UGC prioritizes online registration

Apr 16, 2016

The University Grants Commission says it will give prority to online applications when selecting students for university education.

Students registered online will receive a SMS informing them of their registration, says the UGC.

From next year, all universities will begin their academic year on October.

Also, registrations are to be completed before the announcement of GCE Advanced Level examination results.
- SLM-

At least 15 security personnel killed in attacks in Benghazi - medic

A building damaged during clashes between military forces loyal to Libya's eastern government and the Shura Council of Libyan Revolutionaries, an alliance of former anti-Gaddafi rebels who have joined forces with the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, is seen in Benghazi, Libya...REUTERS/ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI

Sat Apr 16, 2016

At least 15 members of the security forces were killed and 40 wounded in two days of clashes in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, a hospital source said on Saturday, as they try to consolidate gains made in February against Islamist militants.

On Friday, two Islamic State suicide bombers staged attacks near a cement factory in the west of the city where fighters are holding out, though only one of the bombs caused casualties, army spokesman Milad al-Zawie said.

Libya has been in crisis since the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with violence escalating in 2014.

Islamic State posted a message on social media saying dozens of soldiers had been killed by the bombers, but Zawie said just six soldiers were killed and 25 were wounded on Friday.

A Reuters reporter saw the bodies of at least five militants, including two suicide bombers, killed in the clashes.

Eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign against Islamist militants and other opponents in Benghazi in May 2014 and that fighting has caused major damage to the city.

Nevertheless, the military has been unable to achieve its stated aim of securing control of Benghazi.

Haftar is allied to a government that moved to eastern Libya after a rival administration was installed by its armed supporters in Tripoli in 2014.

A U.N.-backed unity government arrived in the Libyan capital late last month where it is trying to establish itself. The West hopes it can end Libya's security crisis and political turmoil and unite some of its armed factions to take on Islamic State.

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Rwandan Who Called Tutsis ‘Cockroaches’ in 1992 Gets Life Sentence

BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY-APRIL 15, 2016 
In 1992, Leon Mugesera, a senior politician in Rwanda’s then-ruling Hutu party, told a crowd of supporters at a rally in the town of Kabaya that members of the country’s minority Tutsi population were “cockroaches” who should go back to Ethiopia, the birthplace of the East African ethnic group.

Spectators claim that at one point in the rally, which was not recorded in its entirety, Mugesera said that “anyone whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut your neck.” Two years later, some 800,000 Rwandans — mainly Tutsis — were brutally slaughtered and hacked to death in a genocide that lasted 100 days.

On Friday, more than 20 years after Mugesera made his speech, Rwandan Judge Antoine Muhima sentenced him to life in prison for “public incitement to commit genocide, persecution as crime against humanity and inciting ethnic-affiliated hatred.”

The genocide was predated by intense Hutu propaganda that is believed to have fueled hate and fear in the country’s Hutu population, which politicians then directed toward the attempted extinction of Tutsis. Mugesera’s 1992 speech is now cited as one of the most concrete examples of Hutu leadership directly ordering the decimation of Tutsis. He fled to Canada where he was granted refugee status, and fought extradition charges for more than a decade. While there, he served as a lecturer at  Laval University in Québec City and claimed his remarks in Kabaya were taken out of context.

In early 2012, after his case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, Mugesera, who is now 64, was finally extradited to Kigali. And in 2013, his lawyer, Jean-Felix Rudakemwa, told Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mailthe trial was unfair because no complete recording of the speech exists.

Rwanda’s genocide ended when Tutsi strongman Paul Kagame to power. Mugesera’s legal advisers have claimed he is being targeted by Kagame not because he did anything wrong but because he is a political rival.

Kagame is still president today, and although the country has taken extraordinary measures to preserve evidence of the genocide in museums and memorials throughout the country, discussion of ethnic identity is largely suppressed.  

Photo credit: Getty Images

French, German FMs in unannounced Libya visit to back unity government

Foreign leaders have hailed Libya's unity government as a 'game changer' in the face of chaos

Saturday 16 April 2016

The foreign ministers of France and Germany made an unannounced visit to Libyan capital Tripoli on Saturday in a show of support for the new unity government striving to bridge Libya's deep political divisions.

World powers see the Government of National Accord (GNA) as a crucial partner in tackling militants behind a string of deadly attacks in Libya, as well as human traffickers exploiting the country's turmoil.

France's Jean-Marc Ayrault and Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier flew into the capital amid tight security for talks with the UN-backed cabinet, which has set up operations at a naval base in the city.

Steinmeier described the visit as a signal that the international community is united behind the GNA.

"The way to peace and stability is through the implementation of the peace agreement and the government of national unity," Steinmeier said in remarks released by his ministry. 

Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, said on Twitter that the Libya was facing an opportunity for peace that should not be missed:

 Follow

Martin Kobler 

✔‎@KoblerSRSG

#Libya has the opportunity to turn the darkest pages of its history and build a brighter future. This opportunity must not be missed.

10:12 AM - 16 Apr 2016 · Tunisia, تونس

 
•  1212 Retweets
 
•  2626 likes

It is the latest in a flurry of visits by European diplomats, who had been absent since 2014 when EU member states closed their Tripoli embassies as fighting shook the North African nation.

Their return was prompted by the arrival of UN-backed prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj on 30 March by sea with a naval escort, after a rival Tripoli authority shut the city's air space to try to keep him out.

"France was one of the first countries to back Sarraj, and the time has come to give a new impetus to that support," a French diplomat said.

The visit comes two days before a crucial vote by the country's recognised parliament on whether to endorse the GNA and ahead of talks in Luxembourg next week on a possible EU mission to assist Libya's police and border guards.

Italy's Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni hailed the unity government as a "game changer" when he visited Tripoli on Tuesday.

The British, French and Spanish ambassadors flew in for talks two days later, saying they were working towards reopening their diplomatic missions there.

European nations are increasingly alarmed by the expansion of the Islamic State group in Libya, where it has established a new stronghold just 300 kilometres away from Italy across the Mediterranean.

The militants last year seized control of slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi's coastal hometown of Sirte and have used the city as a base to stage a string of suicide bombings and attacks on oil facilities.

IS claimed responsibility for a car bombing on Friday near the city of Benghazi that security sources said left two soldiers of the internationally recognised government dead and three wounded.

The militants claimed that the attack killed as many as 50 soldiers and destroyed 15 vehicles.

Post-Gaddafi chaos

Oil-flush Libya descended into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted and killed Gaddafi.

The country has had two rival administrations since mid-2014, when a militia alliance took over Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the recognised parliament to flee to the remote east.

A UN-backed power-sharing deal in December was backed by some lawmakers by both sides.

Sarraj has not yet received the endorsement of the internationally recognised legislature, and the head of the rival Tripoli-based administration, Khalifa Ghweil, has refused to recognise his authority.

Mattia Toaldo, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the European visit was "timely," coming days ahead of the confidence vote in parliament and the meetings of EU foreign and defence ministers.

Sarraj is expected to participate in the Luxembourg talks, probably by videolink.

"So maybe the visit is not just symbolic - they [Ayrault and Steinmeier] want to have a real discussion with Sarraj," Toaldo said.

The diplomatic push takes place against a backdrop of growing concerns that European efforts to shut down the migrant sea crossing from Turkey to Greece will encourage more people to set off from North Africa instead.

Nearly 6,000 mostly African migrants have landed at southern Italian ports since Tuesday, adding to concerns that the country is on the verge of becoming the main entry point for people trying to reach Europe.

Taiwan to dispatch officials to China to discuss deportation of fraud suspects

Chinese and Taiwanese suspects involved in wire fraud, center, sit in a plane as they arrive at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China. Pic: Xinhua News Agency via AP

 16th April 2016 

TAIWAN said it plans to dispatch a delegation to Beijing as early as Monday to discuss the deportation of Taiwanese fraud suspects from Kenya to China. The incident has stirred outrage on the self-ruled island.

The Cabinet’s Mainland Affairs Council says the officials will discuss the ongoing case as well as ways of combating crimes involving residents of the two sides detained in other countries.

The latest battle over Taiwanese deportations came after Kenya sent 45 Taiwanese suspects to China instead of Taiwan earlier this month. Beijing wants to investigate them for fraudulently obtaining banking details of victims in China in order to steal funds.

China insists that it has legal jurisdiction over the case since the victims were its own nationals. Beijing is skeptical that the perpetrators would be handed sufficient punishment when they return to Taiwan.\

According to AFP, Taiwan denounced the Chinese government this week for being “rude and violent” in regard to Kenya’s deportation of Taiwanese citizens to China.

Facing intense public pressure, Taiwanese officials managed to convince Malaysia to deport 20 Taiwanese criminal suspects to Taiwan on Friday despite Beijing’s request that they be sent to China.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press

Accountability and the empty chair – Yes Minister, we want you!

Accountability and the empty chair – Yes Minister, we want you!

Snowblog-Thursday 14 Apr 2016

We did ask the Foreign Office for a Minister to respond, but no one was available; we did ask the Home Office for someone to respond but no one was available; we did ask the Department of Health for a Minister to respond, but no one was available; we did ask the Education Department for a Minister…we did ask, we did ask, we did ask.

But no one was available; no one was available; no one was…Argggghhhh!

