Month: October 2016

This is after unknown persons bought all the copies of the Nation Media group newspapers in an attempt to cover up a new scandal in the health sector.
Yesterday BD ran a story about how a whopping 5 billion shillings was looted by top Ministry of Health officials.
An amount which pales in comparison to the 791 million stolen in the NYS scandal.
As Business Daily reports, the money was stolen through ‘diversion of funds, double payment for goods, and manipulation of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS).”
 
As expected, such a story has roused anger among Kenyans after the Health sector attempted to cover-up the story and also for the threats allegedly made to the journalist who ran the story by Health PS Nicholas Muraguri.
Now, the Kenya Union of Journalists is demanding the resignation and prosecution of Health PS Nicholas Muraguri for defending graft and threatening journalist.
 
 

Part of the memo read
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They won’t exactly be sacked but will face retrenchment, a situation where people are given the option to leave voluntarily immediately and get retrenchment benefits.
Among those facing retrenchment includes Kirigo Ng’arua, Terryanne Chebet, Elizabeth Omolo (Loius Otieno’s mum), Kenani Victor and Shisia Wasilwa.
According to our sources, Janet Mbugua could be replacing Terryanne Chebet on Citizen TV’s Business Centre.
 

An announcementwhich quickly morphed into a trending topic thanks to the  endless congratulatory messages, messages of good wishes and even critics asking him to be a better man now that he was a dad.
A year after Robert Alai welcomed his first born, he is about to be a daddy again.
The elated blogger shared this post on Facebook Before adding
 

Vietnam customs officials have seized nearly one tonne of ivory hidden in a timber shipment from Kenya, an official said Thursday, the third major illegal haul of precious tusks in less than a month.
The communist nation is a popular transit route for illegal ivory from Africa heading to other parts of Asia, namely China, where it is used for decorative and medicinal purposes.
Ivory products are also hot in Vietnam, though the trade is officially banned.
The latest haul from Kenya was discovered at a port in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday, where it was carefully hidden in a shipment of timber logs — a common practise among smugglers.
Some 3.5 tonnes of ivory have been discovered at the city’s Cat Lai port this month, all in crates of wood, including a hefty two-tonne haul packed into a single shipment.
“All that ivory was not just to be consumed in Vietnam,” a customs official told AFP, requesting not to be named.
“We believe much of it was to be later be transferred to the main market, China.”
This week’s cache reportedly originated in Kenya’s Mombasa port and was sent to Malaysia’s Tanjung port before arriving in Vietnam, according to state-run Thanh Nien newspaper.
Vietnam outlawed the ivory trade in 1992, but shops still sell ivory dating from before the ban and weak law enforcement has allowed a black market to flourish.
A two-week survey by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) last year found out that more than 16,000 ivory products were available in Hanoi.
Vietnam is hosting an international conference on illegal wildlife trade from November 17 to 18, which will be attended by Britain’s Prince William, a vocal critic against illicit wildlife trafficking.

Food staples like rice and milk are returning to the empty shelves of Venezuelan supermarkets after a long absence — but who can afford those eye-popping prices?
Delia Mendoza’s eyes widen when she realizes that the price for half a kilo of red beans is 4,211 bolivars, or $6.40 at the highest official exchange rate. This in a country where the monthly minimum wage is around $100.
“Incredible!” she gasps, and returns the beans — a staple of Venezuelan cuisine — to the shelf.
In recent months, the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro has begun to relax its price control system, allowing food sales at market prices in several Venezuelan states and, to a limited degree, in the capital Caracas.
That is a sea change for a country where strict price controls had been imposed since 2003 — a lynchpin of the socialist “revolution” launched by Maduro’s late predecessor and mentor, the iconic president Hugo Chavez.
“In a way, the government has turned a blind eye to this with all the regulations they have implemented,” said Asdrubal Oliveros, head of Ecoanalitica consultants.
“This has allowed many companies, many importers to start bringing in products, and those products are being sold at black market prices.”
Many economists blame the scarcity on the strict price controls, together with tight currency exchange limits and Venezuela’s over-dependence on its vast oil reserves, which has made it rely on imports for goods it once made at home.
Lacking easy access to greenbacks, businesses are starved for US dollars needed to buy supplies and equipment available only abroad.
Now that the price control system is crumbling, Venezuelan businessmen are starting to bring in imports again — but at a high price.
“There is plenty, but everything is super expensive and imported because nothing is made here,” said Mendoza, a 75 year-old retiree, speaking at a supermarket in a posh Caracas neighborhood.
“Before, I’d eat a large plate of spaghetti, but now I go for half so that it will last two days,” she said.
Venezuela is paying a heavy price for neglecting agribusiness and food production over the years to concentrate on petroleum, the source of 96 percent of its foreign currency.
With global oil prices in a slump, the country’s economy is in a tailspin and inflation is out of control.
The IMF predicts that Venezuela’s inflation rate, already the world’s highest, will reach 475 percent by year’s end — and with no changes, a whopping 1,660 percent in 2017.
The cash-strapped government has even increased the price of household items in government-subsidized markets, which in any case are hard to find.
The stores lucky enough to sell imported products like sugar, rice and cooking oil set their prices at the black market rate — where US dollars go for twice the official exchange rate — to recover their investment.
At these prices, 500 grams of Italian pasta costs 4,000 bolivars ($6), a dozen eggs can cost $3, while a liter of cooking oil costs $17.
While a liter of milk in Costa Rica costs $1.50, that same product costs nearly $4 when imported to Venezuela.
Regular Venezuelans struggle every day just to find food, much of which is unavailable at any price.
A woman named Judith stands in line for long hours at a government-subsidized market, where a bag of beans costs 280 bolivars ($0.40) — when it’s even available.
“The problem is that we can’t find anything,” she says.
Judith certainly doesn’t make enough to buy food from black-market vendors known as “bachaqueros,” who resell scarce products with gargantuan markups, sometimes 40 times the original price.
A family food basket at black market prices can cost nearly 160,000 bolivars ($242 at the official rate) according to the firm Hinterlaces — or nearly 360,000 ($535) according to a different group, the Center of Documentation and Analysis.
“Sometimes we have nothing to eat, we go hungry because there’s nothing,” said another shopper, Edith, who stood in line alongside her husband Edward.

The US Coast Guard has suspended its Pacific Ocean search for star Chinese sailor Guo Chuan, it said, after rescuers found his drifting yacht and confirmed he was not there but aboard his lifejacket.
Guo “was a professional mariner with a deep passion for sailing”, the Coast Guard’s Captain Robert Hendrickson said in a statement on Thursday Chinese time.
“Our deepest condolences go out not only to his family and friends but also to his racing team and the sailing community.”
Footage released by the US Coast Guard showed Guo’s 97-foot trimaran Qingdao China drifting across the waves hundreds of kilometres west of Hawaii, its red sail emblazoned “Peace and Sport”.
During two days of searches over around 12,000 square kilometres both a US Navy helicopter crew and a Coast Guard Hercules aircraft overflying the vessel had been unable to contact Guo, it said.
Guo, by far the country’s biggest sailing star, became in 2013 the first Chinese sailor to complete a non-stop solo circumnavigation of the globe.
The 51-year-old set off from San Francisco on October 18 in an attempt to set a record solo crossing of the Pacific, but his team lost contact with him on Tuesday afternoon Beijing time.
They alerted US authorities, and rescuers from the USS Makin Island amphibious assault ship reached the Qingdao China on Thursday Beijing time.
“The boat crew confirmed Chuan was not on the vessel although his life jacket remains aboard,” the Coast Guard statement said.
They lowered the mainsail and left the Qingdao China — originally built as the Idec 2 for French yachtsman Francis Joyon — at sea, it added, saying his racing team was arranging to salvage the vessel.
On a verified Weibo social media account Guo’s team said his personal items had been recovered.
In a sailing diary entry for October 20 posted by the team he said that listening to a recording of his two sons’ laughter on his computer was “the world’s most beautiful song, the song that puts me most at ease”.
Guo had previously said that his greatest fear was to fall in the water, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported, citing him as saying: “I fear being separated from the ship when I am sailing solo.”
If he was to be thrown into the sea, he said, “I would never catch up with the ship. My chance of survival would be none.”
What happened to Guo remained unclear.
Guo’s team said they had observed his speed slowed on Tuesday and attempted to contact him, but he did not answer either satellite calls or internet communication.
The US searchers had found a broken sail in the water, they added.
The US Coast Guard said it was called when Guo’s team had not received notification from him for 24 hours.
The sailor had previously been “in constant contact” with his shore team and family and was “not likely to miss scheduled calls”, it added.
Chinese fans expressed fears for the mariner, with one writing that it was “likely he was adjusting or repairing the sail when he was struck or an accident occurred and he fell”.
Others urged rescuers to continue the search.
“Absolutely do not stop the search and rescue! It’s only 24 hours, the water is warm enough, Guo Chuan’s physical abilities are fine, if money’s an issue the shore team must immediately open a donation account… You can’t give up!”
But a tone of mourning and tribute also appeared, with one writing that sailors, like mountain climbers, embraced challenge to access a vast perspective, with “captains’ hearts always facing the sea”.
The writer added: “To rest eternally in the Pacific now, that’s a respectable fate!”

India announced Thursday it was expelling a Pakistani visa official for suspected spying after he was briefly detained carrying sensitive defence documents, with tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours already running high.
New Delhi police said the official had been recruiting Indian nationals for two and a half years to spy for Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in return for cash.
“Delhi police crime branch has busted an espionage racket run by a kingpin working in the Pakistan high commission,” said Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police on crime.
The official, named as Mehmood Akhtar, was detained on Wednesday with documents in his possession on Indian troop deployment along the border, Yadav told a press conference in Delhi.
“They used to meet once in a month at a pre-decided place to exchange documents and money,” he said.
Akhtar was later released, he added.
India’s foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar summoned Pakistan’s high commissioner to inform him of the decision to expel the official within 48 hours.
“FS (foreign secretary) summons Pak High Commissioner to convey that Pak High Commission staffer has been declared persona non grata for espionage activities,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said on Twitter.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have soared since a raid last month on an Indian army base near the de-facto border dividing Kashmir killed 19 soldiers, the worst such attack in more than a decade.
India blamed militants in Pakistan and said it had responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily-militarised border, although Islamabad denies these took place.
Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchange fire across the border known as the Line of Control in Kashmir, but sending ground troops over the line is rare.
Yadav said two Indian nationals from the northern state of Rajasthan were also arrested, and that Akhtar had planned to meet his Indian co-conspirators at the Delhi zoo to exchange the information and cash.
He said Akhtar was carrying maps that showed the deployment of India’s Border Security Forces (BSF) and army soldiers.
“A list of jawans (soldiers) posted at the border along with soldiers who had retired from service was also recovered,” Yadav said.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit lodged a “strong protest” on Thursday with the Indian foreign ministry and said the detention of the official contravened diplomatic conventions, a Pakistani diplomatic source said.
“The High Commissioner denied the accusation and said we (the commission) never engage in activity that is incompatible with its diplomatic status,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The official has been given 48 hours to leave the country, the source said.
The expulsion comes as an Indian soldier died on Thursday from injuries he received during an exchange of fire with Pakistani soldiers across the border.
“A BSF jawan (soldier) was killed today by splinter injuries he received during cross border firing from Pakistan,” Indian BSF officer Manoj Kumar told AFP.
Such firings have increased in recent months as relations between the rivals have plummeted.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned Pakistan since the army base attack that India would push to make it a pariah state, accusing it of being a “mothership of terrorism”.
Tensions were already high before the attack, with deadly violence in Kashmir over the death on July 8 of a popular militant leader.
Nearly 90 people, most of them young protesters, have been killed in clashes with security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the mountainous region.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will travel to Moscow on Friday for three-way talks with his Syrian and Russian counterparts on the situation in Syria, his ministry said.
Zarif will also hold a one-to-one meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said late Wednesday.
Iran and Russia are key financial and military supporters of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests calling for Assad’s ouster.
Moscow faces growing diplomatic pressure over a Russian-backed Syrian offensive against rebel-held areas of the battleground city of Aleppo that the UN says has left hundreds dead since September 22.

