agree on "clear consequences" if the Syrian government or opposition failed to comply with his plan, which has produced neither a ceasefire nor political dialogue since it was agreed in April.

The British draft threatens the Syrian government with sanctions unless it stops using heavy weapons and withdraws its troops from towns and cities within 10 days.

'People are terrified'

On Thursday, residents reported the first bombardment of the capital as security forces used mortars, then tanks and infantry to try to flush out rebels near Kfar Souseh, a southern suburb.

Activists said tanks had fired from the Hadi Mosque to the east and al-Mazzeh military airport immediately to the west.

"I woke up this morning and saw helicopters flying over the area. Then I started hearing the mortars. There were about six or seven of them in the past half hour," said anti-government activist Hazem al-Aqad.

"People are terrified, families are getting in their cars and rushing away as fast as they can."

The official news agency SANA said Syrian forces killed rebels shipping arms in two boats on Lake Qotaina, near Homs.

Assad's opponents say 13,000 armed and unarmed opponents of Assad, and 4,300 members of security forces loyal to Damascus, have been killed since the uprising began.

Before word of the massacre in Taramseh, the activist Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 42 people had been killed on Thursday, 30 of them civilians.

Tlas, socialite son of a veteran former defense minister, has made no public comment since fleeing, but France said on Thursday he was in contact with Syrian rebels.

Fares by contrast immediately went public, posting a video statement on Facebook on Wednesday that repeatedly said government forces had been killing civilians.

"I declare that I have joined, from this moment, the ranks of the revolution of the Syrian people," he said. "I ask ... the members of the military to join the revolution and to defend the country and the citizens. Turn your guns on the criminals from this regime …"

"Every Syrian man has to join the revolution to remove this nightmare and this gang," he said, accusing the Assad family and its allies of corruption and "destroying society" during the 42 years it has ruled Syria with an iron hand.

The defection of Fares and Tlas hint at growing alienation among the Sunni business elite, which had been slow to embrace a revolt that began among poorer parts of the majority community.

Assad's crackdown on what began as a broad, peaceful pro-democracy movement helped turn it into an armed rebellion, but the insurgents know they must erode the loyalty and conviction of his establishment to loosen its hold on power.

Russia and China, both veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have for months blocked attempts to isolate and push out Assad, endorsing his argument that he is defending Syria against armed groups bent on ousting him with the backing of the West and allied Sunni Gulf Arab monarchies.

Reggie Jackson apologizes again

NEW YORK -- Continuing his quest to make amends for comments first published more than a week ago, New York Yankees senior advisor Reggie Jackson released a statement Thursday publicly stating his contrition.
"I have been proactively reaching out to make personal apologies to those within the Hall of Fame community that I offended, and to the Yankees' organization for any disruption that I caused in the clubhouse," said Jackson, a Hall of Famer, in part of his statements. "I continue to have a strong relationship with the club, and look forward to continuing in my role with the team. As always, I remain dedicated to the great game of baseball."

A baseball official with knowledge of the team's thinking told ESPNNewYork.com that Jackson won't be with the team this upcoming homestand, but could join on the road in Oakland next Thursday.
Jackson made his comments in last week's issue of Sports Illustrated. He said there was a "cloud" over the accomplishments of Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez because of his admitted performance enhancing drug use.
Jackson also said he wasn't sure if some current Hall of Famers belonged in Cooperstown, including the recently deceased Gary Carter.

"In trying to convey my feelings about a few issues that I am passionate about, I made the mistake of naming some specific players," Jackson said in the statement Thursday. "This was inappropriate and unfair to those players, some of which are very close friends of mine. I think there are ways to speak from the heart without hurting people, and I'm disappointed that I didn't take greater care in expressing my views.
The Yankees asked Jackson to stay away from Fenway Park for last weekend's series so as not to cause a distraction.

Rodriguez answered questions about Jackson's comments.

"With friends like that, who needs enemies," Rodriguez said.

Last Friday, Rodriguez confirmed he spoke with Jackson after the comments, but wanted to keep what was said private. Sources told ESPNNewYork.com that Jackson had apologized to Rodriguez and other Yankee personnel.

"He is trying to rectify everything," Yankees manager Joe Girardi told ESPNNewYork.com at that time.

Paterno defended football, Penn State in letter before his death

(CNN) -- Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno wrote a letter before his death saying the sex abuse scandal involving his assistant coach was "not a football scandal."

His family authenticated the letter, written late last year, after it emerged Wednesday.

