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Can Colombia’s talks with the Comuneros del Sur help achieve ‘total peace’? During his inauguration in August 2022, Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla and Colombia’s first leftist president , told a crowd of 100,000 onlookers that, while the country has struggled with internal conflict for over half a century, peace was possible. “This is the government of life and peace,” he said at the time. “It shall be remembered as such.” Now, just over halfway through his four-year term, President Petro’s “Total Peace” strategy — which created legal pathways for the government to negotiate with Colombia’s armed groups — has stalled. Ceasefires have been broken, security conditions have fluctuated and, in some rural areas, kidnapping and extortion rates are on the rise . In fact, during the first year of the Total Peace policy, 189 social leaders were murdered and 94 massacres were documented, according to the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (INDEPAZ). But government negotiators are pointing to a degree of success with one armed group, the Comuneros del Sur. They believe the negotiating tactics forged with the Comuneros could serve as an example of how to reinvigorate talks with other armed actors. Some experts, however, caution that the gains made with the Comuneros may be short-lived — and that the tactics that work with one group may not be applicable to all. Who are the Comuneros? Established in 1992, the Comuneros del Sur formed as a regional extension of Colombia’s largest Marxist rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). The group operates in the southwestern department of Nariño, near the border with Ecuador, where they have maintained territorial control over as many as 10 municipalities. Approximately 200 fighters make up the Comuneros’ ranks, and they have historically funded their operations through extortion, drug trafficking and illegal mining. In May, the Comuneros announced their rupture from the ELN after the larger group said it would resume kidnapping for ransom, a source of its profits. That, in turn, caused peace talks between the ELN and the government to falter. “We have decided to split from the central command because we do not accept the policy of aggression and the current model of leadership,” the Comuneros stated at the time. The Comuneros emphasised their willingness to engage with the government, separate from ELN leadership. “We remain committed to the negotiation process between the Comuneros del Sur and the national government under the Total Peace policy of President Gustavo Petro,” they wrote in their statement. After an initial meeting in July, government delegates and the Comuneros established a working plan for negotiations, and in August, Colombia’s Security Council recognised the rebel group as independent, paving the way for negotiations. The peace talks with the Comuneros, which officially began on September 13, focus on three agreed-upon areas: the de-escalation of violence, territorial transformation and transitioning armed fighters to civilian life. Exploring a territorial approach Andrei Gómez-Suárez, a delegate for the Colombian government in the negotiations, credits the concept of territorial transformation — or “territorialising” — with allowing strides to be made. Colombia is a country with vast socioeconomic divides. A 2014 report by the OECD found regional inequalities in Colombia were five times higher than in the United States or Canada, and 42 times higher than in Australia. Much of the country’s population is concentrated in dense, urban centres, but nearly two-thirds of its provinces, including Nariño, are largely rural. With terrain that ranges from Andean mountains to thick rainforests and coastal mangroves, each province has unique demands and pressures. Gómez-Suárez explained that working specifically with the Comuneros gave the Colombian government the opportunity to tailor their negotiations to specific, place-based needs. “This is the first effort, after the commitment to Total Peace began, in which we have explored what territorialising peace entails,” Gómez-Suárez said while sipping Earl Grey tea in front of a huge bookcase inside his Edinburgh apartment. He has been travelling back and forth from the Scottish capital to the mountains of Nariño since July, juggling his role as a chief negotiator with his position as a visiting scholar at the University of Edinburgh. Gómez-Suárez considers the “territorialising” of the peace process “innovative” because it draws on the participation of many stakeholders. It brings local politicians, Indigenous leaders and regional armed fighters into dialogue with their national government. “If we don’t work together, transforming this territory will be impossible,” Gómez-Suárez said. This grassroots approach is something Petro’s government is betting on to achieve nationwide peace in Colombia. In July, Petro told the United Nations Security Council, “We don’t have a national conflict but have regional conflicts in the same geographical areas as they have been for many decades.” Signs of optimism For Gómez-Suárez, if Colombia’s conflict is regional, then the solution should be too. He draws a contrast between his approach to the Comuneros and the way the Colombian government previously negotiated peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once the largest rebel group in the country. In 2016, under then-President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia signed a historic peace deal with the FARC that promised rural reforms and development in exchange for the nationwide demobilisation of the group’s fighters. The negotiations that led up to the deal, however, were fraught — and some parts of the FARC splintered off into dissident groups rather than agree to the terms. Gómez-Suárez argued his region-specific approach could be more efficient. “With previous agreements, namely that with the FARC guerrillas, there was this idea that nothing is set until everything is agreed, which implied that the parties would only begin implementation after a final document was signed,” Gómez-Suárez said. “Our case is impressive because sometimes we have