Month: April 2019

Marty Balin, a patron of the 1960s "San Francisco Sound" both as founder and lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane and co-owner of the club where the Airplane and other Bay Area bands performed, has died. He was 76.

Balin died on Thursday in Tampa, Florida, on the way to the hospital, spokesman Ryan Romenesko said. The cause of death was not immediately available.

The dark-eyed, baby-faced Balin was an ex-folk musician who formed the Airplane in 1965 and within two years was at the heart of a nationwide wave that briefly rivalled the Beatles’ influence and even helped inspire the Beatles’ "Sgt. Pepper" album.

The Airplane was the breakout act among such San Francisco-based artists as the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, many of whom played early shows at the Matrix, a ballroom Balin helped run and for which the Airplane served as house band.

The San Francisco Sound was a psychedelic blend of blues, folk, rock and jazz, and the musical expression of the emerging hippie lifestyle. Balin himself was known for his yearning tenor on the ballads "Today" and "It’s No Secret," and on the political anthem "Volunteers." In the mid-1970s, when the Airplane regrouped as the more mainstream Jefferson Starship, Balin sang lead on such hits as "Miracles" (which he co-wrote), "With Your Love" and "Count On Me." He later had solo success with "Hearts" and "Atlanta Lady."

The Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, but Balin would long have mixed feelings. Pride in the band’s achievements was shadowed by its eventual breakup and by Balin’s acknowledged jealousy of Grace Slick, the other lead vocalist. Slick joined the group in the autumn of 1966, soon before the Airplane recorded its landmark second album, "Surrealistic Pillow." One of rock’s most charismatic singers and performers, she displaced Balin as the perceived leader, on stage and on the Airplane’s best known songs, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit."

"Every time I did something, it was always Grace Slick and the Airplane and Grace Slick and the Starship," he told Relix magazine in 1993. "Even if it was my voice. I’ve even done songs of mine on my own and people come up to me and say, ’I’m surprised you do that song. I always thought it was Grace’s.’ For a while that hurt my feelings, but there’s nothing I can do about it."

Balin was married twice, most recently to Susan Joy Finkelstein, and had three children.

He had been in show business well before the Airplane. Born Martin Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, he ended up in the Bay Area as his father, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, struggled to find work. Marty was a brooding, artistic child who dropped out of San Francisco State University to pursue a career in music. He recorded a few singles with some of Phil Spector’s session musicians in the early ’60s before joining the folk group the Town Criers. He also changed his last name to Balin.

Like many of his peers, Balin switched to electronic music after seeing the Beatles’ 1964 movie "A Hard Day’s Night." Through the local club scene, he brought in songwriter-guitarist-vocalist Paul Kantner, singer Signe Anderson (whom Slick replaced), guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Cassidy and drummer Skip Spence, a novice given the job by Balin because he supposedly looked like a rock star. (Spence would leave after the first album and was replaced by Spencer Dryden). The name Jefferson Airplane, suggested by Kaukonen, was based in part on bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Meanwhile, Balin and a handful of business partners converted a Fillmore Street pizza place into the Matrix, which opened in August 1965. A year later, the group signed with RCA Records and released the folk-rock album "The Jefferson Airplane Takes Off," for which Balin wrote or co-wrote eight songs. The Airplane, attuned early on to the counterculture, turned out buttons and bumper stickers reading THE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE LOVES YOU.

"I remember it was really pretty and beautiful for a year or two," Balin told Relix magazine in 1993. "And then Time magazine came out and they were interviewing me. I told the guy, ’It’s great that you’re publicising this beautiful-feeling scene out here,’" and he looked me right in the eye and said, ’Fastest way to kill it.’"

Starting with "Surrealistic Pillow," a soundtrack for many during the so-called Summer of Love of 1967, the group’s music became more experimental. By such albums as "Blows Against the Empire" and "After Bathing at Baxter’s," Kantner was the principal songwriter (and eventually Slick’s boyfriend) and Balin found himself out of place with his own band and with the rock scene overall. He shunned hard drugs and preferred tight pop songs to long jams. The classic film "Gimme Shelter," centred on the ill-fated Altamont concert from 1969, showed Balin getting knocked out on stage by the Hell’s Angels. By the early ’70s, he had left the Airplane.

’It was a period of cocaine then – everybody took cocaine. And people I would work with, they would yell at you and it got intense. The Airplane was on that kind of trip," he told songwritersuniverse.com in 2018.

In recent years, he released such albums as "The Greatest Love" and "Good Memories," a retrospective of his Airplane/Starship songs. He also reunited on occasion with old bandmates, whether appearing in concert with Casady and Kaukoken and their group Hot Tuna, or bringing Signe Anderson on stage to perform the Airplane’s first single, "It’s No Secret." And he liked returning to his folk roots, doing club performances as part of an acoustic trio.