He’s already become the most prolific wicketkeeping batsman in a calendar year and with six Tests still to go, Jonny Bairstow has the opportunity to set a record beyond reach — and silence his critics once and for all.
“It’s a pretty amazing feeling,” said England’s Bairstow as he reflected on his achievement in shattering Andy Flower’s 16-year record for most runs by a gloveman in Test match cricket.
“There were a few mumbles floating around that I wasn’t good enough,” he admitted ahead of the second Test against Bangladesh which begins Friday.
“You go back maybe two years and there are people writing you off to never play Test cricket again, (so) to then come back and prove a few people wrong with the way that I’ve been playing…”
The sentence was left unfinished but the normally self-effacing Yorkshireman is understandably proud of his achievements since the turn of the year, both with the bat and the gloves.
During the first Test in Chittagong, Bairstow surged past Flower’s tally of 1,045 runs in a calendar year during a match-winning partnership with Ben Stokes.
It leaves him just 390 runs short of Michael Vaughan’s tally of 1,481 runs in 2002, the record for the most runs by any Englishman from January to December.
With England due to embark on a five-Test tour of India straight after the second Bangladesh Test, Bairstow should have ample opportunity to chase down that record.
The volume of cricket means selectors are likely to rotate players but Bairstow will resist any offer of a rest, especially given how hard he has fought to regain his place after being dropped following England’s disastrous tour to Australia three winters ago.
Bairstow has also taken 53 dismissals in his 11 Tests behind the stumps so far this year, more than any of his peers.
“There’s still a lot of cricket to play this year, and hopefully I can carry on in the same vein with the bat and the gloves,” said Bairstow.
“Having missed out for 18 months after the Ashes and going away and working on my game and playing for Yorkshire and earning your place back, you want to play as many games as you can for England in every single format going.
“It’s only natural that a guy that’s in the team wants to keep being in the team and playing all the time.”
His main rival is Jos Buttler, who impressed many by leading the side in the ODI series that preceded the Tests in Bangladesh after regular skipper Eoin Morgan refused to travel over security fears.
Bairstow has been criticised for his keeping, particularly at the start of the last English summer, but he had arguably his most accomplished game behind the stumps on a sharply turning surface in Chittagong.
The 27-year-old, whose late father also kept wicket for England, said he enjoyed being “in the game every single ball” but was aware that a couple of dropped chances would revive doubts about his quality.
“I know how quickly things can change and the hard work that has to be done to keep improving. It went well but there might be two chances I put down in the next game,” he said.
“If I’m going unnoticed and keeping well that’s the best way forward me, and I was very pleased to get some positive comments.”

Two Yazidi women who survived a nightmare ordeal of kidnapping, rape and slavery at the hands of Islamic State jihadists won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on Thursday.
Nadia Murad and Lamia Haji Bashar have become figureheads for the effort to protect the Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion with more than half a million believers concentrated in northern Iraq.
“They have a painful and tragic story” but “they felt compelled to survive to bear witness,” European Parliament chief Martin Schulz told the assembly in Strasbourg.
“The courage of these two women, the dignity they represent defies all description.”
According to UN experts, around 3,200 Yazidis are currently being held by IS, the majority of them in war-ravaged Syria.
Given each year by the European Parliament, the award is named after the dissident Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1989, and honours individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression, often falling foul of their governments as a result.
Murad, a slight, softly spoken young woman, was taken by IS from her home village of Kocho near Iraq’s northern town of Sinjar in August 2014 and brought to the city of Mosul.
As a captive of the reviled extremist group, Murad, who today is 23, said she was tortured and raped.
Bashar, who was just 16 when she was taken and is also from Kocho, witnessed family and friends being slaughtered by IS jihadists before being enslaved and sold.
After 20 months in captivity she escaped but then fell into the hands of an Iraqi hospital director who also abused and raped her and several other victims.
In a final tragedy, Bashar suffered horrific burns to her face and lost her right eye when one of her friends stepped on a landmine following their flight from the hospital director.
The 2014 massacre perpetrated against the Yazidis by IS fighters in Sinjar forced tens of thousands to flee and left an already vulnerable community under perilous threat.
UN investigators have said the IS assault on the Yazidis was a premeditated effort to exterminate an entire community — crimes that amount to genocide.
In speeches and interviews, Murad has voiced deep frustration with the international community for abandoning her people in the hands of grotesquely violent criminals.
Bashar said in a voicemail message left with Mirza Dinnayi, founder of the German-Iraqi aid group Air Bridge Iraq: “I am so happy about the prize because I won it in the name of the Yazidi victims.
“It is important that the world does not forget the women and children imprisoned by IS and that such crimes are not perpetrated against anyone,” she said in Kurdish. Dinnayi, who has been looking after Bashar since her arrival in Germany in April, translated the message into German.
Last year, the European Parliament awarded the prize to Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi, jailed for “insulting” Islam.
Past winners include Pakistani education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, late South African rights icon Nelson Mandela and Myanmar activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
Exiled Turkish journalist Can Dundar and Crimean Tatar activist Mustafa Dzhemilev were also shortlisted for prestigious award.
The prize, worth 50,000 euros ($55,000), will be presented at a ceremony on December 14 in Strasbourg.

An Indonesian woman was jailed for 20 years Thursday for murdering a friend from an Australian college with poisoned coffee in a “sadistic” fashion, capping a sensational trial that has gripped the country.
Jessica Kumala Wongso, 28, who is also an Australian permanent resident, was found guilty of murdering Wayan Mirna Salihin by slipping cyanide into her drink at an upmarket Jakarta cafe, sparking applause from spectators in the packed courtroom.
The soap opera-style tale of two members of Indonesia’s wealthy elite having a dramatic fallout that culminated in murder has captivated the country, with the trial dubbed the “poisoned coffee” case and broadcast live on national TV for months.
The murder, which Wongso carried out in January after becoming angered at 27-year-old Salihin’s criticism of her boyfriend, also generated huge interest in Australia, where the women studied together at a Sydney design college.
After hours reading the verdict in a courtroom overflowing with hundreds of journalists and members of the public, a three-judge panel declared Wongso guilty of premeditated murder and handed down the lengthy jail sentence.
“The defendant’s action was deplorable and sadistic because it was committed against her own friend,” presiding judge Kisworo, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told the court.
“The defendant did not regret her action and claimed she did not do it.”
Wongso, who denies carrying out the crime, was emotionless as the ruling was handed down, then told the court: “I cannot accept the verdict, it’s very unfair.”
Her legal team said they would file an appeal.
Some of Salihin’s relatives sobbed with relief after the verdict, with her twin sister Sandy telling journalists: “This is very hard, I am grateful.”
The victim’s supporters had rallied outside court throughout the day waving signs that read “Justice for Mirna”, and when the hearing concluded gave out white roses to police and journalists.
After drinking the iced Vietnamese coffee at the cafe in one of Jakarta’s fanciest malls, Salihin collapsed and began convulsing, then died soon afterwards in hospital.
Prosecutors said Wongso decided to murder Salihin after she advised the defendant to break up with a boyfriend as he was using drugs, saying that the “cruel” crime was planned “meticulously”.
Police say that she placed bags on the table to prevent CCTV cameras in the cafe from filming her slipping the poison into the coffee.
Wongso had vehemently denied murdering her friend, breaking down in tears as she took the stand during the trial to reject the allegations.
She had testified that she could not remember key details about the day and her defence team asserted the case against their client was weak and lacked evidence to prove guilt.
During the months-long trial, which began in June, three forensic experts called by the defence testified there was no proof Salihin’s death was caused by cyanide poisoning.
Australian authorities assisted with the case after receiving assurances that Wongso would not be handed the death penalty if found guilty of murder, a capital crime in Indonesia.

Chinese sailing fans expressed fears and hopes Thursday for star sailor Guo Chuan, who was missing in the Pacific on an attempt to set a record crossing of the ocean.
Footage released by the US Coast Guard showed Guo’s 97-foot trimaran Qingdao China drifting across the waves hundreds of kilometres west of Hawaii, its red sail emblazoned “Peace and Sport”.
Conditions were calm, and the vessel’s automatic identification system was still transmitting, but no-one was visible on board.
Both a US Navy helicopter crew and a Coast Guard Hercules overflying the vessel had been unable to contact Guo, it said.
Guo, 51, is the first Chinese sailor to complete a non-stop solo circumnavigation of the globe and is by far the country’s biggest sailing star.
A former scientist, he departed San Francisco for Shanghai on October 18 in a bid to break the non-stop solo trans-Pacific record.
The US Coast Guard said it was called Tuesday when Guo’s team had not received notification from him for 24 hours.
The sailor had previously been “in constant contact” with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre China and his family and was “not likely to miss scheduled calls”, it added.
A post on a verified Weibo social media account for Guo’s team said they had observed his speed slowed on Tuesday and attempted to contact him, but he did not answer either satellite calls or internet communication.
The US searchers had found a broken sail in the water, they added.
A US Navy spokeswoman told AFP that an amphibious navy ship, the USS Makin Island, had been diverted to investigate the vessel and deploy a smaller boat to directly board the Qingdao China to look for Guo.
Online Chinese responses were concerned but hopeful on Thursday.
“Oh Captain, please return home safely!” said one poster.
“Praying and praying, you must return home safely,” said another.

South Korean prosecutors on Thursday set up a high-powered “task-force” to probe a widening scandal involving alleged influence-peddling by a close confidante of President Park Geun-Hye.
Choi Soon-Sil, an enigmatic woman with no government position, was already part of an investigation into allegations that she used her relationship with the president to strong-arm conglomerates into multi-million dollar donations to two non-profit foundations.
The scandal snowballed when it emerged that Choi had also been given advance access to presidential speeches and other documents — a revelation that forced Park to make a televised public apology.
Prosecutor General Kim Soo-Nam told the new task force to “investigate thoroughly and reveal the whole truth”, a public affairs official told AFP.
Led by the head of the powerful Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office, the new unit will absorb the smaller team investigating the earlier allegations against Choi.
South Korean media reports have suggested Choi revised Park’s speeches and may have influenced key government appointments and even the president’s North Korea policy.
The scandal has been extremely damaging for Park whose approval ratings have slumped to record lows at a time of elevated military tensions with the North, and problems with skyrocketing household debt and falling exports at home.
Choi left the country in early September for Germany and, in her first interview since the scandal broke, said she was suffering from serious stress-induced health problems.
In the interview with the Segye Times, owned by the Unification Church, she admitted receiving presidential documents but denied intervening in state affairs or coercing donations from conglomerates.
“I am suffering from a nervous breakdown and I have been diagnosed with heart issues,” she told the newspaper. “I could take poison and die here”.
Choi is a daughter of the fifth wife of a mysterious religious figure, Choi Tae-Min, who acted as a mentor for Park Geun-Hye from the mid-1970s to his death in 1994.
Choi Tae-Min, who had seven different names and was convicted of fraud, set up a cult-like group known as Yongsaeng-gyo (Eternal Life Church), and proclaimed himself a “Maitreya” or future buddha.
Opposition lawmakers have suggested the president had fallen “under the spell” of Choi and his daughter.
Even the conservative Chosun Ilbo daily has come down on Park, with an editorial Wednesday suggesting she had “collapsed beyond recovery”.
“Angry voices demanding her impeachment are flooding the street … This is not an ordinary lame-duck phenomenon. This represents a collapse of the president’s state administration,” the editorial said.
Park has just over a year left in office, with presidential elections slated for December, 2017.