even implemented before agreements are formally reached.” He pointed out that the Comuneros proposed a unilateral ceasefire even before their first meeting with the government’s delegates, as a sign of good faith. Since then, the parties have signed two agreements and plan to begin the Comuneros’ transition to civilian life before the next presidential elections in 2026. The first agreement comprises four points, including a definitive bilateral ceasefire, the gradual destruction of the group’s weapons and a collaborative programme to remove land mines throughout Nariño. The second establishes safety guarantees for the Red Cross, a humanitarian nonprofit, to operate in the Comuneros’ territory. In addition, the deal calls for the creation of a team composed of Comuneros members who will be trained and tasked with searching for people who have gone missing during the conflict. In return, the government has pledged funding for constructing roads, aqueducts, schools and universities in the territory, to help address poverty and infrastructure shortcomings in Nariño. A permanent solution? But some conflict monitors caution against interpreting these short-term gains as signs of long-term success. Jeremy McDermott, co-director of the organised crime monitoring group InsightCrime, said the Comuneros may be willing to negotiate with the Petro government simply because their political views align. “The Comuneros del Sur do not want to change the political system. Therefore, the negotiations are infinitely more feasible,” McDermott told Al Jazeera. That does not necessarily indicate the Comuneros are willing to lay down their arms forever, McDermott added, underscoring the political nature of their fight. One of the looming questions is what happens when Petro leaves office in two years: Colombian presidents are currently limited to a single term. McDermott anticipates that, because Petro has failed to deliver on a number of key policy issues, Colombia could see the return of a right-wing government in 2026. That may spur the Comuneros to abandon peace negotiations and continue their fight. “The question is: Under what framework will the Comuneros del Sur negotiate? Is it truly demobilisation?” McDermott asked. He added that this kind of reversal had happened before. In 2018, for instance, Ivan Duque replaced Santos as Colombia’s president, and peace talks sputtered under his administration, despite the historic gains made in 2016. “So, the issue of whether these negotiations would continue and survive, and under what terms, are very much open for debate,” McDermott said. Fractured fighters Further complicating negotiations is the fragmented nature of the armed groups in Colombia. Since 2016, multiple FARC dissident factions, including the Central General Staff (EMC), have re-armed and control territory in the country. Other armed groups like the ELN and the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC) have filled the power vacuum left in some formerly FARC-controlled regions. The case of the Comuneros, too, prompts questions about the efficiency of negotiating with armed groups prone to internal fragmentation. After all, it only recently splintered off from a larger group itself. Sergio Guzmán, the director of the consulting firm Colombia Risk Analysis, views this fragmentation as a warning sign. “The government might think that dividing groups will make it easier to negotiate peace, but I think it makes it more complicated because it means more agreements and more points to overview and implement,” Guzmán told Al Jazeera. He added that, while the government has been able to “stop the confrontations between the illegal groups and the army”, they haven’t been able to stop the “clashes between the groups themselves”. Already, the government's negotiations with the Comuneros have raised tensions with the ELN. Following the Comuneros’ split from the ELN in May, the larger group denounced the government talks with the Comuneros. It said the new negotiations were established to pressure the ELN to continue its own talks with the government. On November 7, the government and ELN announced they would indeed resume peace talks in Venezuela. Interconnected negotiations Although the negotiations with the Comuneros focus on bringing peace to a relatively small portion of Colombia — 10 municipalities in Nariño — Gómez-Suárez hopes their early success may influence peace talks with other armed groups, too. Currently, nine negotiations are under way between the government and major armed groups like the ELN and the AGC. “I have heard that the talks with the Comuneros have had a positive impact on other [negotiations] that were stagnant and are now picking up speed again,” Gómez-Suárez said. “This has injected a dose of urgency, but it is something that [was] not calculated at the start of the peace dialogues.” For some analysts, the talks with the Comuneros are among the most promising in the current context of Colombia's armed conflict. Daniel Medina, a research associate at the Institute for Integrated Transitions, a Barcelona-based think tank, believes achieving peace with the Comuneros could be attainable during President Petro’s term. “It is not a secret that, in the context of an open and complex peace, the negotiation with the Comuneros del Sur could be the most advanced one in terms of signed agreements, and might be the only one to achieve a final deal in the next two years,” said Medina. He too believes the outcome of one peace talk could shape the outcome of the others, for better or worse. Failure to follow through on a given deal could be a setback for all the negotiations. “Both the nine negotiations and the 2016 peace agreement implementation are interdependent because the lack of implementation or stagnation of one could impact the others,” Medina told Al Jazeera. But to tackle the wider problem of Colombia’s armed conflict, Gómez-Suárez is doubling down on his smaller-scale “territorial” approach. “Peace does not wait for a final agreement,” he said. “We cannot allow the window of opportunity [for peace] to close because the government owes this to the communities. The government bets on territorial peace, and at this moment, the opportunity is there.”