"The whole night is me – and if you dig it, cool," he told Relix in 2016. "And I’m having fun. I move wherever I want, from one song I want to another. There aren’t any egos and (we are free from) people’s problems – waiting for somebody to light a cigarette, have a drink or change guitars and organise their music. Let’s get to the music, man. That’s what I’m doing – just flying along."

Australia plans to restrict some new migrants from living in its largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – for "at least a few years", a government minister said, in an effort to ease urban congestion and encourage skilled workers into struggling towns.

With immigration expected to be an issue in the next election, the plan aims to help ease infrastructure problems in cities struggling with population pressures. Critics worry the proposed new visa rules could lead to labour shortages.

Nearly 70 per cent of the 186,000 migrants who settled in Australia last year arrived on skilled migrant visas, and nearly all moved to Sydney or Melbourne, according to government data.

There are currently no limits on where individuals can settle after they receive a skilled migrant visa.

The new plan would affect the roughly 40 per cent of migrants who have the desired skills and are looking for work on arrival. It would class five cities – Darwin, Perth, Hobart, Adelaide and Canberra – as regional centres for migrants to settle in.

Some regional centres and rural politicians have lobbied for years for more skilled residents to ensure their towns survive.

"We aim to ease the population pressure off the three big cities and more rapidly grow the smaller states and regions," Alan Tudge, minister for urban infrastructure and population, said in a speech in Melbourne.

Tudge did not provide details on how the policy would be enforced, but he said it could include incentives.

"You can also put conditions on people’s visas as well to stay in a particular area for at least a few years," he said.

An official in Tudge’s office, who declined to be named, said migrants could be restricted from settling in the biggest cities for up to five years. It’s not clear if the plan would survive a legal challenge.

"It’s certainly unsustainable to continue with the current model with the bulk of immigrants going to Sydney and Melbourne because it’s creating significant pressure," said Tony Matthews, researcher at the Cities Research Institute.

However, he added: "I’m not sure its legally viable."

Immigration is expected to be an issue in the next federal election due before May 2019.

A ReachTel poll published in September found that 63 per cent of Sydney residents surveyed said they supported restrictions on the number of migrants moving to Australia’s biggest city.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose centre-right coalition is trailing in opinion polls, has adopted a series of populist policies since coming to power in August after a backbench revolt ousted his predecessor.

A television journalist has been brutally murdered in Bulgaria’s northern town of Ruse, prosecutors said Sunday, in a case that has sparked international condemnation.

The body of 30-year-old Viktoria Marinova, whom authorities identified only by her initials, was found on Saturday in a park, Ruse regional prosecutor Georgy Georgiev said.

The death was caused by blows on the head and suffocation, he added.

"Her mobile phone, car keys, glasses and part of her clothes were missing," Georgiev said, adding that prosecutors were probing all leads – both personal and linked to Marinova’s job.

Interior Minister Mladen Marinov later confirmed to journalists that the victim had also been raped.

Prime Minister Boyko Borisov expressed hope that the investigation would succeed because of the "work that has been done. Thanks to the large amount of DNA material collected it is just a matter of time before the perpetrator will be found."

Police sources told AFP that the crime did not immediately appear linked to her work.

The OSCE’s media freedom representative Harlem Desir condemned Marinova’s killing on Twitter: "Shocked by horrific murder of investigative journalist Victoria Marinova in #Bulgaria. Urgently call for a full and thorough investigation. Those responsible must be held to account."

Marinova was an administrative director of Ruse’s small private TVN television and had recently launched a new current events talk show called "Detector".

The first episode of the show on September 30 broadcast interviews with investigative journalists Dimitar Stoyanov from the Bivol.bg website and Attila Biro from the Romanian Rise Project, about an investigation of alleged fraud with EU funds linked to big businessmen and politicians.

The pair were briefly detained by police, drawing condemnation from Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

"We are in shock. In no way, under any form, never have we received any threats – aimed at her or the television," a journalist from TVN told AFP under condition of anonymity, adding that he and his colleagues feared for their safety.

In a statement on their Facebook page, Bivol.bg insisted for police protection of Marinova’s colleagues.

A journalist is killed on average every week around the world, according to figures compiled by RSF.

Among the most high-profile recent cases were Malta’s anti-corruption blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia who died in a car bombing outside her home in October 2017, and top Slovak reporter Jan Kuciak who was shot dead with his fiancee at their home in February.

Bulgaria tumbled to 111th place in the annual RSF media freedom ranking in 2018 – the lowest among EU member states.

A Saudi intelligence officer who served at the kingdom’s embassy in London was among an alleged “hit squad” of spies and soldiers who flew into Istanbul the day of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance, according to dissidents.  