Abdullah Sarhan laments having to sell his furniture to feed his family, but he is only one of thousands in Yemen struggling since rebels stopped paying salaries two months ago.
The situation gets worse by the day for the inhabitants of Sanaa, controlled by the Huthi rebels since September 2014 and subjected to 19 months of air strikes and a blockade by a pro-government Arab coalition.
“I had to sell my furniture to put food on the table for my family and ensure that my two children can continue going to school,” said Sarhan.
The finances of employees like Sarhan, and those who are retired, deteriorated further in September, when the UN-recognised government transferred the central bank to Aden, the southern city that serves as a temporary capital.
President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi sacked the bank’s governor and relocated it to the port city after accusing the Iran-backed Huthis of diverting funds from foreign reserves.
A UN report revealed in August said the Huthis were diverting about $100 million from the central bank per month, and that the foreign reserves had dwindled to $1.3 billion from about $4 billion in November 2014.
The measure prompted an immediate halt in salaries payment in Sanaa and other regions under the control of the Shiite Huthis and their allies of renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
“How can we continue paying rent if we don’t have enough to eat,” asked Ibrahim Ahmed, who was forced to move his family to live with his parents in the countryside.
Professor Jamil Aoun said he had to abandon lecturing at Sanaa University and work in a brick factory.
“We have to earn our living,” he explained.
His colleague Abdullah al-Muammar al-Hakimi resorted to selling qat, the mild narcotic leaf popular in the Arabian Peninsula country.
“Selling qat… is more honourable than begging or having people’s blood on one’s hands,” Hakimi wrote in a post on Facebook announcing his decision to quit teaching.
The suspension of salaries is the latest sign of economic deterioration in Yemen, which was already the poorest Arab country before the deadly conflict escalated in March 2015 with the intervention of the Saudi-led coalition.
“It is the most dangerous measure as it affects the daily lives of seven to eight million Yemenis,” who live in rebel-controlled regions, said Mustapha Nasser, head of the Sanaa-based Studies and Economic Media Centre.
“It is a sign of a total economic collapse,” he warned, urging the government of Hadi and the rebels to address the situation.
Nasser pointed out that liquidity was a problem even before the relocation of the central bank.
“Even before this decision was taken, the Huthis were not able to pay salaries as they did in the past,” he said.
Last month the insurgents launched a fund-raising campaign aimed at raising funds from the public to cover for the central bank.
But despite images of people queueing to offer their own money, the rebels have so far only collected about eight billion riyals ($32 million), a fraction of the 75 billion riyals needed to pay two months’ of salaries, said Nasser.
Economist Saeed Abdulmomen warned the lack of an alternative to honour financial commitments could lead to “total chaos”.
“An inevitable disaster is on the horizon,” he said.
The conflict in Yemen has killed nearly 6,900 people and wounded about 35,000 since it broke out in March 2015, according to the United Nations.
An additional three million people have been displaced while millions more need food aid.
The World Food Programme on Tuesday warned of hunger in Yemen, which already had one of the world’s highest levels of malnutrition before the war.
“Hunger is increasing every day and people have exhausted all their survival strategies. Millions of people cannot survive without external assistance,” said WFP regional director Muhammad Hadi.
WFP’s Yemen director Torben Due said “an entire generation could be crippled by hunger”.
The UN agency said it needed more $257 million to provide vital food assistance until March 2017.

Denisa, Robert and Calin have never celebrated their birthdays: the three children, like thousands of other Romanians, don’t have birth certificates, leaving them in an administrative black hole.
“It’s very hard. Without birth certificates I don’t get any allowances and I can’t register for school,” said their mother Gabi Matei, 22, a member of the Roma community in Stoenesti, southern Romania.
The young mother, who is illiterate, adds that she has forgotten the birthday dates of her children, aged between nine months and seven years old.
To register them, the local mayor demands that she produce identity documents, but she also doesn’t have any.
“My mother left the hospital immediately after I was born, and she never applied for a birth certificate for me,” she said.
Given this, she has been advised to seek help from the local departmental archives’ office, or to hire a lawyer. But both options are impossible for Gabi, who lives by buying and selling scrap metal.
Dozens of her Roma neighbours recount similar stories.
“My husband doesn’t have a birth certificate or identity papers. Because of that he can’t be hired or go abroad to work,” 19-year-old Alina Matei told AFP.
Some 160,000 Romanians, or about 0.8 percent of the country’s population, live without identity documents, including 10,000 who have no birth certificate, said Ciprian Necula of the Romanian EU funds ministry, who campaigns for the rights of Roma, or gypsies.
He points the finger at legislation dating back to the Communist era, when all citizens had to be registered so that authorities knew “where to come and find them”.
“It’s a vicious circle: these people can’t get identity papers because they don’t have a home address, and don’t have a home address because they don’t have identity papers, Necula told AFP.
For Romania’s Roma community, which numbers up to two million according to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), housing is a thorny question: most of them live in unhygienic accommodation and only rarely own property.
This is also the case for Gabi Matei: her parents-in-law bought the house where she lives with her family, but without going through a notary.
Romanian authorities also point the finger at the indifference of some Roma, many of whom are poor and uneducated, towards official bureaucracy.
“You can blame their ignorance, but .. for these people, among the poorest in Romania, the priority is: ‘What am I going to eat today?'” said Necula.
Some 30 kilometres (about 20 miles) from Stoenesti, in a poor suburb of the town of Slatina, residents are angry. “The mayor promised to sort out the problem of identity papers but he’s done nothing,” said Viorel Voiculescu, 36.
He said several hundred people were given permission some 15 years ago to build houses on the banks of the Olt river. But the local town hall subsequently refused to confirm their legality, meaning they still can’t get permanent identity documents.
“We’re non-existent, how is that possible?” asked Voiculescu, whose 14-year-old son can’t go away to summer camp because he doesn’t have the vital document proving who he is.
The town hall says a new law forbids it from granting property rights to housing building in zones at risk of flooding.
“I know of cases where dead people couldn’t be buried because the family didn’t have the birth certificate,” said Necula, adding that there was “a whole load of problems” to do with schooling, hospital or for dealing with notaries.
Romania’s technocratic government, which took office in November last year, is confronting the problem by a decree which aims to make paperwork easier for people without identity documents.
The decree notably obliges authorities to issue a birth certificate for newborn babies even if the mother doesn’t have one, while also helping her to obtain documents.
Necula says obstacles won’t disappear overnight, because some local authorities see people without identity papers as “people who are easier to manipulate”.

Alcohol shops are open for business in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, where officials have vowed that Baghdad’s recently passed ban on booze will not be enforced.
The ban on the sale, import and production of alcohol was slipped into draft legislation on municipalities in Iraq’s parliament last week, but the country’s president has since called for the law to be revised.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, a three-province region in the country’s north that has its own government, security forces and flag, there seems to be another plan: ignore the measure even if the law remains unchanged.
“We do not recognise such laws,” which “will not be applied in the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” said Farsat Sophie, a member of the legal committee in the Kurdish regional parliament.
The region’s culture minister also said that the measure would not be enforced, slamming it as an infringement on individual freedom.
“This decision is against democracy and against personal freedoms,” Khalid Doski said.
The consumption of alcohol is prohibited by Islam, but drinking is fairly widespread in Iraq, including in Baghdad, where there are scores of small alcohol shops.
If the ban is not implemented in Kurdistan but is elsewhere, it is all but guaranteed to result in a thriving black market for booze brought from the region into federally controlled areas.
Both the federal and Kurdish regional parliaments have legislative powers, but it is unclear which would have primacy in the case of the alcohol issue.
In practice, Baghdad does not have the means to enforce the measure in Kurdistan if its regional government decides not to do so on its own.
In Ainkawa, a Christian area of Kurdistan’s capital Arbil, cars carrying people coming to purchase booze line up near shops that are packed with whisky, beer and other alcohol.
Raed Basil Hanna, the owner of an Ainkawa alcohol store, said the Iraqi parliament should be focusing on more important issues.
The government should pay attention to “the situations of the people and improving their circumstances and taking them out of poverty,” instead of “issuing decisions that do not benefit anyone,” he said.
In addition to fighting an ongoing war against jihadists, Iraq faces myriad other problems, including an economic crisis due to low oil prices and abysmal basic services.
In any case, “we obtained approval from the government of the region and are practicing our work as usual,” said Hanna, who has worked in the alcohol selling business for over 25 years.
“Most of those who stood behind the decision drink alcohol,” he said with a smile.
Another alcohol seller, who did not want to be identified by name, said: “Most of our buyers are Muslims.”
In Baghdad, the future of the ban, which has not officially come into effect, is less clear.
Yonadam Kanna, a leading Christian politician, was furious after the vote on Saturday and went on television to condemn it and also to vow to challenge it in a federal court.
Without specifically mentioning the ban, President Fuad Masum called Wednesday for parliament to revise the law that included it in a way that respects “the freedoms and rights of citizens of different religions and doctrines.”
Alcohol is rarely offered in restaurants and hotels in Iraq, but some young people drink it while sitting along the Tigris, while others do so at a bridge across the river, which runs through the capital.
Iraq also has companies that produce various types of alcohol, such as Farida beer or Asriya arak, a regional anise-flavoured spirit.
Baghdad alcohol shops are already shuttered for Arbaeen, a 40-day period following the date on which Iraqi Shiites commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
The shops were also closed in the 10 days preceding the start of Arbaeen, in addition to during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, meaning that alcohol sellers already face well over two months a year in which they cannot work.
Some people still sell alcohol during the religious occasions, but do so at the peril of attack by militia forces in the capital.

The Denver Nuggets defied a 50-point performance from New Orleans forward Anthony Davis to down the Pelicans 107-102 in the NBA season-opener for both teams.
Davis connected on 17 of 34 shots from the field and 16 of 17 free throws. He also pulled down 16 rebounds, blocked four shots and had seven steals.
But his eighth career game of 40 points or more — nine short of his career high of 50 — wasn’t enough.
“When you play against a great player, you have a problem you need to answer: are you going to shut him down and create problems elsewhere or are you going to let him get his and hope nobody else goes off?” Denver coach Mike Malone said. “Anthony Davis, give him credit, got 50 points.
“The Denver Nuggets got the win, and that’s the most important thing.”
The only other players to score 50 points in a season-opener are Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Chicago Bulls icon Michael Jordan.
“It’s tough,” Davis said. “We had some chances, but we gave them too many easy looks at the beginning of the game. It would have been more satisfying if we had won, but the way I played, I’m going to have to bring, probably not 50 every night, but get somewhere along those lines every game to give ourselves a chance to win. That’s the bottom line.”
Denver’s Bosnian center Jusuf Nurkic produced 23 points and nine rebounds and Will Barton added 22 points as the Nuggets overcame not just Anthony, but their own 25 turnovers.
New Orleans closed within six points three times in the fourth quarter, but Denver responded each time.
Kenneth Faried was a key stopper, drawing two charges and grabbing a tough offensive rebound for a follow-up basket.
He also assisted on a three-point play by Wilson Chandler that put Denver up 94-85 with 7:09 to play.
Davis cut the deficit to 100-98 with two foul shots and a dunk with 2:32 remaining.
But after Barton was fouled on a drive and hit both free throws it was 102-98.
Davis then came up with his seventh steal of the contest, picking the pocket of Denver’s Congolese point guard Emmanuel Mudiay and racing in for a layup that made it 102-100.
Fouled on a jump shot, Mudiay made one of two from the free-throw line. He added four more free throws in the final 12.9 seconds left to seal the game.