Helping to drown out the noiseOffense rules day as No. 10 Georgia dispatches MassachusettsSinn Fein was accused of “ignoring” the role 3,000 Troubles deaths had in damaging community relations in Northern Ireland in a memo sent to a direct rule minister in 2003. Declassified files show the note to former MP John Spellar also said the republican party had ignored the “visceral component of sectarianism” in responding to a new government good relations strategy. Mr Spellar, then a Northern Ireland Office minister, had launched a consultation on the “A Shared Future” document, an attempt to address community divisions, segregation and sectarianism in the region at a time when the devolved powersharing institutions were suspended. Mr Stewart told Mr Spellar that Ms de Brun’s letter had been critical of the document and was clearly intended to “mark your card”. He said among a number of points raised by de Brun was that “the promotion of equality is the key to improving community relations”. His memo adds: “Sinn Fein is clearly seeking to position or align the issue of community relations within its equality and human rights agenda. “This general Sinn Fein position has resulted in a simplistic analysis of community relations, which is flawed in its description of the causes and necessary policy response. “However, Sinn Fein ignores the many other factors, not least the violent conflict that resulted in over 3,000 deaths. “Sinn Fein also portrays poor community relations (for nationalists) as being a purely rational response to the political situation. “This ignores the more visceral component of sectarianism, which is all too prevalent in both communities.” Mr Stewart continues: “To suggest, as Sinn Fein does, that the promotion of equality should be the key component of good relations policy is to ignore the key message in A Shared Future, that indirect approaches alone are insufficient to deal with sectarianism and the abnormal relationship between sections of the Northern Ireland community.” The official recommended the minister invite representatives of Sinn Fein to a meeting to discuss the policy. The note says: “Morrow said he had no problem with sharing the future and suggested that the first step to that would be an election to decide who spoke for whom – though he was quick to say he didn’t want politics to dominate the meeting.” It adds: “Weir said that the biggest step towards improving community relations would be the creation of a political environment that had the broad support of both unionism and nationalism, and the GFA (Good Friday Agreement) could not create that environment.”

The KP Sharma Oli led-government in Nepal runs the risk of collapse if the prime minister agrees to loans under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) during his upcoming China visit , with his coalition partner, Nepali Congress (NC), insisting that the Himalayan nation should seek grants instead of loans. The NC has said that China has not fulfilled its previous grant commitments under the BRI and has opposed Oli's move to join the BRI during his visit in the first week of December. Oli and the NC have publicly differed on China's invitation to Nepal to join the BRI and there are indications that the NC may reconsider its support to the government if Oli goes ahead with the plan to seek loans under the BRI, according to people familiar with the matter. Although Nepal and China signed a memorandum of understanding on BRI in 2017, not a single project has been negotiated under the initiative as successive governments in Nepal have been averse to taking loans from China, unlike Sri Lanka and Pakistan, said Nepal watchers. Nepal traditionally has also been wary of loans given its state of economy and has preferred grants to fund its projects. This is among the reasons that it has not taken loans under the BRI despite intense lobbying from China. India has offered grant assistance to Nepal since the 1950s. Nepal is among India's largest and most prominent development partners. India-Nepal Cooperation for developing modern infrastructure in Nepal began in 1951. Office Productivity Mastering Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and 365 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development Advanced Java Mastery: Object-Oriented Programming Techniques By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development Intermediate C++ Skills: Master Pointers, Structures and File Stream By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Zero to Hero in Microsoft Excel: Complete Excel guide 2024 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Finance Startup Fundraising: Essential Tactics for Securing Capital By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Finance AI and Generative AI for Finance By - Hariom Tatsat, Vice President- Quantitative Analytics at Barclays View Program Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Neil Patel By - Neil Patel, Co-Founder and Author at Neil Patel Digital Digital Marketing Guru View Program Web Development Intermediate Java Mastery: Method, Collections, and Beyond By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Java Programming with ChatGPT: Learn using Generative AI By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Marketing Performance Marketing for eCommerce Brands By - Zafer Mukeri, Founder- Inara Marketers View Program Strategy Succession Planning Masterclass By - Nigel Penny, Global Strategy Advisor: NSP Strategy Facilitation Ltd. View Program Office Productivity Advanced Excel Course - Financial Calculations & Excel Made Easy By - Anirudh Saraf, Founder- Saraf A & Associates, Chartered Accountant View Program Data Science SQL for Data Science along with Data Analytics and Data Visualization By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Pam Moore By - Pam Moore, Digital Transformation and Social Media Expert View Program Leadership Business Storytelling Masterclass By - Ameen Haque, Founder of Storywallahs View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Master in Python Language Quickly Using the ChatGPT Open AI