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Last updated12:00, July 28 2017

PETER MEECHAM/stuff.co.nz

Filthy Rich was much-maligned during its first season last year. Is it any better this time around?

It is fair to say, Teuila Blakely is no walkover. When a sex tape featuring the former Shortland Street actress and Warriors player Konrad Hurrell surfaced on line in 2014, she met the backlash head on.

Three years later, Blakely is still a favourite with on-line trolls but that has done nothing to dampen her enthusiasm for being in the public eye either on screen as an actor or fronting campaigns for the many causes she supports.

Her latest role, as Filthy Rich's vixenish Malia the woman who gave up Joe (Alex Tarrant), the son she had with the late John Truebridge in return for a Hawaiian resort is unlikely to engender any sympathy from the haters.

Teuila Blakely with her Filthy Rich co-star Miriama Smith.

"Sometimes you go for a role and you just know intrinsically that it's yours and that's how I felt about Malia right from the beginning," Blakely says. "I just knew as soon as I read her that it was me."

READ MORE: *Teuila Blakely to lay formal complaint against Flava host Athena Angelou *Teuila Blakely: I'm New Zealand most trolled woman *Teuila Blakely doesn't regret hitting back at the haters

She acknowledges that while not everyone will love Malia as much as she does, she will not go unnoticed and that will help with the work she does outside of acting.

Teuila Blakely has starred in Shortland Street, Westside and now plays Malia in Filthy Rich.

"You can't control how people react and I certainly learnt that. I've had some very trying times in public life but, then again, it's kind of cool playing characters that do get a really strong reaction," she says.

"I'm sure there'll be some backlash. I can't really do much in the public eye without some kind of negative reaction ever since that whole (sex tape) thing. People have the right to react the way they're going to. I don't tend to worry about how other people are."

However, she does admit to being stunned by how critical some people can be of someone they don't know or even of someone they do.

"Most of us couldn't even imagine what motivates people to be like that. It's just bizarre sometimes," she says.

"I do think though that it is unfortunate in this day and age with social media and things like that, it does tend to generate a lot more negative reaction which for me, having been at the receiving end of it, is unfortunate."

That said, Blakely, 42, admits the publicity has its advantages when it comes to raising awareness about the issues that are closest to her heart.

Most recently, she has been one of the faces of the Human Rights Commission's Give Nothing To Racism campaign as well as supporting MyBodyMyTerms, a campaign that challenges people's perceptions about sex, sexual assault, and victim blaming.

"Those two campaigns are particularly meaningful to me," she says.

"Being a Polynesian girl growing up in New Zealand, racism was rife, especially where I was from (Tauranga and then West Auckland). Being able to have contributed to the Give Nothing To Racism campaign, especially for the Human Rights Commission, I felt incredibly honoured and in terms of MyBodyMyTerms, equally so.

"I'm an advocate for sexual empowerment for young women in fact, for everyone. That was an issue that was very, very close to my heart and actually which went with a lot of other work I do.

"When I'm not on screen and I'm not acting, I'm always just sort of being me and (highlighting) those issues and anything to do with encouraging other people to have the best life that they could possibly live."

For Blakely, who had her son Jared, now 25, when she was 16, Filthy Rich's Malia is helping her do just that.

"One of the most fascinating aspects of playing Malia was that she was a very different kind of mother to me. She got pregnant very young in life like I did but I kept my child and she gave hers up," Blakely says.

"I think it's fascinating to be able to explore human behaviour and understand the motivation of women who choose that. It's been a real gift to play as an actress because there is never a dull moment. Mind you, that's the nature of a show like Filthy Rich which is why it is so great to be involved in the second season.

"It is such a different type of production to Shortland Street and I really love the extremity, not only of the characters but also of the details of the houses, the cars, the clothes, the shoes, the behaviour and the fact that there are really people like that in real life, that really do live those kind of lives."

Filthy Rich, TVNZ 2, Tuesday.

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-TV Guide

Read more from the original source:
Teuila Blakely on social media and trolls: 'You can't control how people react' - Stuff.co.nz

Heavy fighting broke out Thursday as U.S.-backed Syrian fighters captured almost half of the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa. But the push into the city in northern Syria slowed due to stiff resistance and large amounts of explosives planted by the extremists, a spokeswoman for the fighters and monitors said.

The assault on Raqqa by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led fighting coalition, began June 6, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and U.S. troops advising the local forces.

Since then, the SDF has made steady advances from the eastern and western sides of the city, reaching the walled old quarter.

The fall of Raqqa, the extremist group's self-proclaimed capital, would be a huge loss for IS, which earlier this month lost the Iraqi city of Mosul. But much tougher fighting still lies ahead.

Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said 45 percent of Raqqa was under the control of the SDF.

In a series of tweets, he said the SDF cleared about 9 square miles of terrain this past week fighting against "stiff, sporadic resistance" from IS militants entrenched in Raqqa.