Get ready Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs are coming home with a chance to win their first World Series crown since 1908 in front of their devoted but long-suffering supporters.
Jake Arrieta threw five hitless innings and the Cubs captured their first World Series triumph since 1945 by routing the Cleveland Indians 5-1 Wednesday to level Major League Baseball’s best-of-seven championship showdown at one win each.
The Cubs are trying to end the longest title drought in American sports history and could do it in Chicago starting Friday by sweeping the next three games at iconic 102-year-old Wrigley Field.
“Having a World Series to root for, it’s going to be incredibly special,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said.
“Wrigley, it’s always crazy good, but I would have to imagine a little bit more than that, especially coming back at 1-1. I think the folks will be jacked up about the win.”
Arrieta, last year’s Cy Young Award winner as the National League’s best pitcher, tossed a no-hitter in 2015 and another this year and was off to a hot start over five innings despite three walks.
“I knew I hadn’t given up a hit all the way to the sixth,” Arietta said. “That’s really not the focus in a game like this. You want to pile up outs as often as you can. I wanted to stay aggressive. That was a mindset throughout, whether I gave up a hit or not.”
The 30-year-old right-hander stumbled to surrender a run on two hits in the sixth but threw 55 strikes among his 98 pitches over 5 2/3 innings.
“Overall he had great stuff,” Maddon said. “His command, a little bit scattered at times, but he kept battling through.”
Two first-inning walks with two outs prompted a conference on the mound that helped Arrieta focus.
“I had my foot on the gas a little too much at the start, trying to do more than I needed,” Arrieta said. “Then I really got back to just executing good pitches at the bottom of the strike zone.”
The Cubs were aided by two fielding errors from Cleveland second baseman Jason Kipnis.
“We only gave up five runs. We were probably pretty fortunate,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “For us to win, we generally need to play a clean game and we didn’t do that.”
Cold and damp conditions added to the tension and discomfort.
“It was so cold I tried to go to the bathroom in the fourth inning and I couldn’t,” Francona said. “That tells you enough.”
Cubs batters, silenced in game one, tagged Indians starter Trevor Bauer quickly in the first inning.
Kris Bryant singled and scored the Cubs’ first World Series run in 71 years on a double to rightfield by Anthony Rizzo.
In the third, Rizzo walked with two outs, took second on a Ben Zobrist single and scored on Kyle Schwarber’s single up the middle to give the Cubs a 2-0 edge.
Bauer lasted only 3 2/3 innings and his relievers fared no better.
Rizzo walked again in the fourth and scored when Zobrist tripled to the right corner. Schwarber singled up the middle to send home Zobrist and put Chicago ahead 4-0.
Schwarber took second on a wild pitch and third on a Kipris error and scored when Indians relief pitcher Bryan Shaw walked Addison Russell with the bases loaded for a 5-0 Cubs lead.
The Indians, whose championship dry spell since 1948 marks baseball’s second-longest drought, finally answered in the sixth.
Kipris doubled, took third on Francisco Lindor’s ground out to second base and scored when Arrieta hurled a wild pitch that got past Cubs catcher Wilson Contreras.
Cleveland had two base runners in the seventh and one in the eighth but Cubs reliever Mike Montgomery struck out four and Cuban closer Aroldis Chapman entered in the eighth to finish off the victory.

It is hardly surprising that the left-leaning entertainment industry is supporting a Democrat for the White House, but the gulf between candidates in donations from Tinseltown this election cycle is staggering.
Actors, studio executives and other employees of the film, TV and music industries have donated $20.7 million to Clinton’s run for the presidency, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign funding.
Her Republican rival Donald Trump has meanwhile raised less than $350,000 from Hollywood.
“The Clintons have always been Hollywood darlings, going back to Bill’s term in office,” said Usman Shaikh, a Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney and a contemporary of Trump’s daughter Ivanka at the University of Pennsylvania.
“If you recall when it was Clinton and Obama for the primaries in 2008, Hollywood was supporting Clinton.”
Within hours of the former first lady confirming last year she was running to become America’s first female commander-in-chief, dozens of celebrities clamored to give their stamp of approval.
By the fall of 2015, according to the Los Angeles Times, she had taken about $5 million of the $5.5 million that Hollywood figures had donated to the 2016 campaign.
Film titans Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg gave $1 million each, while “Star Wars” director J.J. Abrams stumped up $500,000.
Clinton supporter George Clooney hosted back-to-back dinners in San Francisco and Los Angeles in April which reportedly raised over $15 million, with donors paying as much as $350,000 a head.
Clinton attended 17 starry fundraisers in California over the summer, part of an eye-watering schedule that included nine events spread across the state over just three days in late August.
That string of fundraisers included an August 22 cocktail reception for 500 people — including actor Samuel L. Jackson — hosted by NBA legend Magic Johnson and his wife Cookie.
That was followed later the same day by a 90-minute event put on by billionaire media mogul Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl at their Beverly Hills home. One hundred guests paid at least $50,000 each.
The following day involved fundraisers in Piedmont and Laguna Beach, each requiring donations of $33,400 from attendees, and a 75-minute swing by the Hollywood Hills home of Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel.
Guests there — including Jennifer Aniston, Tobey Maguire, Shonda Rhimes, Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes — raised more than $3 million.
Trump, meanwhile, has faced an unprecedented onslaught of negativity from the entertainment industry — and not just the liberals.
Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement on Twitter at the start of October saying he would not be voting Republican for the first time since gaining US citizenship in 1983.
Meanwhile Harry Sloan, former head of MGM and a lifelong Republican, has announced he is backing Clinton and has even donated to her campaign.
According to Shaikh, there are an abundance of conservatives in Hollywood — but hardly any who will support the Republican candidate because of his divisive rhetoric on Mexicans, Muslims and women.
In fact, the driving force behind Trump’s fundraising activities is veteran Hollywood producer Steve Mnuchin, the man behind the “X-Men” franchise and “Avatar,” who has been finance chair of the campaign since May.
Political consultant Patrick Dorinson led a contingent of entertainment figures including Oscar-winner Jon Voight on a bus tour across the US in mid-September, giving speeches and news conferences on behalf of Trump.
But the litany of celebrities who have openly disparaged the real estate mogul and former reality TV star by far outweighs his supporters in Hollywood.
Some of America’s biggest stars, including actors Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson, appeared in a video in September to take potshots at Trump while rallying voters to the polls on Election Day.
“Do we really want to give nuclear weapons to a man whose signature move is firing things?” asks Leslie Odom Jr, a Tony winner for his turn as Aaron Burr in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
“I just think culturally he’s a very different fit from Hollywood. On so many of his issues, he’s just too extreme, particularly on women’s issues,” said Steve Maviglio, a California-based political consultant.
“He’s been actually good on gay marriage and you’d think that would be a natural to attract people in Hollywood. But you’re not even seeing the Hollywood Republicans helping him out.
“Look at the Republican convention. He had hardly any entertainment, any Hollywood, there at all. Where is Clint Eastwood, even?”
But while support of Hollywood is an important source of campaign fundraising, surveys have shown that the backing of celebrities holds little sway over the way Americans vote.
“We saw Susan Sarandon do a lot of work for Bernie Sanders this year,” said Maviglio, who served as Bill Clinton’s director of public affairs in the 1990s.
“She got a lot of attention because she was one of the first people out there. But did it have an impact at the end of the day? No.”

The opening night of Lagos and Fashion Design Week on Wednesday featured five designers showcasing plus-size collections in a defiant celebration of all things curvy.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but if he was in Africa, he probably wouldn’t make that statement,” designer Aisha Abubakar Achonu told AFP backstage.
Achonu, a regal 32-year-old with feline eyes, said that in Nigeria bigger can be better.
“Our culture appreciates plus-size more than other parts of the world,” she said. “No woman should be subjected to looking a certain way.”
Most seemed to agree. When the lights went up and the first plus-size model strode onto the runway wearing sunglasses, crimson lips and a ton of attitude, the crowd went wild.
“Oh. My. God,” said a woman in the audience with an afro and gold hoop earrings. “Wow.”
Unlike the hesitant, calf-like models before them, the curvy women owned the runway, blowing kisses to the cameras as they shimmied down the catwalk to hoots and cheers.
Model Olivia Emenike, who is a size 18 and stands over six feet tall, says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’ve never criticised my big bones or thick thighs. No one should feel ashamed of what they have,” said the 25-year-old.
“I wanted to be part of this event and show that plus-size women are fashionable.”
Plus-size clothing is shedding its dowdy reputation as more big name stores including Target and Mango introduce larger lines.
US actress Melissa McCarthy introduced her own Seven7 brand after no one would make her a dress for the 2012 Academy Awards, with her manifesto declaring “clothes should flatter our bodies and not just try to cover us up.”
Of course, it’s not just about looks: plus-size is big business too.
Annual US sales of women’s plus-size clothing — 14 and higher — rose to $20.4 billion in 2016, according to market research firm NPD Group.
With studies showing that waistlines are starting to bulge in Africa too, designers are set to cash in on the growing demand for curvy clothes.
“They see someone as big as me and look at my dresses and say I can relate to that,” designer Makioba Olugbile said.
Olugbile, who says she’s a size “Africa 16”, showed a dramatic collection inspired by the moon “for how you want to look in the spotlight.”
Her business is booming. “You can’t even imagine,” Olugbile said, her eyes widening with excitement.
“Now people are embracing plus-size.”
The enthusiasm was infectious backstage.
“I saw some of them when they were walking, I was like — you go girls!” said 18-year-old model Aduke Shitta-Bey, wearing a white lace robe and her straight black hair in a high pony-tail.
“Nigerians appreciate curvy girls, they say why are you so skinny? They say big is healthy, that’s Nigerian beauty.”
The curvy collective was brought together by Latasha Ngwube, a 33-year-old former journalist and founder of About That Curvy Life, a lifestyle website “aimed at inspiring and supporting the plus-size community”.
Ngwube started using the hashtag #AboutThatCurvyLife when she was attending fashion shows. Now her website has 15,000 visitors a week.
A movement was born, Ngwube said.
“I think it’s just mission started, but for tonight we’ll take mission accomplished.”

Nico Rosberg plans to block out all thoughts of a possible maiden title triumph and focus on sticking to his singular and simple approach when he bids to claim his 10th win of the year in this weekend?s Mexican Grand Prix.
The 31-year-old, who will become champion if he wins and Mercedes team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton fails to score a point, has said he is aware of all the equations and possible outcomes.
But, he stressed, he will aim only to keep things simple and concentrate on repeating his victory of last year when Formula One returned to the noisy and atmospheric Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for the first time since 1992.
In front of a packed crowd that day, Rosberg eased some of the pain from losing out to Hamilton in the title race by securing a well-judged victory.
Something similar coupled with another Hamilton retirement would see him take the Englishman?s crown on Sunday night.
“Of course I’m aware of that,” he said. “It’s an obvious calculation which everybody is telling me and it’s great, but the approach is keep it simple — just look for the race win.”
Rosberg will arrive in Mexico with a 26-point lead over Hamilton in the title race and three races remaining.
That means that if he wins he will increase his tally to an unassailable advantage of 51 if the three-time defending champion is undone by another engine failure, poor start or other mechanical problem.
For Hamilton, and his race team of Mercedes mechanics, the over-riding pressure, as it was during his flawless drive to victory in the United States Grand Prix in Texas, is to finish without any setbacks.
In the 18 events to date, he has been affected by at least three poor starts, five engine or engine-related mechanical problems, one race when he was penalised for his engine failures that required new power units and one crash, with Rosberg, in Spain.
Rosberg has also suffered misfortunes, but not to the same extent and many Hamilton supporters believe he has lost a minimum of 40 points as a result.
Some believe, also, that the law of averages will deliver at least another twist that may see Rosberg suffer a DNF (Did Not Finish).
Hamilton?s convincing win from pole position last weekend in Texas was his first in six races since July.
He said it has restored his confidence and he will do all he can, reliability permitting, in the final races.
“You don?t often get 100 per cent reliability for a whole season,” he said.
?Will it be the case for Nico? Only time will tell, but I can?t get fixated on that.”
Hamilton said he has kept his motivation intact despite his poor run and was boosted by visiting the Mercedes factory in Britain before flying to the United States.
“I?ve tried to keep a positive mentality,” he said. “There are still points available, anything is possible. The moment you give up, that?s the moment you?re doomed.I?ve never given up all my life, I don?t plan on doing so now.”
Both Mercedes drivers know that they face a robust challenge from the Red Bull team who are confident they have reduced the champions? advantage and can mount a serious bid for victory.
However, given the Mexican circuit?s long straight, Mercedes are expected to enjoy superior power and take advantage, but it is uncertain if that will be enough to allow their drivers a clear scrap for victory ?- and possibly the championship.