By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Leadership Validating Your Startup Idea: Steps to Ensure Market Fit By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Finance Financial Literacy i.e Lets Crack the Billionaire Code By - CA Rahul Gupta, CA with 10+ years of experience and Accounting Educator View Program Office Productivity Excel Essentials to Expert: Your Complete Guide By - Study At Home, Quality Education Anytime, Anywhere View Program Web Development JavaScript Essentials: Unlock AI-Driven Insights with ChatGPT By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Microsoft Word Mastery: From Beginner to Expert By - CA Raj K Agrawal, Chartered Accountant View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Mastering C++ Fundamentals with Generative AI: A Hands-On By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Apart from taking up infrastructure development projects, India has also shared technical know-how with Nepal in various fields. Meanwhile, Oli said his China visit would not hurt Nepal's ties with India. Speaking at the concluding session of the Kantipur Conclave in Kathmandu last Thursday, he said there was no reason for his visit to harm relations with India just because he was going to China first. Historically, India has been the first destination abroad for any Nepalese PM. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )TikToker teaching science hopes short-form video will become part of curriculumDied: December 29th, 2024 The death at 100 of the US’s 39th and longest living president , James Earl Carter, a peanut farmer and Baptist preacher, sees the passing of a remarkable Southerner who infused his politics with a rare down-to-earth moralism, sincerity and honesty. A refreshing outsider to Washington politics, he surprised all by sweeping aside the capital’s old post-Watergate elite to leave a legacy that pointed in new directions even if it never quite achieved his promise. “He decided to use power righteously,” biographer Kai Bird would write, “ignore politics, and do the right thing. He was, in fact, a fan of the establishment’s favourite Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote, ‘It is the sad duty of politics to establish justice in a sinful world’.” Although he had notable successes in office from 1977 to 1981, not least the Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel, he would be the first incumbent president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to lose a re-election bid. Ronald Reagan used the economic challenges and oil crisis faced by his administration, and the disastrously bungled attempted Iran hostage rescue, to successfully portray Carter as a weak and ineffectual leader. In some ways Carter was a paradox. Although an opponent of segregation in a segregationist state, he played the race card to get elected to governorship in 1971, then announcing that “the time of racial discrimination is over”. From then on, however, he was an unwavering champion of civil rights, and his presidential bid attracted some 85 per cent support from the black community. Born on October 1st, 1924, in tiny Plains, Georgia, to Bessie Lillian Gordy and James Earl Carter snr, a shopkeeper and investor in farmland, the young Carter would successfully develop a peanut farm as an offshoot of the family business. His father was a descendant of English immigrant Thomas Carter, who settled in the Colony of Virginia in 1635. Carter enrolled in the US Naval Academy in 1946 and while there met and married Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister’s. He served in nuclear submarines, and was drafted in to assist in the dismantling of the Chalk River nuclear reactor in Canada following a partial meltdown. His experience, he would later say, shaped his views on atomic energy and led him to end development of the neutron bomb. The early death of his father saw his return to the family business and a gradual immersion in the Democratic politics of Georgia. Although opposed to segregation – as a member of the Baptist Church he spoke openly against racism and attempts to segregate worship – he tempered his approach when he ran for office, even courting the arch-segregationist Wallace vote. Still an outsider in national politics, he surprised observers by winning the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination and narrowly defeating incumbent Republican president Gerald Ford. As the campaign developed in the wake of the still-fresh reverberations of the Watergate scandal, Carter, now with running mate senator Walter Mondale, tirelessly travelled the country projecting himself as an outsider with an easy common touch, not averse to populist slogans. He won the popular vote by 50.1 per cent to 48.0 per cent. Within two days of assuming the presidency he took the controversial step of pardoning all Vietnam War draft evaders. Carter was actively engaged on the world stage, from day one, hoping above all to broker peace in the Middle East. He invited Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin to the presidential lodge Camp David in September 1978 with the negotiations resulting in an end to the state of war between the two countries, Egypt formally recognising Israel for the first time, and the creation of an elected government in the West Bank and Gaza. [ Leo Varadkar could learn something from Jimmy Carter about how to retire Opens in new window ] He oversaw the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, and signed the landmark Salt II treaty on ballistic arms reductions with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. (Although the latter was signed in 1979 in Vienna, the US Senate refused to ratify it in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.) Following that invasion, Carter allowed the sale of military supplies to China and started talks about sharing military intelligence. He began a programme of what would become hugely controversial covert assistance to the Afghan mujahideen, some of them precursors to today’s Taliban. He sought closer relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), continuing the rapprochement engaged in by