Commanders on the western Raqqa front line said there were about 800 meters left before SDF forces moving from east and west would connect tightening the noose on IS.

The battlefield Thursday was busy with hundreds of SDF fighters taking cover inside destroyed buildings less than 500 meters from IS combatants. SDF troops lobbed dozens of mortar shells at the militants, who sent out armed drones above the SDF forces

Meanwhile, senior U.N. humanitarian official Ursula Mueller told the U.N. Security Council by video from Jordan on Thursday that an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 people remained in Raqqa.

She said the city was encircled and "there is no way for them to get out."

Since April 1, over 200,000 people have fled their homes in the area around Raqqa, she said. The figure includes more than 30,000 displaced just this month as U.S.-backed Syrian fighters try to oust the extremists.

Nisreen Abdullah, the Kurdish spokeswoman, told The Associated Press that the pace of the advance into Raqqa had slowed because of huge amounts of explosives laid by IS fighters.

As the extremists become more surrounded, they have increased their suicide attacks on fighters of the SDF, she added.

"Raqqa has become a booby-trapped city and this shows their (IS') weakness," said Abdullah, of the Women's Protection Units or YPJ, speaking from northern Syria. "They are also using civilians as human shields and this is slowing the push as well."

She said the Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the Kurdish YPJ women fighters, now controls 45 percent of Raqqa. She added that since the offensive began, SDF fighters have fully captured eight neighborhoods.

Plumes of smoke could be seen behind buildings in Raqqa a day earlier as the coalition pounded IS targets in the city. Syrian children looked on as U.S. armored vehicles drove by. One American soldier on a vehicle made the victory sign.

Mustafa Bali, who heads the SDF media center, confirmed on Thursday that the group now has half of Raqqa and said the most important areas liberated in the past four days were the Nazlet Shehadeh and Panorama Square neighborhoods both on the southwestern part of the city.

But he said there are IS counterattacks, militant sleeper cells and tunnels in the area.

"It was not easy, we have casualties and martyrs," he said, adding that the fighting was ongoing.

In the eastern front, where SDF forces breached IS defenses on the edge of the old city about a month ago, fighters have now reached the old citadel, an SDF commander in charge of one sector in the front told the AP.

"As we move forward we find a tunnel every 100 meters," Jihad Khabat said. He said the enemy, "besieged and in distress," hides in deep and long tunnels under the city, from where they can hit Syrian fighters in daily counterattacks.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said SDF fighters control half of Raqqa. The attacks on the city have claimed many casualties among the tens of thousands of civilians who are still trapped in areas controlled by IS.

The Observatory said 29 people, including eight children, were killed in airstrikes on the city on Wednesday. The activist-operated Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group said 36 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in airstrikes and shelling.

The reports could not be independently confirmed.

In central Syria, fighting edged closer to the IS stronghold of Sukhna, the last major town held by IS in the Homs province, according to the Observatory and the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media.

SCMM said Syrian troops killed and wounded a number of IS fighters in battles near a mountain that overlooks the area. The Observatory said troops are now about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Sukhna, which has been held by IS since the summer of 2015.

Near the border with Lebanon, a cease-fire went into effect between the militant Hezbollah group and al-Qaida-linked fighters on Thursday morning as negotiations were underway to reach a deal that would eventually lead to the evacuation of Syrian fighters to the northwestern rebel-held province of Idlib.

The truce followed a six-day offensive by Hezbollah and Syrian troops who besieged al-Qaida-linked fighters in a small border area.

Senior Lebanese security official, Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, who is leading the negotiations, told reporters in Beirut that the details of the deal will remain secret, adding that fighters and their families who decide to leave for Idlib will do it under the supervision of Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the deal will include the release of five members of the Shiite group who are held by insurgents in Syria.

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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US-backed Syrian fighters now control almost half of IS city - ABC News

The Badger Herald

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Everything you need to know about SnapRyde: The social ... - The Badger Herald

Roposo, a fashion social networking platform, made its entry into the reputed Harvard Business Publishing platform with a study undertaken by Chintan Chatterjee, former faculty at IIM-B and faculty member at Indian School of Business and co-authored by Reechal Vardhan, Product Manager at Roposo and IIM-B alumnus. The study focuses on how the fashion social network has matured from being a discovery platform to an ultimate lifestyle social network for Indian consumers.

The case study looks at how Roposo germinated from the founding team's prior ventureGiveter that provided unique insights on consumer behaviour, product development, dynamic capabilities and network economies. With this case study, in the last few quarters withsocial-sellingas a paradigm being explored by the likes of Facebook and WhatsApp, Roposo tries to reinvent itself by choosing between thesocial selling spaceandstrategically focussingon further cementing its base on pure playsocial networking.