Australian theme park Dreamworld defended its safety standards Thursday in the face of intense scrutiny following the deaths of four people on a malfunctioning ride.
Two women and two men were killed when rafts on the Thunder River Rapids ride at the hugely popular Gold Coast tourist attraction collided Tuesday, tipping one backwards and crushing or drowning those on board.
A boy and a girl, aged 10 and 12, on the six-person raft miraculously survived the tragedy.
The Australian Workers Union said it had voiced concerns about the operation and maintenance of some equipment at Dreamworld last year, while media reports claimed to have uncovered safety mishaps.
The Sydney Morning Herald alleged the rapids ride had malfunctioned twice in three days recently, while The Australian reported mechanical problems just hours before the accident.
Dreamworld said in a statement that safety was its priority, with the Thunder River Rapids ride passing an annual mechanical and structural test on September 29.
“Dreamworld would like to assure the public and park guests that at the time of the incident the park was fully compliant with all required safety certifications,” it said.
“All our procedures and systems are constantly benchmarked against international best practice and ride manufacturer specifications.
“Our rides and slides are checked and tested by our experienced team before the park opens every day. If it’s not tested, it doesn’t open.”
It added that the park, Australia’s biggest, had hosted 30 million people since opening in 1981 and had never seen a death until this week.
The man responsible for the last six years of safety audits at Dreamworld, engineer David Randall, also released a statement.
“Dreamworld… has demonstrated a commitment to developing and maintaining a strong safety culture across all departments,” it read.
“Annual audits have resulted in continuous improvement in the management of safety.”
Police are conducting an investigation and have said if there was any criminal negligence, charges would be brought.
The park, which has been closed since the incident, will reopen for a memorial day on Friday with only smaller rider rides and animal attractions available. All entry proceeds will go to charity.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers declared himself delighted with the strength of his squad after a side packed with fringe players helped the Hoops to a 4-0 win over Ross County on Wednesday.
The Hoops made eight changes from the starting 11 who defeated rivals Rangers in their League Cup semi-final clash on Sunday.
Only Craig Gordon, Mikel Lustig and Erik Sviatchenko survived as Rodgers utilised his squad ahead of crunch clashes with Aberdeen and Borussia Monchengladbach within the next seven days.
Patrick Roberts gave Celtic a second minute lead before a late goal rush saw Stuart Armstrong and substitutes Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele round off the scoring.
The win — their eighth in nine league games — extended Celtic’s lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership to seven points with a game in hand over nearest rivals Aberdeen, whom the Hoops face at Pittodrie on Saturday.
“Our thinking going into the game tonight was that prior to this we had played a lot of games,” Rodgers said.
“I’ve got great trust in my players because I see them every day and they’re working very hard. In terms of our methods of how we play they have to work intensely in training because if they can’t do that then you can’t put them into the game.
“Even with all the changes I thought we were great. Some of the guys come into the game having not played for a while and I thought they were outstanding.
“The intensity I ask the players to play at needs to be at a high level with that variety in the game and the young players that came in delivered.
“Emilio Izaguirre and guys like that haven?t played for a long time and I thought they were outstanding. Ryan Christie came in and did very well and young Patrick Roberts has been out of it for a while but showed his qualities tonight in creating and scoring goals.
“It was a very pleasing performance with so many chances and again it shows the depth of the squad.
“The rest of the players will be fresh for the game at the weekend. That was the plan for tonight so it couldn?t have gone any better.”
Ross County had a number of chances to equalise before Celtic’s late goals added some gloss to their victory and Rodgers praised his side’s opponents.
“It was a very tough game for us. Ross County are one of the best teams we have played,” the former Liverpool boss said.
“But I thought our attacking play was very strong and defensively I thought we were excellent as well.
“When it is 1-0 you always have to be careful with the ball and obviously defensively. But again our fitness came into the game along with our physicality.
“The intensity and tempo of the game got us our goals late on. It was 4-0 and we kept a clean sheet but we had to fight all the way right to the end.”

Nearly three-fifths of all animals with a backbone — fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals — have been wiped out since 1970 by human appetites and activity, according to a grim study released Thursday.
On current trends, that plunge in stocks of global wildlife could extend to two-thirds by 2020, an annual decline of two percent, conservation group WWF and the Zoological Society of London warned in their joint biennial Living Planet report.
There is no mystery as to why: our own ever-expanding species — which has more than doubled in number since 1960 to 7.4 billion — is simply eating, crowding and poisoning its planetary cohabitants out of existence.
Victims include gorillas and orangutans, rhinos and elephants, tigers and snow leopards but also faceless species such as corals, a crucial cornerstone not only of marine life but also coastal human communities.
Swathes of coral reef around the globe have already turned white, killed by warming waters, pollution and disease.
The findings are based on long-term monitoring of some 3,700 vertebrate species spread across more than 14,000 distinct populations.
Scientists have tracked changes in the size of those populations, not how many species are threatened with extinction.
But the news on that front is not good either: experts now agree that Earth has entered only the sixth “mass extinction event” — when species vanish at least 1,000 faster than usual — in the last half-billion years.
“Wildlife is disappearing within our lifetimes at an unprecedented rate,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International.
We should not be deceived into thinking humanity can do without, he added.
“Biodiversity forms the foundation of healthy forests, rivers and oceans. Take away the species, and these ecosystems collapse, along with clean air, water, food and climate services they provide us.”
A dawning awareness — in government, business and society as a whole — that a healthy environment is not a luxury but the “foundation of future human development” is reason for optimism, he suggested in an interview with AFP.
“This is really revolutionary,” he said, pointing to a global pact to rein in climate change going into force next week, and a newly launched set of UN-backed Sustainable Development Goals running through 2030.
“We have succeeded in making a strong business case for climate,” Lambertini said.
“Now we have to make an equally strong business case for conservation of natural systems.”
That is likely to be a hard sell.
Global warming has measurable impacts that have already threatened tens of millions of people, and even then it took nearly 30 years to strike a universal deal.
With biodiversity and ecosystems, the negative impacts are “less direct and less tangible on a global scale,” Lambertini said.
The five main drivers of wildlife decline — in order of importance — are habitat loss, overconsumption, pollution, invasive species and disease, according to the report.
Climate change is poised to become a major threat in the coming decades, with some animals already in decline due to rising temperatures and changing weather patterns.
“This should be a wake-up call to marshal efforts to promote the recovery of these populations,” said Ken Norris, director of science at the Zoological Society of London.
Freshwater environments such as lakes, rivers and wetlands have fared the worst, with an 81 percent decline in average population size between 1970 and 2012 for 881 species monitored.
Freshwater covers less than one percent of Earth’s surface, but is home to nearly 10 percent of all of the planet’s known species.
Marine and land vertebrates have suffered at about the same rate — with populations dropping 36 and 38 percent respectively over the same period — but for different reasons.
Factory fishing has emptied the seas of 40 percent of sea life, and nine out of 10 fisheries in the world are either over- or full-fished today.
Pollution and climate change are also wreaking havoc, especially along coastlines.
On land, the big threats are loss of land to agriculture and cities, followed by rampant hunting, mostly for food but also for commerce — much of it in endangered species.
African elephants, slaughtered for their tusks, have dropped in number by more than a quarter since 2006.
The majority of Earth’s land surface has today been resculpted by human hands.
Human activity has already pushed three of nine interlocking “Earth systems” beyond the threshold of a safe operating space, and two others — climate change and land-system change — are edging closer to the red zone, scientists say.
“Once we reach a point of no return, we are not just running out of resources,” said Lambertini. “We are damaging the ecosystems that are normally regenerating those resources.”

Jose Mourinho lauded Manchester United’s supporters after his team put the disappointment of their 4-0 humiliation at Chelsea behind them to sink Manchester City in England’s League Cup.
Sunday’s defeat at Chelsea, Mourinho’s former club, was United’s worst in the league for five years, but they bounced back to beat holders City 1-0 on Wednesday courtesy of Juan Mata’s 54th-minute goal.
Mourinho made a gesture of apology to United’s fans at the end — making a ‘4-0’ symbol with his fingers and lowering his head — and said he had been moved by their backing.
“We were on a good run of results, but it was a big defeat,” said the United manager, whose side had gone six games unbeaten prior to coming off the rails at Stamford Bridge.
“(They are) numbers that the history of this club doesn’t deserve and when I’m in a club my heart belongs to the fans and I felt deeply for them. The reality is that I never had people like these ones.
“We lost 4-0 and they were supportive. Today the stadium was full of real support and it looks like the love people have for the club is bigger than bad results, bigger than three bad seasons.
“We must give something back. The players gave everything, but even if we’d lost the feeling was fantastic because the players showed they really care and they fought for the fans.”
Mourinho spoke to television reporters after the game at Old Trafford, but did not appear at his post-match press conference. United did not offer an explanation.
While Mourinho made just four changes to his starting XI, his opposite number, Pep Guardiola, made nine.
Both teams disappointed in a drab first half, but it was United who seized the advantage after the break, with Mata sweeping home Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s low cross after Paul Pogba had hit the post.
City captain Vincent Kompany, one of only two players to keep his place from Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Southampton, was substituted at half-time.
The Belgian centre-back has been dogged by injuries in recent seasons and Guardiola said he had not felt able to play on.
“He told us he is tired and not ready to play the second half,” explained Guardiola, whose side beat Liverpool on penalties in last season’s final prior to his arrival.
“The important thing is after two years (repeatedly) injured, he played three days ago 70 minutes, today 45 and no injuries.
“That is a good step, the first step. After we have to see. He felt not good, knowing what happened in the past.”
Guardiola has now gone six games without victory for the first time in his managerial career, but he said he had “no regrets” about selecting a weakened team.
“Sometimes it happens in football the managers doesn’t win,” he said.
“It is the first time. OK, hopefully it does not happen again, but it is part of our profession. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.”
Asked if he had learnt anything during his team’s slump, he replied: “The same as when we won 10 games in a row (at the start of the season).
“Every match is different. I need to analyse them all. Every team has streaks of good results and bad results. The strange thing is after seven years as a manager, it happens now.
“But we are still getting to know each other, still improving and we will (improve).”
United will host West Ham United in the quarter-finals.

Manny Pacquiao says that despite a punishing schedule which includes juggling two high-profile jobs in the build up to his return to boxing he has still managed to maintain his fire for the sport.
Now that the Philippine Senate is on a break, the boxing legend says he is finally able to start training in earnest to face World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Jessie Vargas in Las Vegas.
Three months after ending his brief ring “retirement,” Pacquiao is in the final weeks of preparations for the fight which will be held November 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center.
“It can be very difficult if you are not disciplined. But I feel good,” the recently-elected Senate member Pacquiao said Wednesday at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood.
“Every day I was able to run in the morning and then train after the Senate session. The gym is very close to the Senate.
“It is important to win this fight convincingly to prove that I am still there.”
Pacquiao’s long-time trainer Freddie Roach said the 37- year-old’s continued success is a result of the hard work he puts in in the gym.
“His work ethic is still the greatest I have ever seen,” Roach said. “I am amazed that after 15 years of working together he still has that passion.
“He’s beating the mitts and beating his sparring partners. He still has the speed and power. Manny will punch this guy out.”
Pacquiao looked impressive in April when he dominated Timothy Bradley in their third fight.
If he gets past Vargas, as many think he will, Pacquiao could be looking at a fight against unbeaten Terence Crawford in 2017.