Richard Nixon. The end of his presidency was blighted by the Iran hostage crisis. Misbriefed by the CIA about the stability of the Shah’s regime, Carter pledged in 1977 that his administration would continue with positive relations between the US and Iran, calling the latter “strong, stable and progressive”. After the surprise revolution installed an Islamist regime in November 1979, a group of Iranian students took over the US embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for the next 444 days. An airborne mission to free them failed, leaving eight American servicemen dead and two aircraft destroyed. The hostages were freed immediately after Ronald Reagan succeeded Carter as president – leading figures in the Reagan campaign are reported to have signalled to the Iranians not to release the hostages until Carter was defeated, as Reagan would give them a better deal. Breaking with traditional US unwillingness to step out of line from its closest ally, the UK, Carter in 1977 agreed to issue a declaration on Ireland calling for the establishment in Northern Ireland of a government which would command widespread acceptance and for an overall solution which would involve the support of the Irish government. The US would facilitate any such agreement with assistance in creating jobs, he said. “The precedent created by Carter has facilitated the enormous involvement in Ireland of his successors,” Ireland’s then-ambassador to the US, Sean Donlon, has written. It was an engagement and pledge that would be honoured by Reagan in his talks with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and in the establishment of the International Fund for Ireland. The latter has seen close to $1 billion invested in Irish projects since then. In 1979, Carter invited taoiseach Jack Lynch on an official visit to the US and paid a private visit to Ireland in 1995, fishing in Kilkenny and indulging his woodworking skills by helping to build a house in Ballyfermot for Habitat for Humanity, an NGO he worked closely with. Domestically, Carter had an uneasy relationship with both his own party and Republicans in Congress. His tenure in office was marked by an economic malaise, a time of continuing inflation and recession, and the 1979 energy crisis. His administration established the department of energy and the department of education. He also created a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. He installed solar water heating panels on the White House and wore sweaters to offset turning down the heat. He deregulated the airline industry, paving the way for middle-class Americans to fly for the first time in large numbers, and deregulated natural gas, laying the groundwork for the country’s current energy independence. He forced through the Alaska Land Act, tripling the size of the nation’s protected wilderness areas. The battle for renomination loomed. Carter had to run against his own stagflation-ridden economy, while the hostage crisis in Iran dominated the news every week. He alienated liberal college students, who were expected to be his base, by reinstating registration for the military draft. [ ‘He’s an inspiration’: tributes pour in after Jimmy Carter enters hospice care Opens in new window ] Though initially trailing Carter by several points, Reagan saw a surge in polling after the TV debate, in which he practised the patronising put-down – “there you go again” – that became his election mantra. Carter’s defeat was a landslide. After leaving the White House, he became an activist former president, ploughing a largely solitary but effective furrow. In the view of many it is his retirement that will be seen as his singular legacy. In 1982, he established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights. Its work would earn him a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In July 2007, he joined Nelson Mandela to announce his participation with former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, among others, in The Elders, a group of independent global leaders who work on peace and human rights issues. He travelled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections and further the eradication of infectious diseases. He played a key role in the NGO Habitat for Humanity, and wrote books and memoirs, often sharply critical of US policy, not least over the Iraq War. In a work on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict he controversially labelled the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians “apartheid”. Though he praised Barack Obama in the early part of his tenure, Carter attacked the use of drone strikes against suspected terrorists and the decision to keep Guantánamo Bay detention camp open. His blunt critiques of his Democrat successors meant they would all keep him at arm’s length until Joe Biden latterly re-engaged with him enthusiastically. To the end he worked tirelessly. Biographer Bird, who insists that Carter “remains the most misunderstood president of the last century”, described one recent meeting: “He was in his early 90s yet was still rising with the dawn and getting to work early. I once saw him conduct a meeting at 7am at the Carter Center where he spent 40 minutes pacing back and forth onstage, explaining the details of his programme to wipe out Guinea worm disease. He was relentless. Later that day he gave me, his biographer, exactly 50 minutes to talk about his White House years. Those bright blue eyes bore into me with an alarming intensity. But he was clearly more interested in the Guinea worms. “Carter devoted his life to solving problems,” Bird says, “like an engineer, by paying attention to the minutiae of a complicated world. He once told me that he hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm. Last year there were only 13 cases of Guinea worm disease in humans. He may have succeeded.” Rosalynn Carter died in November 2023 and Jimmy Carter emerged from hospice care to mourn her. They had three sons, Jack, Chip and Jeff; one daughter, Amy; nine grandsons (one of whom is deceased), three granddaughters, five great-grandsons, and eight great-granddaughters.