Pro-government Turkish media published the names and photographs of 15 Saudi men who allegedly made a mysterious one-day trip to Istanbul on private jets the day Mr Khashoggi vanished at the Saudi consulate. 

One member of the squad appears to be Maher Mutreb, a Saudi intelligence officer who was based in London in 2007. “I recognised his photograph immediately,” said Ghanim al-Dosari, a Saudi satirist living in exile in London, who knew Mr Mutreb socially. “It is crazy if he was part of a murder team.” 

Social media sleuths identified another man from the squad as a senior crimes scene investigator in Saudi Arabia. A third appeared to be a special forces soldier who worked as a bodyguard to Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. 

The apparent outing of members of the Saudi security services will add to growing international pressure on the kingdom, which faces accusations from Turkey of having murdered and dismembered Mr Khashoggi when he went to the consulate on October 2. 

Saudi Arabia has vehemently denied any involvement in his disappearance and insists that Mr Khashoggi left the consulate safely after filing paperwork ahead of his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancee. 

The international implications of Mr Khashoggi’s disappearance deepened after the Washington Post reported that US intelligence was aware the Saudi government was planning to kidnap the journalist. 

The newspaper, where Mr Khashoggi wrote columns critical of the Saudi government, said US intelligence had intercepted communications showing Saudi officials were trying to lure the journalist back to his homeland so they could arrest him.  

If confirmed, the US intercepts would confirm that the Saudi government had long sought to silence Mr Khashoggi. It also raises questions over whether the US gave the journalist any warning that he might be in danger from his own government. 

Turan Kislakci, a close friend of Mr Khashoggi, said he did not believe the Americans gave any warning. “One of us would have known if he had a warning like that,” he said. “The US bears some responsibility if they knew there was a plot against his life and they didn’t warn him.”

In an article in the Washingon Post, Hatice Cengiz, Mr Khashoggi’s fiance, pleaded with Donald and Melania Trump to “help shed light on Jamal’s disappearance”. “I don’t know how I can keep living if he was abducted or killed in Turkey,” she said. 

Turkish officials are reportedly focused on an Apple Watch Mr Khashoggi was wearing, in the hope that the smart device might have information that could help determine what happened to him. 

The pro-government newspaper Sabah, owned by the Turkish finance minister who is also the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, published the names of the 15 Saudis, accompanied by still images from CCTV. 

The detailed information, including their years of birth and what time they passed through Turkish passport control, appeared to have been leaked directly to the newspaper by Turkish intelligence. 

A UK government list of foreign diplomats in London from 2007 also lists a Maher Mutreb as first secretary at the embassy, a title often used by intelligence officials.

Another man on the list, Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, is reported to be a lieutenant-colonel and head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics. An expert on forensic evidence, he is known to have trained a large number of police officers in crime scene investigation.

The list published in Sabah also includes the name Mohammad Saad al-Zahrani. A photograph published online shows a Saudi royal guard standing beside Crown Prince Mohammed. His nametag, clearly visible on his black uniform, reads Mohammad Saad al-Zahrani. 

 None of the men could be reached for comment. Saudi Arabia gave no official response to the allegation that members of its security services were on the planes. 

Japanese scientists have created hens that can lay multi-million pound “golden eggs” containing an expensive protein used to treat serious diseases such as cancer and hepatitis.

The creation of the so-called “golden eggs” was masterminded by scientists at Japan’s Biomedical Research Institute at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

The new technology involved scientists using new genome editing technology to create hens that can produce eggs containing high quantities of the protein human interferon beta at a low cost.

Scientists first collecting cells that would turn into sperm from cockerel embryos and inserting a gene to produce human interferon beta.

The cells were then reportedly returned to the embryos of other cockerels, with the hatched cockerels later made to mate with wild hens.

Scientists found that their female offspring could subsequently lay eggs with high levels of human interferon beta – a natural anti-viral protein – found around the yolks.

The protein quantity in individual eggs ranged from around 30 to 60 milligrams, resulting in each egg reportedly being valued as worth between around £408,000 (60 million yen) and £2 million (300 million yen) a piece.

Human interferon beta is a natural anti-viral protein with a hefty price tag which is commonly used as a therapeutic agent for diseases such as cancer and hepatitis.

The scientists are currently collaborating with Cosmo Bio, a Japanese reagent maker, to explore the potential commercial production of the hen-based protein.

Cosmo Bio plans to sell the protein, produced by its own in-house hens, from early next year for research use, with a view to making it commercially available in the future following further tests.

“For Interferon-beta protein, we have about 20 hens in-house," Mika Kitahara of Cosmo Bio, told the Telegraph. "So far our hens produce the eggs constantly, just like normal hens.” 

Highlighting the benefits of such a technique, she added: “These hens can produce eggs constantly, so we can obtain recombinant proteins in large amounts and with stability. In addition, this system doesn’t involve killing hens.”