With Roposo entering the Harvard Business Publishing platform and into the Harvard Business School, it will also be able to reach out to a part of its target groupstudents all over the world. When asked about this, Mayank Bhangadia, CEO and Co-founder of Roposo said, The Roposo case study is a Harvard property; we don't plan to do any direct marketing over it. It is definitely a prestigious milestone for us and we would like to highlight it in relevant collaboration and tie-up opportunities.

Being a Harvard case study will give us an edge over others in the market. Few Indian start-ups have this jewel in their crowns. Our users can now boast of being part of an Indian fashion social network, whose business journey is now a Harvard case study, added Bhangadia when asked about the impact it could have on Roposos users and customers.

Anyone working or studying at the prestigious colleges associated with Harvard can access the study. We are delighted that MBA students at some of the worlds most prestigious institutions will learn from our brand journey. This case study is ideal for MBA students around the world who are keen to understand digital innovation and entrepreneurship in growing Asian markets, as the study highlights the process of entrepreneurial pivoting, dynamic capabilities, strategic focus and life-cycle management amidst industry evolution, said Bhangadia.

Professor Chatterjee and I started working on this case study about a year ago in order to help the growth of the company and make people understand the way this company was founded in 2014 and has become one of its kind today, said Vardhan when asked about the idea behind working on this case study.

When asked about his growth plans going ahead, Bhangadia said, We have major expansion plans. There's a lot in store for the users as well as our sellers and associates.

Read more from the original source:
What makes fashion social network Roposo a Harvard case study - Exchange4Media

YAKIMA, Wash. A local case questioning whether Yakima County jail authorities are violating due process by enforcing federal immigration holds could affect jails nationwide, a Yakima attorney said Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday requiring the county jail to remove an immigration hold placed on an inmate so he could be released on bail pending trial for a local assault charge.

Mendozas order resulted from a lawsuit filed by the inmates attorney arguing that the hold placed on local inmates by federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers was enforced by the county jail without judicial review, a violation of civil rights under the Fourth Amendment. ICE officers typically fill out a document, called an administrative warrant, naming an inmate suspected of violating immigration laws and give it to jail officials who in turn place the local inmate on a federal hold.

The issue here is (ICE) is giving the form to Yakima County and Yakima County is doing something that is not under its authority, said Bernardo Rafael Cruz, an attorney with Columbia Legal Services in Yakima. Cruz is representing the inmate. This could have wider affects, and it could have wider policy implications across the country.

Calls to ICE spokeswoman Rose Riley in Seattle seeking comment were not immediately returned Thursday.

The temporary restraining order against the county is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Columbia Legal Services and the Immigrants Rights Project on behalf of Antonio Sanchez-Ochoa. The suit seeks to stop the county jail from complying with immigration holds without judicial review and award Sanchez-Ochoa damages to be determined at trial.

Although a local judge granted Sanchez-Ochoa a $50,000 bail option on the local charge, a bail bondsman wouldnt work with him because of an immigration hold placed on him at the jail, Cruz said.

Sanchez-Ochoa has been incarcerated since May 4.

Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Brusic said he and other prosecuting attorneys from across the state in an April meeting with U.S. district attorneys requested that ICE officers get warrants signed by a federal judge when seeking to place holds on local inmates. The prosecuting attorneys were told it wasnt necessary, Brusic said.

Thats what we would truly like, but ICE, theyre not going to do that anytime soon, he said.

This is starting to create a national ripple in the type of paperwork needed to present to local authorities for holds, Brusic added.

However, U.S. District attorneys also said they wouldnt protect counties honoring the administrative warrants from liability stemming from a potential lawsuit.

Theyre not going to help us out, at least thats what they said in April, and thats not right, he said. We were summarily frustrated with that response.

Even so, the county continued to work with ICE due to a good working relationship with the federal agency in the past and because the jail has federal contracts which generate income for the jail to house prisoners with immigration holds, Brusic said.

Its complicated on many levels.

Under the federal contract, the jail receives about $84 per inmate held for ICE.

On average, ICE brings about 120 federal inmates suspected of violating immigration laws to the jail each month. In addition, ICE officers review the jails bookings daily and place holds on other inmates who have been jailed locally for a variety of offenses. As many as 15 of those local inmates can be held each month at ICE officers requests.

Inmates already in federal custody when brought to the jail are not included in the lawsuit because federal law gives ICE officers authority to arrest and detain someone suspected of being in violation of immigration laws, said attorney Matt Adams with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Seattle.

Typically, prosecution of local inmates at the jail must be completed before ICE takes custody of them, jail officials have said.

But placing a federal hold on those inmates while they are in local custody boils down to local authorities doing the work of federal authorities, Adams said.

What our case is about is clarifying that the Fourth Amendment prevents Yakima County from arresting people at the request of federal immigration authorities, he said.

Read more:
Local immigration case could have national impact - Yakima Herald-Republic