New Delhi, Nov 24 (PTI) India's 26 major listed real estate firms have sold properties worth nearly Rs 35,000 crore during the September quarter with Godrej Properties reporting highest sales bookings. According to the data compiled from regulatory filings, the 26 major listed realty firms have reported a combined sales bookings of Rs 34,985 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal year. Bulk of pre-sales (sales bookings) came from residential segment. In terms of sales bookings, Godrej Properties emerged as the largest listed player during July-September quarter with pre-sales of Rs 5,198 crore. Mumbai-based Macrotech Developers Ltd, which sells properties under the Lodha brand, reported sales bookings of Rs 4,290 crore during the quarter under review. Delhi-NCR-based Max Estates sold properties worth Rs 4,100 crore, while Bengaluru-based Prestige Estates Projects Ltd clocked sales bookings of Rs 4,022.6 crore during the quarter. Delhi-NCR based Signature Global achieved sales bookings of Rs 2,780 crore in the September quarter, driven by strong demand for its housing projects at Gurugram. DLF Ltd, the country's largest realty firm in terms of market capitalisation, sales bookings declined sharply during the July-September period to Rs 692 crore as it did not launch any new housing project. Among other major listed players, Bengaluru-based Brigade Enterprises Ltd reported a sales bookings of Rs 1,821 crore during July-September period of this fiscal year, while Mumbai-based Oberoi Realty did pre-sales of Rs 1,442.46 crore. Mumbai-based Aditya Birla Real Estate sold properties worth Rs 1,412 crore. Bengaluru-based Puravankara Ltd and Sobha Ltd clocked sales bookings of Rs 1,331 crore and Rs 1,178.5 crore, respectively. Delhi-based TARC Ltd also performed well and achieved pre-sales of Rs 1,012 crore during the September quarter. There were many players that reported sales between Rs 500 crore and Rs 1,000 crore during the second quarter of this fiscal year. Pune-based Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd sold properties worth Rs 770 crore, while Mumbai-based Keystone Realtors (Rustomjee brand) achieved pre-sales of Rs 700 crore. Delhi-based Ashiana Housing Ltd reported sales bookings of Rs 673 crore during the September quarter while Bengaluru-based Shriram Properties clocked pre-sales of Rs 568 crore. Mumbai-based firms Raymond Ltd and Sunteck Realty Ltd sold properties worth Rs 562 crore and Rs 524 crore, respectively. Among listed firms that booked less than Rs 500 crore, Ahmedabad-based Arvind Smartspaces sold properties worth Rs 464 crore during the July-September period. Mumbai-based Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd achieved a sales bookings of Rs 397 crore. Mumbai-based realtors Arihant SuperstructuresLtd, Ajmera Realty & Infrastructure Ltd and Arkade Developers Ltd reported sales bookings of Rs 270.8 crore, Rs 254 crore and Rs 215 crore, respectively. Suraj Estate Developers sold properties worth Rs 107 crore, while Lucknow-based Eldeco Housing & Industries Ltd clocked pre-sales of Rs 102.9 crore. Mumbai-based Equinox India Developments Ltd (earlier Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd) achieved pre-sales of mere Rs 98 crore during the second quarter of this fiscal year. Sales bookings of many listed entities have declined in the second quarter of 2024-25 because of inauspicious Shraadh period, monsoon rain and also lack of regulatory approvals to launch their projects. For example, DLF Ltd's pre-sales plunged to Rs 692 crore in the September quarter from Rs 6,404 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal. Sales bookings data of many listed players was not available on the stock exchanges. Post-Covid pandemic, the residential real estate segment has revived strongly because of pent-up demand growing desire to have homeownership. Housing prices too have appreciated significantly. Housing market is witnessing a shift in consumer demand towards those realty companies and brands which have better track record of executing real estate projects. Real estate developers, which are not listed on stock exchanges, generally do not report their quarterly and annual sales bookings. Branded and reputed players, including both listed and unlisted ones, have benefited most in this revival cycle as homebuyers do not want to take risk of getting stuck in real estate projects after making payments. Thousands of buyers of many NCR-based builders, like Unitech and Jaypee Infratech, are stuck and fighting legal cases in real estate regulatory authorities at the state-level, tribunals, and courts. (This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)Everything to know about platinum and palladium, the other precious metalsTrudeau directs key adviser to deliver renewed national security strategyA police constable has allegedly been stabbed while trying to stop a group of men . or signup to continue reading The constable is recovering in hospital, where he is reported to be in a stable condition, and police have arrested three men. Police went to at 12.30am on November 22 after receiving reports five men were seen fighting. A hatchback was spotted driving away as police arrived and officers called in support from aviation command to follow the car, police said. The pursuit ended quickly after the hatchback hit a power pole and three men allegedly ran from the car. The constable was trying to arrest a 20-year-old man when he was stabbed in the chest, police said. An 18-year-old, 20-year-old and 21-year-old were arrested and a crime scene has been established as the investigation continues. Anna Houlahan reports on crime and social issues affecting regional and remote Australia in her role as national crime reporter at Australian Community Media (ACM). She was ACM’s Trainee of the Year in 2023 and, aside from reporting on crime, has travelled the country as a journalist for Explore Travel Magazine. Reach out with news or updates to anna.houlahan@austcommunitymedia.com.au Anna Houlahan reports on crime and social issues affecting regional and remote Australia in her role as national crime reporter at Australian Community Media (ACM). She was ACM’s Trainee of the Year in 2023 and, aside from reporting on crime, has travelled the country as a journalist for Explore Travel Magazine. Reach out with news or updates to anna.houlahan@austcommunitymedia.com.au Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. 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$10k worth of cannabis stolen from Renfrew, Ont. store