“No Minister Available” is currently one of the most readily used phrases in Government.

A few weeks back I tweeted that I hadn’t interviewed Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health for three years. He came on the next night. It proved to be no precedent. Even the striking junior doctors have got in on the act; last night for the assembled press outside the Department of Health, they produced a chair with Mr Hunt’s name on it. It remained and remains empty.

 Follow

Nick Sutton 

✔‎@suttonnick

We've asked to intv a Minister from Home Office, DFID or FCO on Syrian refugees.
Just been told none available #wato

8:10 AM - 3 Sep 2015

Read More

In slow dance with capitalism, Cuba’s leftists turn to future

In this April 19, 2011 file photo, Fidel Castro (left) and Cuba's President Raul Castro talk during the 6th Communist Party Congress in Havana, Cuba. Mr. Raul Castro, Cuba's Communist Party chief, is 84 and his top lieutenant in the party, Josş Ramūn Machado Ventura is 85. The party is meeting on Saturday to discuss a Cuba without the ageing leaders who have guided the economy since the 1959 revolution with a cautious embrace towards the U.S.

Communist Party meeting to discuss a scenario without the ageing leaders who guided the country since 1959.

April 16, 2016

Cuba’s Communist Party meets on Saturday under pressure for the slow pace of promised market reforms as it prepares for a future without the octogenarian leaders, who guided the country from a 1959 revolution to a cautious embrace of the United States.

The meeting is the Communist Party’s first congress in five years and the first since President Raul Castro and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama announced they were to end decades of enmity and seek normal relations.

Party secretive about agenda

The party has been secretive about the agenda of the meeting, even by Cuba’s opaque standards, triggering grumbling among younger members who have grown accustomed to a freer flow of information and contact with the world.

As well as the lack of discussion, party foot soldiers said they were worried that the country had not implemented quickly enough the sweeping market reforms adopted at the last party congress in 2011 to avoid economic collapse.

Economic plan needs to be expedited

“The economic plan is still getting on track but it needs to accelerate,” said Wilson Batista, who has been a party member for twenty years. “The world’s policies, the world’s economy changes daily and we need to adjust ourselves exactly. We need to get on the world economic train.”

Cuba has improved its financial credibility over the last five years, running trade and current account surpluses and restructuring $50 billion in mainly old debt, although harsh U.S. sanctions remain in place.

Nascent middle-class

A nascent middle-class has emerged, making money from small businesses such as construction and hospitality. But in what one Cuban blogger called “paralysis at the cliff edge,” the party has not relinquished control of trade or larger businesses.

The party has implemented about a fifth of the measures it adopted in 2011, and Cubans are eager for more, especially a unification of the country’s two currencies and an end to the government’s monopoly on imports and exports.

Young pros thirsting for a change

Many Cubans are tired of waiting, especially young professionals who are rarely allowed to set up private practices. With news from the outside world closer thanks to more Internet access and booming tourism, ever greater numbers are taking advantage of new freedoms to travel and emigrate.

The congress takes place three weeks after Mr. Obama made history as the first U.S. President to visit the island in 88 years and eloquently called for more political freedom and democracy in the one-party state.

Bulwark against Washington

His words are unlikely to be heeded, because the party sees itself as the greatest defence against Washington’s past attempts to dominate Cuba.

Cuba’s top leaders started their careers as young guerrilla fighters who overthrew a U.S. backed government in 1959, and a few years later repelled the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion -- which the party Congress is timed to commemorate.

Age catching up with the top brass

Now, party chief Raul Castro is 84 and his top lieutenant in the party, Josş Ramūn Machado Ventura is 85.

Mr. Castro is due to retire as president in 2018 and by the end of the four-day congress it will be clear whether he remains as party leader until 2021, or whether somebody younger takes over the leadership.

Founded in 1965, the Communist Party is seen as more powerful in Cuba than the government. It was formally led by Fidel Castro until 2011, although his younger brother had effectively taken command several years earlier.

First Nations community grappling with suicide crisis: 'We're crying out for help'

 As Canada’s small community of Attawapiskat grapples with more than 100 recent suicide attempts, focus turns ‘hundreds of years of trauma’

People take part in a candlelight vigil Attawapiskat. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters

 Stephanie Hookimaw, right, and her niece Karrisa Koostachin pose next to memorial photos of her daughter, Sheridan Hookimaw, who committed suicide in October. Photograph: Laurence Mathieu for the Guardian

Laurence Mathieu-Léger in Attawapiskat and Ashifa Kassam in Toronto-
Saturday 16 April 2016 

For two days, Stephanie Hookimaw drove frantically down the dirt roads that line Canada’s Attawapiskat First Nation, looking for her 13-year old daughter.