"This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one," wrote Paterno, who died in January. "It is not an academic scandal and does not in any way tarnish the hard-earned and well-deserved academic reputation of Penn State."

Family spokeswoman Mara Vandlik said the letter was intended to be published as a guest editorial, but that never happened, and it was probably released by one of the former players who had received a copy.

Former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted last month for sexually abusing young boys over a 15-year period.

Paterno and former Penn State President Graham Spanier were fired after the Sandusky scandal broke in November.

The findings of an internal review into the sex scandal are scheduled to be released Thursday. The lengthy report is expected to focus on school officials, what they knew about Sandusky's behavior and whether they tried to cover it

Nexus devices get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update

After releasing the OS source code yesterday, Google announced that those who have Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ devices will be able to update their handsets to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean starting today.

Users will be prompted with an alert about the update over the next few days.

New Android 4.1 features include a faster user experience, improved Voice Search, and more expansive notifications.

Other products that have a Jelly Bean update in their midst include: the Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus S, the Motorola Xoom, and the Nexus 7 tablet, which will ship natively with Android 4.1 later this month.

Doctors booted from Medicaid for massive oxy doses in Florida Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The state’s most prolific prescriber of Medicaid-financed oxycodone to the poor in 2010

and 2011 has been barred from participating in the taxpayer supported health care program,

one of 76 such high-volume prescribers identified in a Palm Beach Post investigation.

Four others, including West Palm physician Dr. John Christensen, are either under

regulatory scrutiny or have been disciplined for their prescribing patterns.

None wrote more oxycodone prescriptions than Dr. Jorge Leal. The Tampa-area

anesthesiologist and pain clinic specialist prescribed over 715,000 doses of oxycodone

billed to Medicaid over two years – on average, just under 1,000 doses a day. On busy

days, Leal’s oxycodone scripts were filled by the bushel: Multiple times, more than 2,000

pills a day were filled by pharmacies and billed to Medicaid; during one 24-hour period,

that number topped 4,000 pills.

Seven people in Florida die each day from prescription drugs, a 2009 study found; oxycodone

killed the most.

Despite state law enforcement’s all-out war on oxycodone abuse, however, Medicaid paid for

more than 49 million doses of the powerful narcotic oxycodone over a two year period, The

Post found. Only 1.3 million adults are enrolled in Medicaid.

The majority of those doses were in the form of oxycodone pills not mixed with aspirin or

another drug. While effective for relieving severe pain, including pain from cancer, such

“undiluted” oxycodone is also favored by addicts.

Leal said through a lawyer that his two pain clinics were among a diminishing number still

willing to treat Medicaid patients, which may have accounted for the higher oxycodone

dosage figures. “In this area, Medicaid only has one provider in Pinellas County for pain

management, no provider is listed for Pasco County, and only two provider groups are listed

in Hillsborough County,” pointed out attorney Jon Pellett.

Asked about the decision to drop Leal from Medicaid, a spokeswoman with Florida’s Agency

for Health Care Administration said that the state could cut off a physician from the

program with 30 days notice without providing specific reasons.

In addition to Leal, another physician, Dr. Harold Laski of Jacksonville, has had his

Medicaid privileges revoked. Laski, who could not be reached for comment, wrote

prescriptions totaling 105,189 doses of oxycodone.

Among the other Florida doctors who wrote Medicaid-funded oxycodone prescriptions topping

100,000 doses in 2010 and 2011:

— Partly citing overprescribing, the state Board of Medicine last month revoked Dr. John

Christensen’s medical license. The West Palm Beach physician prescribed 148,367 doses of

oxycodone billed to Medicaid in 2010 and 2011.

— Dr. William Crumbley, who prescribed 173,699 doses of oxycodone, a figure that

translates to about 260 pills a day, rejected a settlement offer from the Board of Medicine

permanently restricting him from prescribing certain narcotics, including oxycodone, as

well as barring the Tampa-area physician from affiliating with any pain management clinic

in Florida. Crumbley was arrested late last year on charges of operating a pain clinic

without a license. He was subseqently charged with bringing drugs into jail. He has entered

a plea of not guilty.

— St. Petersburg internist Dr. Fadi Saba is being monitored by the state’s Bureau of

Medicaid Program Integrity. Saba prescribed a total 110,000 doses of oxycodone billed to

Medicaid in 2010 and 2011.