Amanda Hernández | (TNS) Stateline.org CHICAGO — Shoplifting rates in the three largest U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — remain higher than they were before the pandemic, according to a report last month from the nonpartisan research group Council on Criminal Justice. The sharp rise in retail theft in recent years has made shoplifting a hot-button issue, especially for politicians looking to address public safety concerns in their communities. Since 2020, when viral videos of smash-and-grab robberies flooded social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans have expressed fears that crime is out of control. Polls show that perceptions have improved recently, but a majority of Americans still say crime is worse than in previous years. “There is this sense of brazenness that people have — they can just walk in and steal stuff. ... That hurts the consumer, and it hurts the company,” said Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, in an interview. “That’s just the world we live in,” he said. “We need to get people to realize that you have to obey the law.” At least eight states — Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New York and Vermont — passed a total of 14 bills in 2024 aimed at tackling retail theft, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The measures range from redefining retail crimes and adjusting penalties to allowing cross-county aggregation of theft charges and protecting retail workers. Major retailers have responded to rising theft since 2020 by locking up merchandise, upgrading security cameras, hiring private security firms and even closing stores. Still, the report indicates that shoplifting remains a stubborn problem. In Chicago, the rate of reported shoplifting incidents remained below pre-pandemic levels throughout 2023 — but surged by 46% from January to October 2024 compared with the same period a year ago. Shoplifting in Los Angeles was 87% higher in 2023 than in 2019. Police reports of shoplifting from January to October 2024 were lower than in 2023. Los Angeles adopted a new crime reporting system in March 2024, which has likely led to an undercount, according to the report. In New York, shoplifting rose 48% from 2021 to 2022, then dipped slightly last year. Still, the shoplifting rate was 55% higher in 2023 than in 2019. This year, the shoplifting rate increased by 3% from January to September compared with the same period last year. While shoplifting rates tend to rise in November and December, which coincides with in-person holiday shopping, data from the Council on Criminal Justice’s sample of 23 U.S. cities shows higher rates in the first half of 2024 compared with 2023. Researchers found it surprising that rates went up despite retailers doing more to fight shoplifting. Experts say the spike might reflect improved reporting efforts rather than a spike in theft. “As retailers have been paying more attention to shoplifting, we would not expect the numbers to increase,” said Ernesto Lopez, the report’s author and a senior research specialist with the council. “It makes it a challenge to understand the trends of shoplifting.” In downtown Chicago on a recent early afternoon, potential shoppers shuffled through the streets and nearby malls, browsing for gifts ahead of the holidays. Edward Johnson, a guard at The Shops at North Bridge, said that malls have become quieter in the dozen or so years he has worked in mall security, with the rise of online retailers. As for shoplifters, Johnson said there isn’t a single type of person to look out for — they can come from any background. “I think good-hearted people see something they can’t afford and figure nothing is lost if they take something from the store,” Johnson said as he patrolled the mall, keeping an eye out for lost or suspicious items. Between 2018 and 2023, most shoplifting in Chicago was reported in the downtown area, as well as in the Old Town, River North and Lincoln Park neighborhoods, according to a separate analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice. Newly sworn-in Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke this month lowered the threshold for charging retail theft as a felony in the county, which includes Chicago, from $1,000 to $300, aligning it with state law. “It sends a signal that she’s taking it seriously,” Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, told Stateline. Nationally, retailers are worried about organized theft. The National Retail Federation’s latest report attributed 36% of the $112.1 billion in lost merchandise in 2022 to “external theft,” which includes organized retail crime. Organized retail crime typically involves coordinated efforts by groups to steal items with the intent to resell them for a profit. Commonly targeted goods include high-demand items such as baby formula, laundry detergent and electronics. The same report found that retailers’ fear of violence associated with theft also is on the rise, with more retailers taking a “hands-off approach.” More than 41% of respondents to the organization’s 2023 survey, up from 38% in 2022, reported that no employee is authorized to try and stop a shoplifter. (The federation’s reporting has come under criticism. It retracted a claim last year that attributed nearly half of lost merchandise in 2021 to organized retail crime; such theft accounted for only about 5%. The group announced this fall it will no longer publish its reports on lost merchandise.) Policy experts say shoplifting and organized retail theft can significantly harm critical industries, drive up costs for consumers and reduce sales tax revenue for states. Those worries have driven recent state-level action to boost penalties for shoplifting. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of 10 bills into law in August aimed at addressing retail theft. These measures make repeated theft convictions a felony, allow aggregation of crimes across multiple counties to be charged as a single felony, and permit police to arrest suspects for retail theft even if the crime wasn’t witnessed directly by an officer. In September, Newsom signed an additional bill that imposes steeper felony penalties for large-scale theft offenses. California voters also overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in November that increases penalties for specific drug-related and theft crimes. Under the new law, people who are convicted of theft at least twice may face felony charges on their third offense, regardless of the stolen item’s value. “With these changes in the law, really it comes down to making sure that law enforcement is showing up to our stores in a timely manner, and that the prosecutors and the [district attorneys] are prosecuting,” Rachel Michelin, the president and CEO of the California Retailers Association, told Stateline. “That’s the only way we’re going to deter retail theft in our communities.” In New Jersey, a bipartisan bill making its way through the legislature would increase penalties for leading a shoplifting ring and allow extended sentences