Even the richest black boys raised in the US earn less in adulthood than white boys from similar backgrounds, according to a wide-ranging study.
While white men who grew up wealthy tend to stay that way, black boys raised in affluent families and neighborhoods are more likely to become poor than to stay well-off, researchers at Stanford and Harvard universities found.
White boys fare better than black boys who grow up side-by-side with parents on similar incomes in 99 per cent of American neighborhoods, according to the study, which traced the lives of 20 million children.
No such income disparity exists between black and white girls from families with comparable earnings, however, according to the research, carried out in collaboration with the US Census Bureau.
"A defining feature of the 'American Dream' is upward income mobility: the ideal that children have a higher standard of living than their parents," said The Equality of Opportunity Project, a joint initiative between ...

American Dream fails generations of blacks: study

PTI Automatic

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent "heartfelt congratulations" today to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his election victory and wished him success in building a powerful nation.
In contrast to some other international leaders who have been slow to send congratulations, Kim said Putin's re-election "is an expression of your people's great support and trust in you".
The North's leader, in a message quoted by the state KCNA news agency, expressed confidence the "long history" of friendly relations between their countries would continue and wished Putin success "in your work to build powerful Russia".
North Korea is under heavy international sanctions intended to curb its nuclear and missile programmes.
And Moscow is isolated to an extent not seen since the Cold War following the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain, and fresh sanctions from Washington over allegations of meddling in the US 2016 election.
The United States earlier this year accused Russia of helping its Cold War ally .

N Korea's Kim congratulates Putin on election victory

The European Union pushed today for an urgent investigation into revelations that a firm working for Donald Trump presidential campaign harvested data on 50 million users.
EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, who has called the breach "horrifying", was meanwhile to seek clarification from the social media giant during a visit to the United States this week.
Facebook has faced worldwide criticism over the claims that Cambridge Analytica, the UK data analysis firm hired by Trump's 2016 campaign, harvested and misused data on 50 million members.
The European Parliament's Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian premier, called for an investigation today.
"When is Mark Zuckerberg going to explain what happened with our data? The data breach is an absolute scandal," tweeted Verhofstadt, who heads the parliament's liberal group.
"The European Parliament must start an investigation. I will keep you updated about our progress."
The EU parliament's civil liberties committee ...

EU seeks Facebook data breach probe

A shooting erupted at a high school in the eastern US state of Maryland today, but the event was quickly "contained," officials said.
There were no immediate official reports of casualties in the shooting at Great Mills High School, located about a 90-minute drive southeast of the US capital Washington.
St Mary's County Public Schools said on its website that the school was on lockdown and the incident had been "contained" but provided no further details.
It said law enforcement was on the scene.
"It happened really quickly, right after school started" after 8:00 am (1200 GMT), Jonathan Freese, a student at the school, told CNN.
"The police came and responded really quickly," Freese said. "They had a lot of officers respond."
"Right now, the police are going through classrooms," he said. "Soon we are going to be escorted from the school."
The Great Mills incident comes about five weeks after a shooting at a Florida high school left 14 students and three adult staff members dead.

Shooting at Maryland high school: officials

A British parliamentary committee today requested Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them to explain claims that millions of users' data was harvested for use in political campaigns.
Damian Collins, chairman of the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, wrote to Zuckerberg asking for his own account of "this catastrophic failure of process".

UK MPs ask Facebook's Zuckerberg to give evidence on data row

A shooting erupted at a high school in the eastern US state of Maryland today, but the event was "contained," officials said.
There were no immediate official reports of casualties in the shooting at Great Mills High School, located about a 90-minute drive southeast of the US capital Washington.
St. Mary's County Public Schools said on its website that the school was on lockdown and the incident had been "contained" but provided no further details.