Monitoring, said an ACHA spokeswoman, “means that there is an open case on that provider

or (the state) is monitoring prescribing reports to determine if further investigation is

warranted.”

The monitoring information was included in a letter sent earlier this year by state health

officials to U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley. The Iowa Republican has asked states to identify

and give him the status of high volume prescribers of certain psychiatric medicines and

pain killers billed to Medicaid, including oxycodone.

In serious cases following monitoring, the doctor can be kicked out of the Medicaid

program.

That has not always worked out as planned. For instance, Dr. Robert Reppy of Tampa,a high-

volume prescriber, was terminated from the Medicaid program on Feb. 24, 2011.

But beginning the next day and continuing for months afterwards, the doctor’s oxycodone

prescriptions were still being filled at pharmacies, state-provided data shows. In all,

16,305 doses of oxycodone prescribed after he was ousted from Medicaid were billed to the

health care program.

“We are reviewing the prescriptions for the time period Dr. Reppy was inadvertently

allowed to prescribe to verify they were medically necessary,” confirmed another ACHA

spokeswo

A sex worker's journey back to life at WIFW

Fashion makes a difference: The special show held late afternoon took people on an emotional tour this Autumn Winter at Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week 2012. The season had kick-started with the FDCI signing up with PETA officials in a campaign supporting minimum or no use of animal skin in fabrics and designs, an initiative well lauded by all. Continuing in the same spirit, the afternoon's special show was conceived as an endeavour toward addressing and eliminating the plague of human trafficking in the capital of the country. In a joint association with the youcanfree.us organisation (that rescues women out of prostitution and rehabilitates them) founded by Sujo John, 12 leading fashion designers of the country came together to support the cause.

Photography unearths beauty from the ashes: Travelling down the narrow lanes of the red-light area in the city of New Delhi, ace photographer Subi Samuel came close to the lives of sex-workers and prostitutes who he felt were pushed into the dungeon without any consent of theirs. For him, it became important to unearth their free spirit and happiness that till now remained buried under rigid layers of exploitation, torture and grief. A small audio-visual at the beginning of the show documented the story of one such girl, Alice (name changed) who yearned to see the light of the day but was suppressed by the ills of sex-trade that engulfed her when she was young and ignorant. This ride of emotions and sentiments shaped into a photo feature where Alice became the protagonist donning the outfits designed by the 12 fashion stalwarts and Subi translating them into speaking images. With changing photos of Alice on the screen, models sashayed down the ramp in respective creations of the participating designers.

Collection and design: The collection 'From Ashes to Beauty' began on a sombre note with Lacoanet Hemant's coffee brown gown in golden work with a veil and a wreath of thorns placed on the head of the model displaying the design. Colours and patterns slowly turned joyous and hit a positive note once the show gained momentum. Ritu Beri's shimmered sharara styled in minute thread work and sparkling choli, JJ Valaya's yellow-blue sari teamed with a gold decorated jacket, Tarun Tahiliani's sequined corset and flowy skirt, Suneet Varma's fuschia pink rose-petal studded lehenga-choli and Ravi Bajaj's patch work black gown among others infused energy into the dull life of Alice. 'Ashes to Beauty' found its inspiration from Alice in Wonderland that traced her footsteps from moving away from the contours of brothels and to coming close to a path of hope and freedom.

Bollywood makes a presence: Vivek Oberoi was the Bollywood face of the evening who has many human-interest projects to his credit. He said, "My experience in Vrindavan had been life changing. I was shocked to learn the number of little girls pushed into the flesh trade. This movement is close to me and I am here to pledge my support in rehabilitating women from the cages of sex trafficking."

Leander Paes ushers Alice to the ramp: Walking down the ramp with head hanging low and shy eyes, the brave protagonist of the evening, Alice made the entire auditorium stand up in a gesture to acknowledge her courage and strong will. Accompanying her to the ramp, tennis sensation Leander Paes stood moved and touched and uttered, "I support this movement with all my heart. I think I can be a drop of water that can create a ripple to make a change." This was his plea for us to join hands to free other Alices from the clutches of sexual slavery.

The fashion designers who showcased their respective costumes were: Manish Arora, Suneet Varma, JJ Valaya, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Rohit Gandhi & Rahul Khanna, Tarun Tahiliani, Shantanu-Nikhil, Ashish Soni, Lacoanet Hemant, Ravi Bajaj, Ritu Beri and Ashima Leena.

The images and outfits were later auctioned in a fundraiser to support the efforts of the organisation.