West Ham United pledged to ban supporters found to have been involved in violence towards Chelsea fans during Wednesday’s English League Cup tie between the teams.
There was a heavy police presence at the London Stadium, formerly the Olympic Stadium, where there has been violence involving West Ham fans since they moved into their new home at the start of the season.
But skirmishes broke out towards the end of West Ham’s 2-1 win, with police and stewards battling to keep supporters apart as coins, bottles and plastic seats were thrown.
“West Ham United and London Stadium partners unreservedly condemn the behaviour of individuals involved in incidents during this evening’s fixture with Chelsea,” West Ham said in a statement.
“Whilst quickly brought under control, the club, in line with its clear zero-tolerance policy, will work closely with London Stadium, the Metropolitan Police Service and Chelsea to identify the individuals involved.
“Once identified, those found to have acted improperly will be banned from attending any West Ham United fixtures for life and we will request the courts serve banning orders to prevent these individuals attending any other football.”
A Chelsea spokesman said: “The club is extremely disappointed to see disturbances at the end of tonight’s game and we condemn such behaviour.
“I’m unable to comment further until tonight’s incidents have been investigated properly.”
West Ham manager Slaven Bilic condemned the violence, which overshadowed a fine performance by his team.
“I noticed it, of course,” said the former Croatia defender, whose side will visit Manchester United in the quarter-finals.
“The game was on. I was more concentrated (on that). I don’t know what happened. But whatever happened, we are totally against it as a club, as a team.
“For those kind of things to happen, especially in England, is unacceptable.”
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte said: “I must be honest, because I didn’t see the situation. We were playing and I didn’t see this.
“I don’t like this type of situation. It’s important to see always the right atmosphere.
“Above all in England, we are used to see the right atmosphere. This country is fantastic in this aspect. I’m sorry about this situation.”

The worst land grab in decades in the Brazilian Amazon is threatening the survival of isolated tribes that have no contact with the outside world, a rights group said Wednesday.
Ranchers and settlers in the remotest reaches of northwestern Brazil are voraciously cutting down rainforest to farm crops, encroaching on the ancestral lands of three uncontacted groups, said Survival International.
The land grab is also threatening another tribe, the Uru Eu Wau Wau, or “Harpy Eagle” people, that has only limited contact with the outside world, said the London-based group.
Warning the groups face “annihilation,” it accused local politicians in the state of Rondonia of backing the deforestation, even though the area is officially designated as an indigenous reserve and sits within a national park, Pacaas Novas.
Because isolated peoples’ immune systems have never been exposed to the outside world’s diseases, the land grab risks causing devastating outbreaks, Survival said.
“Around the world, industrialized society is stealing tribal lands in the pursuit of profit. What’s happening in Brazil is simply a continuation of the invasion and genocide which characterized the European colonization of the Americas,” said the group’s director, Stephen Corry.
The organization quoted a letter the Harpy Eagle tribe sent to Brazilian police, in which they call the land grab “extremely serious.”
“We are very worried because the invasions are close to our villages and putting the lives of women, old people, children and men at risk,” said the letter.
Experts estimate between 50 and 90 percent of the populations of Brazil’s isolated tribes were wiped out when the government initiated contact with them in the 1970s and 80s — official policy at the time.
Today, the government tries to avoid any contact with isolated peoples, in order to protect them.
Brazil is home to some 900,000 indigenous people from 305 different ethnic groups.

The accusations in turn drew sharp responses from the United States, Britain and France in one of the stormiest council sessions on Syria in weeks.
Russia is facing pressure at the United Nations to rein in its Syrian ally and halt the air strikes in rebel-held east Aleppo, where 250,000 civilians have been living under siege since July.
UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien said he was “incandescent with rage” over the council’s failure to take action, deploring that “nothing is actually happening to stop the war, stop the suffering.”
With food growing scarce, “civilians are being bombed by Syrian and Russian forces, and if they survive that, they will starve tomorrow,” said O’Brien.
“Aleppo has essentially become a kill zone.”
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin shot back, accusing O’Brien of making “arrogant remarks” and failing to recognize that Russia had declared a humanitarian pause that he maintained had been holding for eight days.
“If we needed to be preached to, we would go to a church,” Churkin quipped.
The ambassador blamed opposition rebels and Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists for the failure at the weekend of a UN plan to evacuate the wounded from Aleppo and charged that the UN official was not objectively presenting the facts.
“Please leave this kind of report to a novel that you might write one day,” said Churkin.
The pause declared by Damascus and Moscow ran out at 1600 GMT on Saturday, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported there were air strikes afterwards against an opposition-controlled district in Aleppo.
On Wednesday, air strikes hit a school in rebel-held Idlib province, killing at least 35 civilians including many children, according to the observatory.
US Ambassador Samantha Power took the floor to criticize Russia, saying it had never worked cooperatively with the United Nations during the pauses to ensure humanitarian relief.
“You don’t get congratulations and credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week,” said Power.
The US ambassador insisted the goal of the Russian and Syrian bombing campaign was to “make civilians relent and cry uncle” and again challenged Moscow’s argument that it is fighting terrorists.
“Does Russia believe that all of the children in eastern Aleppo are al-Qaeda members ?” she asked.
The bitter exchange came as the latest attempt to revive a ceasefire — this time led by non-permanent member New Zealand — fell flat.
New Zealand circulated a draft resolution two weeks ago demanding an end to the air attacks, but there was no agreement on the measure.
New Zealand Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen blamed Russia and the western powers for the failure, deploring that “geopolitics are being put ahead of people.”
More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria and more than half of the country’s population displaced since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

Holders Bayern Munich reached the third round of the German Cup with a 3-1 win over Augsburg on Wednesday while second-division Union Berlin took injury-hit Borussia Dortmund to penalties.
Goals by Philipp Lahm, Julian Green and David Alaba sealed Bayern’s win at the Allianz Arena, while Borussia, last season’s finalists, endured nervous moments before beating Union 3-0 in a shoot-out after it finished 1-1 in Dortmund.
In Munich, Bayern coach Carlo Ancelotti rested a host of stars for Saturday’s away Bundesliga clash — also against Augsburg — and next Tuesday’s Champions League clash at PSV Eindhoven.
Alaba, Holger Badstuber, Arjen Robben, Arturo Vidal, Xabi Alonso and Robert Lewandowski were all on the bench while US striker Green made a rare start.
Bastuber came on for the last ten minutes for his first appearance in nearly nine months after injury.
“In the first galf we controlled the game, but we weren’t so good after the break,” admitted Ancelotti.
“I’m very pleased that Holger is back, he worked hard for it.”
Bayern went ahead with two minutes gone when Thomas Mueller fed Lahm and the Bayern captain drilled home his shot.
Mueller then floated in the cross which Green headed home to make it 2-0 on 41 minutes.
Bayern defender Mats Hummels conceded a penalty on Augsburg midfielder Gojko Kacar, but Manuel Neuer came to the rescue when Germany’s goalkeeper saved Koo Ja-Cheol’s spot kick on 49 minutes.
Augsburg pulled a goal back on the counter attack when Ji Dong-Won cut in and blasted his shot home from a tight angle on 69 minutes.
But Alaba came on with five minutes to go and rifled home Bayern’s third in the 94th minute to settle the result.
Dortmund, missing a host of injured stars like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Marco Reus, went through after a scare.
Dortmund took the lead thanks to a first-half own goal from ex-Dortmund defender Michael Parensen, but Union striker Steven Skrzybski levelled with nine minutes left
Goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller was Dortmund’s hero with two saves in the shoot-out, while Ousmane Dembele, Matthias Ginter and Mario Goetze netted their spot-kicks.
Schalke scrapped into the third round with a nervy 3-2 win over second-division Nuremberg.
Ukraine winger Yevhen Konoplyanka scored twice as the Royal Blues raced into a 3-0 half-time lead.
But Ghana defender Abdul Rahman Baba, on loan from Chelsea netted an own goal, then Tobias Kempe converted a penalty for Nuremberg to set up a tense final 20 minutes.
Cologne beat Hoffenheim 2-1 as Anthony Modeste, the Bundesliga’s top scorer, netted a 91st-winner in extra time as Hoffenheim suffered their first defeat of the season.
There were several upsets elsewhere.
Bundesliga club Darmstadt were humbled 1-0 by fourth division Astoria Walldorf while second division Greuther Fuerth sealed a 2-1 win over top-tier side Mainz.
In total, seven top German league clubs exited at the second-round stage.
On Tuesday, Champions League side Bayer Leverkusen lost on penalties to third-division Sportfreunde Lotte which leaves head coach Roger Schmidt under pressure.
Freiburg were beaten by second-division Sandhausen and Eintracht Frankfurt beat Ingolstadt on penalties in an all-Bundesliga clash.

Air strikes that hit a school in rebel-held Idlib province in northwest Syria killed 22 children and six teachers, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said Wednesday.
“This is a tragedy. It is an outrage. And if deliberate, it is a war crime,” said UNICEF director Anthony Lake.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “warplanes — either Russia or Syrian — carried out six strikes” in the village of Hass, including on a school complex, killing at least 35 civilians including 11 schoolchildren.
Lake said the school compound was “repeatedly attacked,” adding that it may be the deadliest attack on a school since the war began more than five years ago.
“When will the world’s revulsion at such barbarity be matched by insistence that this must stop?” added the UNICEF director.
Asked about the attack, Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin responded: “It’s horrible, horrible. I hope we were not involved.”
Syrian government forces and their Russian ally have been accused by rights groups of carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure.
The White Helmets civil defence group released pictures of four rescue workers clambering over a mound of rubble in search of survivors after what it said was a “double-tap” strike on the school.
The raids hit Hass around 11:30 am (0830 GMT), an activist with the opposition Idlib Media Centre told AFP.
“One rocket hit the entrance of the school as students were leaving to go home, after the school administration decided to end classes for the day because of the raids,” the activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Other activists from the province circulated a photograph on social media of a child’s arm, seared off above the elbow, still clutching the strap of a dusty black rucksack.
Shaky video footage depicted rescue workers sprinting towards the site of the raids and pulling a frail, elderly man out of a collapsed building.
The authenticity of the pictures and footage could not be independently verified.
The latest attacks took to 89 the number of civilians killed in air strikes on Idlib province in the past seven days, said the Observatory.
A leading opposition group condemned the raids.
The Istanbul-based National Coalition said Russian and regime warplanes “targeted children in their schools, deliberately and intentionally hitting civilians with high-explosive material”.
Idlib province is controlled by the Army of Conquest, an alliance of rebel groups and jihadists including the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after breaking off ties with Al-Qaeda earlier this year.
Syrian and Russian warplanes regularly bomb Idlib, but air strikes have intensified in recent weeks, according to the Observatory.
Russia is facing pressure at the United Nations to rein in its Syrian ally and halt air raids in rebel-held east Aleppo, where 250,000 civilians have been living under siege since July.
UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien said he was “incandescent with rage” over the Security Council’s failure to take action, deploring that “nothing is actually happening to stop the war, stop the suffering.”
With food growing scarce, “civilians are being bombed by Syrian and Russian forces, and if they survive that, they will starve tomorrow,” said O’Brien.
“Aleppo has essentially become a kill zone.”
Russian ambassador Churkin shot back, accusing O’Brien of making “arrogant remarks” and failing to recognise that Russia had declared a humanitarian pause that he maintained had been holding for eight days.
“If we needed to be preached to, we would go to a church,” Churkin quipped.
The ambassador blamed opposition rebels and Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists for the failure at the weekend of a UN plan to evacuate the wounded from Aleppo and charged that the UN official was not objectively presenting the facts.
US ambassador Samantha Power criticised Russia, saying it had never worked cooperatively with the United Nations during the pauses to ensure humanitarian relief.
“You don’t get congratulations and credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week,” said Power.
The bitter exchange came as the latest attempt to revive a ceasefire fell flat.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his British counterpart Michael Fallon said an offensive to drive IS out of its Syrian stronghold of Raqa, 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of Aleppo, would begin in the next few weeks.
The US-led coalition is currently supporting a 10-day-old assault by Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the jihadists’ main Iraqi bastion of Mosul.
Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests calling for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
But it has since evolved into a multi-front war, pitting jihadists, rebels, government forces and Kurdish militia against each other.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes.