Shooting at Maryland high school, facility on lockdown: officials

Reform of Israel's military court system in the occupied West Bank has failed to stop "systematic violation" of Palestinian minors' rights, an Israeli NGO said on Tuesday.
Human rights group B'Tselem said that the 2009 launch of a designated military juvenile court with the stated aim of "improving the protection of minors' rights" had failed to deliver.
It said that introduction of the juvenile court rather resulted in only "technical changes (which) have not improved the protection of minors' rights."
It gave as an example the goal of shortening the length of time that minors are held in custody while awaiting trial.
In practice, it says, this has generated a greater frequency of remand hearings but the military judges "almost always" grant prosecution requests to extend custody.
"The changes introduced to the military justice system... are superficial, and affect nothing more than form," the report says, citing studies by United Nations children's agency UNICEF and Defence for ...

Israeli army courts violate Palestinian minors' rights: NGO

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned Turkey over the detention of two journalists, citing violations of their rights to liberty, security and freedom of expression.
The journalists, Mehmet Altan and Sahin Alpay, were among those arrested in the wake of the failed July 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The court ordered Turkey to pay each man 21,500 euros ($26,500).
"The court found in particular that Mr Alpay's continued pre-trial detention... could not be regarded as 'lawful' and 'in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law', it said in a statement.
Alpay was released last week, though a court ruled he must remain in his house and is forbidden from leaving Turkey, state news agency Anadolu reported.
Altan was handed a life sentence in February on charges of links to the group blamed for the failed coup, along with his brother Ahmet, also a writer, and veteran journalist Nazli Ilicak.
The European court said his detention, "following his 

European rights court condemns Turkey over journalists' detention

A Vietnamese woman accused of assassinating the North Korean leader's half-brother with a nerve agent thought she was taking part in a practical joke and only realised he was dead after her arrest, a court heard today.
Doan Thi Huong is on trial with Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah over the Cold War-style killing of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13 last year.
Defence lawyers have argued that the women were recruited to take part in what they thought were prank TV shows but were instead tricked into becoming inadvertent assassins, in an elaborate plot by a group of North Korean agents.
The women, in their 20s, have denied murdering Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother by smearing VX nerve agent on his face as he waited for a flight to Macau. They face death by hanging if found guilty.
Huong's lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told the trial that one of four North Koreans suspected of involvement in the murder had recruited the Vietnamese woman to perform what she 

Kim Jong Nam murder suspect thought hit was a prank: lawyer

South Africa's Kagiso Rabada was cleared to play the remaining two Tests against Australia after winning an appeal against his ban over an alleged shoulder barge on Tuesday.
The International Cricket Council said Rabada had been found not guilty of making inappropriate and deliberate physical contact with Australian captain Steve Smith during the second Test in Port Elizabeth last week.
Judicial commissioner Michael Heron of New Zealand found Rabada guilty of the lesser charge of conduct contrary to the spirit of the game following an appeal hearing on Monday.
Heron reduced Rabada's penalty from three demerit points to one, and reduced his fine from 50 percent to 25 percent of his match fee.
Rabada's total of demerit points was therefore reduced from nine to seven, one short of the threshold for an automatic two-Test ban.
The ICC announcement said Rabada was free to play -- which means he will take his place in the South African team for the third Test against Australia starting at ...

Rabada cleared for Aussie Tests after shoulder barge appeal

An Egyptian theatre group said a play it had cancelled after state censors demanded scenes be removed would go ahead after authorities reconsidered their stance.
"Before the Revolution", by playwright and independent theatre director Ahmed El Attar, was meant to open this week at the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) but was cancelled on Sunday after censors demanded five scenes be removed.
However, the festival's website said late Monday that permission had finally been granted to hold the play starting on Tuesday "without the disruption of its dramatic construction."
The play depicts events in Egypt in the run-up to the 2011 uprising that ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak.
The controversy came days before the March 26-28 presidential election.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi -- who is regularly accused of cracking down on dissent -- is expected to win a second term after a succession of would-be candidates were abruptly sidelined, leaving only one other person in the ..