for repeat offenders. “This bill is going after a formally organized band of criminals that deliver such destruction to a critical business in our community. We have to act. We have to create a deterrence,” Democratic Assemblymember Joseph Danielsen, one of the bill’s prime sponsors, said in an interview with Stateline. The legislation would allow extended sentences for people convicted of shoplifting three times within 10 years or within 10 years of their release from prison, and would increase penalties to 10 to 20 years in prison for leading a retail crime ring. The bill also would allow law enforcement to aggregate the value of stolen goods over the course of a year to charge serial shoplifters with more serious offenses. Additionally, the bill would increase penalties for assaults committed against retail workers, and would require retailers to train employees on detecting gift card scams. Maryland legislators considered a similar bill during this year’s legislative session that would have defined organized retail theft and made it a felony. The bill didn’t make it out of committee, but Cailey Locklair, president of the Maryland Retailers Alliance, said the group plans to propose a bill during next year’s legislative session that would target gift card fraud. Better, more thorough reporting from retailers is essential to truly understanding shoplifting trends and its full impact, in part because some retail-related crimes, such as gift card fraud, are frequently underreported, according to Lopez, of the Council on Criminal Justice. Measuring crime across jurisdictions is notoriously difficult , and the council does not track organized retail theft specifically because law enforcement typically doesn’t identify it as such at the time of arrest — if an arrest even occurs — requiring further investigation, Lopez said. The council’s latest report found conflicting trends in the FBI’s national crime reporting systems. The FBI’s older system, the Summary Reporting System, known as SRS, suggests that reported shoplifting hadn’t gone up through 2023, remaining on par with 2019 levels. In contrast, the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, shows a 93% increase in shoplifting over the same period. The discrepancy may stem from the type of law enforcement agencies that have adopted the latter system, Lopez said. Some of those communities may have higher levels of shoplifting or other types of property crime, which could be what is driving the spike, Lopez said. Despite the discrepancies and varying levels of shoplifting across the country, Lopez said, it’s important for retailers to report these incidents, as doing so could help allocate law enforcement resources more effectively. “All law enforcement agencies have limited resources, and having the most accurate information allows for not just better policy, but also better implementation — better use of strategic resources,” Lopez said. Stateline staff writer Robbie Sequeira contributed to this report. ©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Emanuel Wallace, 27, from east London, is better known as Big Manny by his 1.9 million followers on TikTok, where he shares videos explaining various science experiments from his back garden while using Jamaican Patois phrases and London slang. In early December, Mr Wallace won the Education Creator of the Year award at the TikTok Awards ceremony, which he said is a “symbol that anything that you put your mind to you can achieve”. The content creator began making videos during the coronavirus pandemic when schools turned to online learning but has since expanded his teaching from videos to paper after releasing his debut book Science Is Lit in August. He believes his “unconventional” teaching methods help to make his content relatable for younger audiences by using slang deriving from his Jamaican and British heritage. “The language that I use, it’s a combination between Jamaican Patois and London slang because I have Jamaican heritage,” the TikToker, who holds a bachelors and masters degree in biomedical science, told the PA news agency. “That’s why in my videos sometimes I might say things like ‘Wagwan’ or ‘you dun know’. I just want to connect with the young people more, so I speak in the same way that they speak. “The words that I use, the way that I deliver the lesson as well, I would say that my method of teaching is quite unconventional. I speak in a way that is quite conversational.” Examples of his videos include lithium batteries catching fire after being sandwiched inside a raw chicken breast, as well as mixing gold with gallium to create blue gold, earning millions of views. Mr Wallace hopes his content will help make the science industry more diverse, saying “the scientists that I was taught about, none of them look like me”. “Now me being a scientist is showing young people that they can become one as well, regardless of the background that they come from, the upbringing that they’ve had,” he said. “I just want to make it seem more attainable and possible for them because if I can do it, and I come from the same place as you, there’s no reason why you can’t do it as well.” The TikToker has seen a shift in more young people turning to the app as a learning resource and feels short-form videos will soon become a part of the national curriculum in schools. “I’m seeing (young people) using that a lot more – social media as a resource for education – and I feel like in the future, it’s going to become more and more popular as well,” he said. “I get a lot of comments from students saying that my teacher showed my video in the classroom as a resource, so I feel like these short form videos are going to be integrated within the national curriculum at some point in the near future.” He also uses his platform to raise awareness of different social issues, which he said is “extremely important”. One of his videos highlighted an anti-knife campaign backed by actor Idris Elba, which earned more than 39 million views, while his clip about the banning of disposable vapes was viewed more than 4.6 million times. He said there is some pressure being a teacher with a large following online but hopes he can be a role model for young people. “I’m aware that I am in the public eye and there’s a lot of young people watching me,” he said. “Young people can be impressionable, so I make sure that I conduct myself appropriately, so that I can be a role model. “I always have the same message for young people, specifically. I tell them to stay curious. Always ask questions and look a little bit deeper into things.” His plans for 2025 include publishing a second Science Is Lit book and expanding his teaching to television where he soon hopes to create his own science show.Smokers who quit for a week could save a day of their life, experts say