The Greek government said Thursday it would make a fresh push to reform the private TV sector, after a top court blocked its previous attempt in a major blow to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
On Wednesday, 14 of the State Council’s 24 judges said an October 2015 law limiting the number of private TV broadcasting licences to four — half the current number operating — was unconstitutional and should be overturned.
“The prime minister has asked that a new draft law be ready by Monday so it can be put before parliament,” government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili said Thursday.
Last month, in the face of protests from the opposition and excluded broadcasters, the government auctioned off the four licences for a total of 246 million euros ($268 million).
In its majority ruling on Wednesday, the administrative court said Greece’s independent broadcasting watchdog, not parliament, should have spearheaded the reforms.
This was a major blow to the far-left Syriza government, which had announced the reforms to great fanfare, saying they would clean up a sector that has been dominated by powerful oligarchs and dogged by murky financing for a quarter of a century.
“This is a binding but unjust decision,” state minister Nikos Pappas, architect of the reform, told public TV Ert 1.
Gerovassili said the ruling would “deprive the state budget of necessary funds, which society needs, and which will be returned to four wealthy businessmen”, referring to the owners of channels that were auctioned off.
“This decision takes the country back to a previous (media) regime that was also judged anti-constitutional,” she said. “We will not allow this to happen.”
The opposition conservative New Democracy party hailed the verdict, saying “undemocratic machinations” have not succeeded and calling for early elections.
“Very soon, certainly next week, we will put forward a counter-proposal to resolve this complex situation,” the party’s leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told reporters.
“We would like to talk (to the government) but from what we hear, this is not the direction they are taking, because they want to come back again with another strange, unconstitutional proposal,” he said.
“The government must swallow its pride,” he said.
The government has insisted that Greece’s media and advertising market, depleted by the country’s six-year debt crisis, is limited and only viable TV stations should be allowed to continue broadcasting.
Authorities have said they want to clean up an industry known for workforce exploitation and rumoured under-the-table deals between media moguls, bankers and influential politicians, while bringing an end to decades of chaotic licensing.
Government officials noted that ever since private TV broadcasts began in Greece, channels have been allowed to operate on provisional licences renewed 15 times since 1995.
But critics said the overhaul was merely a ploy by Tsipras to replace established TV barons — who have opposed his Syriza party in the past — with others more to his liking.

Roma defender Alessandro Florenzi could be set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines after being stretchered off with a suspected knee ligament injury in a 3-1 win at Sassuolo.
Roma’s seventh win of the campaign kept them in second place at just two points behind leaders and champions Juventus.
But the capital club’s joy was tempered at full-time after seeing Florenzi, a highly-valued player for both Roma and Italy, carried off in obvious pain after he landed awkwardly on his left foot and his left leg gave way.
Roma’s club doctor Lorenzo Del Vescovo said the initial prognosis seemed to rule out an anterior cruciate ligament injury — for which the recovery time is around six months.
“We have two positive elements: the knee isn’t swollen and our first tests on the cruciate ligament suggest it is stable,” he told Sky Sport.
Del Vescovo said tests would be carried out immediately to rule out a “number of post-traumatic disorders” including a “fracture of the meniscus”.
Losing Florenzi would be a considerable blow for Roma as they look to challenge Juventus for the scudetto, which the capital club has not won since 2001, in what could be club icon Francesco Totti’s final season.
Coach Luciano Spalletti told Mediaset Premium: “He wouldn’t let my hand go he was in so much pain.
“We’re all sorry for him. It has eclipsed the joy of our win. We really didn’t need an incident like that after such a great performance.”

England coach Eddie Jones believes Allister Coetzee can turn around South Africa’s fortunes after a difficult year for the Springboks.
Jones’s men open their end-of-year campaign against South Africa at Twickenham on November 12, having won all of their nine previous Tests under the Australian.
Coetzee, like Jones appointed after the World Cup, has had a far more difficult 2016.
South Africa, only beaten by two points in a World Cup semi-final loss to eventual champions New Zealand, have lost four of their last five Tests.
Their most recent outing saw them suffer a record 57-15 defeat in Durban by the All Blacks, a team they have traditionally rivalled for rugby union supremacy.
In trying to catch New Zealand, who recently set a new world record for a major rugby nation of 18 successive Test wins, Coetzee has had to take South Africa’s racial politics into account.
During the apartheid era only white sportsmen, with the odd exception, were allowed to represent South Africa.
As a result, high-profile sports such as rugby union and cricket have made moves to field teams that more accurately reflect a country where 90 percent of the population is black.
The policy has not always been stated explicitly, but in March the South African Rugby Union backed a government demand that half the 2019 World Cup team be black.
Whether such an approach is good for South African sport remains a matter of intense debate.
But Jones, who guided Japan to a shock win over South Africa at last year’s World Cup and briefly replaced Coetzee at the Stormers before taking the England job, said Wednesday: “That’s South Africa, mate.
“We always used to have the saying ‘T.I.A’ which means ‘This is Africa’,” added Jones, a coaching adviser to the Springbok side that won the 2007 World Cup.
“They’re the cards that you’re dealt with and that’s the country that you live in. There’s no use complaining about it, you’ve got to get on with it and pick the side that suits the country?s politics and Allister will do that better than anyone else.”
Jones was adamant South Africa, who have not lost to England since 2006, still had enviable rugby resources.
“If you look at the depth of players then they’ve got nothing to complain about, they’ve got enormous depth of players,” he said.
“Everyone wants a strong South African side because it’s good for world rugby.”
Coetzee has not been the only coach in the spotlight lately, with Australia boss Michael Cheika unhappy at being depicted as a clown in a New Zealand newspaper prior to the All Blacks’ record-breaking win over the Wallabies last weekend.
“We’ve all been on that side, mate,” said Jones, Australia’s coach when they lost the 2003 World Cup final to England in Sydney.
“If we lose the game against South Africa then I’ll probably be in the paper next day with a red nose on!,” explained Jones, who oversaw England’s 3-0 series win in Australia in June.
But Jones, who played alongside Cheika for Sydney club Randwick, added: “It’s a bit of fun, obviously it’s not fun when you’re losing but he’ll get over it — he?s a tough boy!”
England will round off 2016 against Australia on December 3, with Fiji and Argentina also following the Springboks to Twickenham in November.
Jones will be without at least 10 first-choice players due to injury but he insisted: “I’m excited about it ?- it’s a chance to build the depth of the squad.
“In a World Cup year we need to be able to select from 45 guys who can play seven games in a row — we don’t have it at the moment.
“It’s easy for young guys to come in and play one or two Tests well. The greatness of a player is delivering week in week out over six or seven Tests.”

A much-weakened Real Madrid went goal crazy in the Copa del Rey on Wednesday, smashing third-division minnows Cultural Leonesa 7-1 away from home in the first leg of their last-32 encounter.
Marco Asensio and Alvaro Morata each struck twice in a one-sided match, but Spanish international Morata should have had at least a hat-trick as Real ran riot, ensuring the return leg at the Santiago Bernabeu is effectively a dead rubber.
Real Madrid’s forgotten man Fabio Coentrao made his return following seven months out injured on a routine evening for the Champions League winners.
“I’m very pleased with the match. We started strongly and took the game seriously. That’s the most important thing for me, taking it seriously and respecting the opponent,” said Real coach Zinedine Zidane.
“But we haven’t won anything, we’re going to keep going because this is a long-term thing, in the Copa del Rey, the Champions League or any other competition.”
Real, who have won the Copa del Rey 19 times, were thrown out of last season’s competition after fielding the ineligible Denis Cheryshev in a tie with Cadiz.

Edin Dzeko hit his ninth and 10th league goals of the season as Roma stayed in hot pursuit of leaders Juventus with a comprehesive 3-1 win at Sassuolo on Wednesday.
Juventus were given an extra incentive to move further clear of their scudetto rivals when AC Milan, who stunned the champions 1-0 last weekend to close the gap to two points, crashed 3-0 at Genoa on Tuesday.
Roma turned pre-match predictions on their head by handing Sassuolo their second-biggest home defeat of the season to walk away with the spoils, although their seventh win of the campaign was tempered by Alessandro Florenzi crumbling to the ground with a suspected serious knee ligamenet injury.
Although Juventus underlined their credentials with a classy 4-1 win at home to Sampdoria, which saw Mario Mandzukic hit his maiden goal of the season and defender Giorgio Chiellini hit a brace, Roma remain just two points in arrears.
A Napoli win against Juve on Saturday could see Roma go top if they beat Empoli away, but Dzeko played down suggestions they are now Juve’s biggest rivals.
He told Sky Sport: “All we’re thinking about is winning our next game, but we’re happy for this win.”
Napoli capitalised on Milan’s earlier collapse to move up to third at four points adrift ahead of the sides’ clash in Turin this Saturday.
Thanks to a battling 2-0 home win over Empoli, with Dries Mertens crucially breaking the deadlock six minutes after the restart, Maurizio Sarri’s men are now just two behind Roma.
“The squad is doing well, if you consider we lost the league’s top scorer over the summer, and his substitute in September,” Sarri told Premium Sport in reference to Gonzalo Higuain’s move to Juventus and the serious knee injury suffered by his replacement, Arek Milik.
Milan dropped to fourth with Lazio moving up one place to fifth after a 4-1 rout of Cagliari that included a superb double from Ciro Immobile and a great, final goal from Felipe Anderson.
Elsewhere, embattled Inter Milan coach Frank De Boer saw his survival hopes boosted by Mauro Icardi’s 88th minute winner in a 2-1 home win over Torino that, nevertheless, saw the nervous Nerazzurri miss chance after chance.
De Boer was given the backing of club bosses earlier on Wednesday, but will remain concerned at his side’s inability to finish the easiest of scoring chances.
Roma travelled to Sassuolo wary of the Tuscans’ formidable home form, and were initially proved right when Paolo Cannavaro fired a bullet header past Wojciech Szczesny on 12 minutes after being left unmarked on the edge of the box.
Roma missed a series of chances to pull the match level, Radja Nainggolan?s screamer coming off the crossbar and Dzeko also thumping the bar from a low Emerson cross before the interval.
Dzeko made amends in the 57th minute, latching on to Mohamed Salah?s superb cross-field ball to beat Andrea Consigli with a crisp angled drive.
Salah then saw an attempt cleared a metre before the line by Gregoire Defrel moments later, but Roma were soon in the driving seat after Pol Lirola came off the bench to clumsily barge into Dzeko.
The referee pointed to the spot and Dzeko fired into Consigli’s top corner. It was his 10th league goal in nine appearances this season and means he remains two goals ahead of Icardi, who has eight goals.
Stephan El Shaarawy threatened a third goal moments later, and although Consigli saved Nainggolan was quick to tap in the rebound.
A spell of torrential rain halted the Fiorentina v Crotone fixture for over half an hour as groundsmen worked to remove excess water from the pitch.
League newcomers Crotone were heading for their maiden Serie A win after a 24th minute opener by Diego Falcinelli, only for Davide Astori to level for the hosts five minutes from time.