Egypt play on 2011 revolution back on after censor okay

A monitor said today three dozen pro-government fighters were killed in a district of Syria's capital as Islamic State jihadists took control of it in a surprise nighttime attack.
There was no immediate comment from the government on the report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which could not provide casualty figures for the jihadists.
"IS took full control of Qadam, and 36 government troops and loyalist fighters have been killed," the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Dozens more were wounded or captured, or are still missing in action, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
IS launched the attack from positions it holds in the adjacent Hajar al-Aswad district, Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"Regime forces are bringing reinforcements to the area around Qadam to try to retake it," he said.
Qadam lies in a southern part of Damascus and has for several years hosted a range of Islamist rebels and extremists, including IS and its arch-enemy, Al-Qaeda's onetime Syrian branch Hayat 

IS kills 36 Syria troops in surprise attack on Damascus: monitor

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was taken into police custody on Tuesday for questioning over suspected Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign, a source close to the inquiry told AFP.
Sarkozy, 63, had until now refused to respond to a summons for questioning in the case, which drew heightened scrutiny last November when a businessman admitted delivering three cash-stuffed suitcases from the Libyan leader as contributions towards the French leader's first presidential bid.
Sarkozy's detention was first reported by the Mediapart investigative news site and French daily Le Monde and comes several weeks after a former associate, Alexandre Djouhri, was arrested in London and later released on bail.
Djouhri was returned to pre-trial detention in February after France issued a second warrant for his arrest, ahead of a hearing scheduled for March 28.
A source close to the inquiry also said that Brice Hortefeux, a top government minister during Sarkozy's presidency, was also ...

French ex-president Sarkozy held in Libya financing probe

A Russian scientist told state media today he worked on an official programme to produce the nerve agent Britain says was used against ex-spy Sergei Skripal, contradicting Moscow's claims it never developed Novichok.
Leonid Rink, who told RIA Novosti he worked on a state-backed programme up to the early 1990s, added that the former double agent and his daughter would be dead had Moscow been involved in his poisoning.
"They are still alive. That means that either it was not the Novichok system at all, or it was badly concocted, carelessly applied," he said in the interview.
"Or straight after the application, the English used an antidote, in which case they would have had to have known exactly what the poison was," he said.
Rink said he worked at a state laboratory in the closed town of Shikhan for 27 years, where the development of Novichok formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation.
"A large group of specialists in Shikhan and Moscow worked on 'Novichok'," he said.
Deputy Foreign .

Russian chemist says worked on Novichok, despite official claims

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on Pakistan to resolve hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances for which "no one has ever been held accountable".
"Disappearances are a tool of terror... if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, they constitute a crime against humanity," a statement issued by the rights watchdog Monday said, calling on Pakistan to "take concrete steps to end impunity".
Pakistan has had a history of enforced disappearances over the past decade, mainly confined in the past to conflict zones near the Afghanistan border or to southwestern Balochistan province, where separatists are battling for independence.
However in recent years a growing number of such abductions have taken place brazenly in major urban centres such as Karachi, Lahore and even the capital Islamabad.
Earlier this year award-winning Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui, who criticised the role of the military in Pakistan, managed to escape an attempted abduction 

Rights group calls on Pakistan to end enforced disappearances

South Africa's new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has suspended the head of the tax service ahead of "disciplinary proceedings" as he vows to fight graft following his predecessor Jacob Zuma's ousting.
In a statement released late yesterday, Ramaphosa announced that Tom Moyane had refused to resign as the South African Revenue Service (SARS) commissioner and had then been suspended.
Ramaphosa has replaced his finance minister and several other senior officials since coming to power last month, when graft-tainted Zuma was pushed out of office by the ruling African National Congress party.
In his letter to Moyane, Ramaphosa said "developments at the SARS under your leadership have resulted in a deterioration in public confidence in the institution and in public finances being compromised".
"For the sake of the country and the economy, this situation cannot be allowed to continue, or to worsen."
The tax service -- crucial for raising funds for public services -- has been a battleground of ..

New S African president suspends tax chief

Billionaire Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal says all is forgiven after his three-month detention in an anti-corruption crackdown, dismissing speculation he had forfeited control of his assets in exchange for his freedom.
The prince, dubbed the Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia, was released from the now-notorious Ritz-Carlton hotel in early January after an undisclosed financial agreement with the government.
"I am not a person who is going to say I forgive but I don't forget. I say I forgive and I forget at the same time," Prince Al-Waleed said in an interview with Bloomberg News published today.
"It's business as usual. We are going to continue investing in Saudi Arabia. I was born in Saudi Arabia, I will die in Saudi Arabia."
The prince refused to divulge the terms of his release, which he described as a "confidential and secret agreement".
The agreement had, however, left him free to function normally with "zero guilt" and "zero conditions", he said.
Al-Waleed was the most ...

Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed 'forgives' Ritz ordeal

The chief executive of the World Bank urged US President Donald Trump today to be "careful" before imposing controversial steel and aluminium tariffs, warning that they could affect global trade.
Kristalina Georgieva said Trump should "assess the implications" before going ahead with a plan that has sparked fears of a trade war with China and Europe and spooked world markets.
The Bulgarian former EU commissioner said that her message to Trump, who is expected to sign off on the tariffs later today, was to make a "careful assessment before taking any further step".
"If you take a step for a reason then you need to project on a couple of steps for the implications," Georgieva told a small group of media outlets including AFP in Brussels. "Assess what are the implications and then advise about these implications."
The EU has vowed to retaliate against the tariffs with its own measures targeting not only US steel but also products such as bourbon whiskey, jeans, motorcycles, orange juice .

World Bank warns Trump to be 'careful' on tariffs

French President Emmanuel Macron today marked International Women's Day with a pledge to "name and shame" companies that pay women less than men for the same work.
On a visit to a Paris-based property management firm hailed as a model of gender equality, he announced plans to "drastically" increase inspections of companies to ensure they complied with a law requiring equal pay for equal work.
"We will put in place a 'name and shame' system to make public (the names of) companies that least respect the law," said Macron, who has made tackling sexism a key priority.
"No one wants to be bottom of the class on this issue," he said.
The World Economic Forum last year ranked France 11th out of 144 countries for gender equality but a dismal 129th for wage equality for similar work.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced plans to get tough on companies that pay women less.
Under a package of workplace reforms to be finalised next month, wage screening software will be rolled .

France to 'name and shame' companies that pay women less

Sri Lanka's prime minister today said that a spate of anti-Muslim riots had damaged the island's reputation as a tourism hotspot as it prepares to host an international cricket tournament.
Rioting has left three dead and more than 200 Muslim-owned establishments in ruins in Kandy, a picturesque hill district famed for its tea plantations and Buddhist icons.
The government imposed a state of emergency -- the first in its post-war history -- and deployed hundreds of soldiers to Kandy as authorities struggled to restore order.
Holidaymakers have been urged to avoid the hill resort, which is also home to Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist shrine, the Temple of the Tooth Relic.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said images of Muslim businesses being torched and police firing teargas had dented Sri Lanka's hard-fought efforts to rebrand after decades of civil war.
"The work of a handful of saboteurs has caused a heavy blow to the country both economically and socially," he said in a ...

Riots a heavy blow to tourism, economy: Sri Lanka PM

German luxury carmaker BMW said today its 2017 net profit soared 26 per cent to a record 8.7 billion euros (USD 10.7 billion), driven by strong demand for electrified vehicles and a tax bump from the United States.
The Munich-based group said deliveries of its electrified vehicles jumped 65.6 per cent to 103,080 units, as it plans to put half a million such cars on the road by the end of 2019.
The group, which also owns the Mini and Rolls-Royce brands, said automobile deliveries were up 4.1 per cent to 2.46 million vehicles, while revenues also rose a corresponding 4.8 per cent to 98.6 billion euros.
"We can look back on the most successful year in our corporate history and have achieved record levels for revenues and earnings for the eighth year in succession," said Harald Krueger, BMW chairman.
And the group is targeting another record year in 2019 as it eyes a further rise in deliveries in 2018.
"This year we are targeting another new sales record, with deliveries slightly up on ...

AFP

AFP

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