Juan Mata’s second-half strike earned Manchester United a 1-0 win over holders Manchester City on Wednesday as Jose Mourinho’s resurgent side reached the English Football League Cup quarter-finals.
Humiliated 4-0 by Mourinho’s former club Chelsea at the weekend, United got back to winning ways and claimed a measure of revenge for their 2-1 loss to Pep Guardiola’s City in last month’s league derby.
The result at Old Trafford gave Mourinho only his third victory in 13 encounters with Guardiola, who has gone six games without victory for the first time in his glittering managerial career.
“The players did everything and deserved to win. We are happy,” Mourinho said.
“In the last week everything went against us, but we are professionals.
“The fans felt deeply such a negative result and today was a good chance to clear that feeling, because a derby knockout and to win gives everyone a better feeling.”
United will now entertain West Ham United, who claimed a 2-1 upset win over Chelsea, while Southampton’s reward for overcoming Sunderland 1-0 is a trip to Arsenal.
Mourinho previously won the competition three times at Chelsea and with City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur all falling by the wayside in the fourth round, his path to the final is clearing once again.
While City remain top of the league, on goal difference, and although Guardiola selected a much weaker team than Mourinho, their early season momentum has deserted them.
Mourinho used his programme notes to say “sorry” to United’s fans for the result at Chelsea and his decision to make only four changes to his starting XI showed his eagerness to make amends.
Guardiola, in contrast, made nine changes, notably handing starts to youngsters Pablo Maffeo and Aleix Garcia.
His side should have gone ahead in the second minute when Kelechi Iheanacho headed over from Jesus Navas’s cross and they might have had a penalty when Michael Carrick caught Garcia near the byline.
With Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba both wasteful, United struggled to establish a foothold in City territory and when they did, the visitors’ defenders were on hand to block.
Had Marcos Rojo not rushed across to block from Iheanacho, meanwhile, United would have trailed at the interval.
But Mourinho’s half-time team talk had the desired effect and after City goalkeeper Willy Caballero had touched a shot from Pogba onto the post, the hosts took a 54th-minute lead.
Leaving Nicolas Otamendi on his back in an aerial challenge, Ibrahimovic crossed from the left and with Ander Herrera and Fernando colliding at the near post, Mata popped up to sweep home.
“Congratulations to United, they made a good performance,” said Guardiola.
“We had chances on the counter-attack. I am happy with the young players. No regrets (about his team selection).”
West Ham pulled off the biggest shock of the round with victory over Chelsea in the first local derby at their new London Stadium.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte made seven changes from his side’s win over United and saw his team fall behind to Cheikhou Kouyate’s superb 11th-minute header.
Edimilson Fernandes added a second early in the second half and although Gary Cahill reduced the arrears in stoppage time, after substitute Eden Hazard had hit the post, it came too late.
There was a heavy police presence inside and outside the former Olympic Stadium, where there has been trouble involving West Ham fans in previous games.
But rival supporters clashed at the end of the game, with some throwing chairs and bottles.
“I noticed it, but I wasn’t watching it so I really don’t know what happened,” said West Ham manager Slaven Bilic.
“The game was on. Whatever happened it’s a shame and as a club and a team we are totally against it, of course.”
Southampton beat Sunderland at St Mary’s courtesy of a fine 20-yard curler from former Lille winger Sofiane Boufal, who was making his full debut.

Juan Mata’s second-half strike earned Manchester United a 1-0 win over Manchester City on Wednesday as Jose Mourinho’s side bounced back to reach the English Football League Cup quarter-finals.
Humiliated 4-0 by Mourinho’s former club Chelsea at the weekend, United got back to winning ways and claimed a measure of revenge for their 2-1 defeat by Pep Guardiola’s City in last month’s league derby.
The result at Old Trafford gave Mourinho only his third victory in 13 encounters with Guardiola, who has gone six games without victory for the first time in his glittering managerial career.

West Ham invigorated their stuttering season with a 2-1 home victory over fierce London rivals Chelsea to surge into the English League Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday.
In the build-up to the clash there were fears of violence between West Ham and Chelsea fans, and a heavy police presence was in place outside the Hammers’ new London Stadium home.
There was no large-scale disorder prior to the game at the former Olympic stadium, where West Ham — players and fans — have struggled to settle since leaving Upton Park in the summer, but there were reports of seats torn out and thrown between opposing supporters afterwards.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte — looking uncharacteristically casual in sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms — made several changes to the side that humiliated Jose Mourinho and Manchester United 4-0 on Sunday in the Premier League, with skipper John Terry returning after injury.
It was the veteran defender who had the first real chance of the game, his effort after a corner whizzing over the top of the home goal.
By contrast, West Ham boss Slaven Bilic played more or less his strongest team, with the Hammers needing victory to kick-start their season, particularly at their new home.
On 11 minutes West Ham went ahead when Cheikhou Kouyate met a cross by Mark Noble to score with a thumping header.
Nathaniel Chalobah and N’Golo Kante then had chances for Chelsea, while Manuel Lanzini poked wide for West Ham and Dimitri Payet saw his free-kick well saved by stand-in Blues goalkeeper Asmir Begovic.
Begovic was keeping Chelsea in the game, this time saving a fierce volley from Pedro Obiang, as West Ham went into the break a goal up.
Moments after the restart the Hammers went 2-0 up, Edimilson Fernandes firing in from outside the box.
Conte sent on the big guns in Pedro, Eden Hazard and Diego Costa as Chelsea ramped up the pressure.
Gary Cahill grabbed a 90th-minute consolation goal to ensure a nervy finale, but West Ham would not be denied their most satisfying victory to date at their new home.

A landslide piled into one of Colombia’s busiest highways Wednesday, killing at least six people and leaving an “undetermined” number missing and feared buried, authorities said.
The huge mass of brown earth swallowed up a section of road located several kilometers (miles) outside second city Medellin, on a highway that leads to the capital Bogota.
“We have so far located six people, all of them deceased,” said disaster management chief for the northwestern department of Antioquia, Gilberto Mazo.
“There is also an undetermined number of people missing,” Mazo said, adding that four people were injured and taken to a local hospital.
Mazo put the volume of earth that flooded onto the highway at 50,000 cubic meters (1.8 million cubic feet). He said it was unclear how long authorities need to clean and reopen the highway.
More than 100 rescue workers were combing through the area, which was still on high alert for further landslides.
Authorities blamed the disaster on days of heavy rain in the mountainous area.

Andy Murray’s pursuit of the world number one ranking was severely tested by Slovak left-hander Martin Klizan in his Vienna opener on Wednesday before the British star clinched a 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 6-0 win.
The 29-year-old Wimbledon and Olympic champion, who is closing in on Novak Djokovic’s top ranking, took his season record to 66 wins and just nine losses.
Murray’s best chance of taking the world number one spot will be to capture the title in Vienna, where he was champion in 2012, as well as next week’s Paris Masters.
In the French capital Djokovic would have to reach the final to stay in pole position.
Australian Open and French Open champion Djokovic has spent a total of 222 weeks at number one in three spells — including his current run of 121 consecutive weeks.
In his first meeting with Klizan, Murray had to save three break points in his first two service games before claiming the opening set.
Murray then served for the match at 6-5 in the second set, but world number 35 Klizan battled back to break and snatch the tiebreak.
Murray’s greater range of shots proved key in the decider when he allowed Klizan just eight points.
The Slovak committed 58 unforced errors as his game plan of all-out attack came up short.
Murray will face Frenchman Gilles Simon in the next round with a 15-2 career record.
Big-hitting John Isner of the United States hit 52 winners and 31 aces in a 7-6 (7/1), 3-6, 7-6 (7/2) victory over 2004 champion Feliciano Lopez to reach the quarter-finals.
Ivo Karlovic of Croatia is also into the last-eight after 33 aces took him to a 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 7-6 (7/5) win over Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia.

More than 20 people were injured and 39 were detained at anti-government protests in Venezuela on Wednesday, the head of a local rights group said.
The injuries included three people who were shot in the northwestern city of Maracaibo, said Alfredo Romero, on a day of nationwide protests against leftist President Nicolas Maduro’s handling of a devastating economic crisis.

Chinese sailing star Guo Chuan has gone missing in the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to set a new solo world record, state media said on Wednesday.
“Guo was last heard just after 15:00 Tuesday Beijing time (0700 GMT) when his trimaran sailed 900 nautical miles off the west of Hawaii,” the official Xinhua news agency said, citing his team.
“All attempts to contact the sailor have failed,” it said, adding that a search aircraft from Honolulu had found Guo’s boat — with the sail broken off — but did not find the yachtsman on deck.
Guo, 51, was aiming to set a new solo non-stop trans-Pacific world record from San Francisco to Shanghai, setting sail on October 19.
In 2013 the former scientist became the first sailor from China to complete a non-stop solo circumnavigation of the globe.

Two strong earthquakes rocked central Italy on Wednesday, toppling buildings and injuring dozens of people, according to initial reports, two months after a devastating tremor killed nearly 300 in the same region.
The first 5.5 magnitude quake sent people running out of their houses, likely saving lives when the second, more destructive, 6.1 magnitude one struck two hours later.
But rescuers working through the night and in the rain were struggling to assess the full extent of the disaster.
“Many houses have collapsed. Our town is finished,” Marco Rinaldi, mayor of the mountain town of Ussita, told Sky Italy television by telephone.
“The second quake was a long, terrible one,” he said.
“I’ve felt a lot of earthquakes but that was the strongest I’ve ever felt. Fortunately everyone had already left their homes after the first quake so I don’t think anyone was hurt.”
Several dozen people were treated for light injuries or shock, civil protection chief Fabrizio Curcio told a late night news conference, but no serious injuries had been reported.
“Ultimately, the situation is not as catastrophic as might have been expected” given the strength of the tremors, he said.
The quakes were felt in the capital Rome, sending residents running out of their houses and into the streets. The second was felt as far away as Venice in the far north, and Naples, south of the capital.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) registered a first 5.5 magnitude quake at 1710 GMT, with the second two hours later. In both cases the epicentre was near the village of Visso in the central Marche region.
In August, a 6.0-6.2 magnitude quake flattened the mountain town of Amatrice — 70 kilometres (45 miles) from Visso — killing 297 people and injuring hundreds of others.
The area is also not far from L’Aquila where a powerful earthquake killed more than 300 in 2009.
After the second quake, Italian television channels broadcast images of collapsed buildings and people standing dazed in front of their toppled houses.
“It is not very easy to make assessments in the dark and the weather is bad in the whole region. We will have to see more precisely in the light of day,” said Curcio.
Across the region, hospitals, a university residence, a retirement home and even a prison had to be evacuated.
“Tonight we’re going to go. But tomorrow I don’t know. The tents, I can’t go there, it’s too cold,” a resident of Visso said on television.
For people who are unable to return home immediately, civil protection has arranged accommodation in gyms and prepared to reopen some of the tent camps which were set up after the August earthquake. Many residents prepared to spend the night in their cars.
“I want to thank those working in the rain in the earthquake zones. All of Italy is wrapping its arms around the communities that have been hit once again,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tweeted.
In Rome, the quakes rattled windows and doors. The imposing foreign ministry headquarters was temporarily evacuated.
A Serie A football match between Pescara and Atalanta was halted for several minutes when the first tremor hit.
The mayor of Serravalle del Chienti, Gabriele Santamarianova, said the quake felt “like bombs were falling”.
“We saw a cloud of dust, we don’t yet know what has fallen down. We’ll see once the sun comes up.”
Castel Sant’Angelo’s mayor Mauro Falcucci told Sky: “There is no electricity. There are bound to be house collapses. On top of this there are torrential rains.”
The little town of some 300 people is near Arquata del Tronto, one of the areas worst hit in the August 24 earthquake.
In Ascoli, another town hit hard in August, the mayor said spooked residents were fleeing by car.
Schools here and around the affected region will not open Thursday to allow officials to carry out safety checks.
Italy’s national geophysics institute said the latest quakes were linked to the August one, which was followed by thousands of aftershocks, some of them very strong.
“Aftershocks can last for a long time, sometimes for months,” geologist Mario Tozzi said.
Visso’s mayor Giuliano Pazzaglini said telephone links in his town had been restored. But television images showed rubble piled outside a local church.
Dozens of aftershocks were recorded, with the strongest measuring 4.6, according to the Italian national geophysics institute.
In their first editions Thursday morning, several Italian newspapers headlined “The unending nightmare”.
August’s disaster caused an estimated four billion euros ($4.5 billion) of damage, with 1,400 people still living in temporary accommodation.
Around two-thirds of the deaths occurred in Amatrice, a popular tourist destination packed with holiday-makers when the quake struck at the height of the summer season.