She stopped in at 16 homes in the remote community, hoping to find some trace of her child. “I was just crying while I was driving around looking for her, praying at the same time, asking God to protect her.”

Her search ended at a police cordon. “She took her own life,” Hookimaw said, her voice shaking as her eyes welled with tears. “I was shocked. She was never suicidal.”

Her daughter, Sheridan, had been suffering. She was bullied at school and suffered health issues including arthritis and asthma. She longed for her family to have their own home, ever since sewage contamination forced them to live with 15 others in a three-bedroom home.

Read More

Newly discovered mass graves could be filled with an ancient Greek tyrant’s followers

Remains of men buried in a mass grave, their hands tied with iron chains, were found in an area of the Falirikon Delta near Athens. (Aris Messinis/Greek Culture Ministry via AFP)

By Elahe Izadi-April 15

Thousands of years ago, an ancient Greek athlete named Cylon tried to overthrow the government. It did not end well.

Now, archaeologists have stumbled upon mass graves near Athens containing the skeletal remains of 80 men who the researchers believe may have been followers of that wannabe tyrant, Cylon of Athens.

The remains — which had teeth in good condition — were found in two graves that date to between 675 and 650 B.C., Agence France-Presse reported. They rest in an ancient cemetery where the National Library of Greece and the National Opera are being constructed.

The men were lined up in the graves, and the hands of 36 of them were tied with iron shackles, AFP reported.

The finding could illuminate an important chapter in Greek history.

Cylon lived during the 7th century B.C. He came from a noble family in Athens and became somewhat of a star after winning the double footrace at the Olympic Games.

[1,500-year-old skeleton with prosthetic foot found in Austria]

So he wanted to seize upon his celebrity status. With some help from his tyrant father-in-law, he attracted a band of followers to take the Acropolis.

But they were besieged for quite some time. After claiming the protection of the goddess Athena, they relented only after nobles in charge promised to spare their lives.

(Aris Messinis/Greek Culture Ministry via AFP)

Cylon and his brother managed to escape, according to Athenian historian Thucydides. The band of followers remained with no food. Guards eventually convinced them that they could leave safely but "then led them away and put them to death," Thucydides wrote.

"They even slew some of them in the very presence of the awful Goddesses at whose altars, in passing by, they had sought refuge," according to Thucydides. "The murderers and their descendants are held to be accursed, and offenders against the Goddess."

The episode — dubbed the Cylon Conspiracy, and also described by ancient Greek historian Plutarch — damaged the reputation of the ruling aristocratic family for hundreds of years.

Archaeologists haven't confirmed that the remains belong to men from that band of followers; regional archaeological services director Stella Chryssoulaki described the theory on Thursday, according to AFP.

Cybercrime: Are you facing up to one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century?

March 31, 2016

Sophisticated malware, integrity attacks, mobile invasions—the 2016 cybercriminal arsenal bursts with new toys and terrors. Yet their targets’ own shortsightedness might still be their most potent and reliable weapon.

Even more shocking, many corporate leaders are not responding to hackers’ growing threats and their own protection gaps. Out of the 1,755 organizations in the EY 2015 Global Information Security Survey(GISS), 88% called their information security insufficient, and a third either lacked confidence in their attack detection or had no threat intelligence program at all.

Despite rapidly escalating cybercriminal abilities, these security failures persist from the 2014 survey (awareness may be rising, though that means little without concrete changes). Worse still, yesterday’s exploits pale in comparison to the damage done by breaches today.

“We know that breaches are getting bigger,” says Ken Allan, EY Global Cybersecurity Advisory Leader. “The impact of a breach five years ago to now is much bigger as we go more digital.”

Take a step back and consider the decision-making landscape. Every conference table is a carousel of competing priorities, and managers look for results to capture and fires to extinguish. The urgency of cybersecurity precautions and protocols can be lost in this environment. If the servers aren’t smoking, where’s the fire?

That may be the most dangerous mindset of all. Allan contends that every organization has been hacked in some way, but many don’t know it yet, let alone the severity of the breach. He urges all boards to adoptActive Defense principles that help protect business interests and he seeks to reframe the incentives to care.

“A large component of new wealth is being added by the rush into digital,” Allan says. “Without digital trust, people will not embrace these changes. We need to think of cybersecurity as a business enabler.”

According to a 2014 Goldman Sachs forecast, US consumers will spend $626 billion via mobile by 2018, and the Gartner Group estimates that 85% of business relationships will be managed without human interaction by 2020. All organizations must take notice, because all hackers certainly are.

Just ask retailers who thought cybersecurity was only important for banks. Likewise media companies. The stakes are higher than ever as everything from consumer cars to key oil and gas assets come online. The internet of things and other digital integrations heighten capabilities but also deepen potential vulnerabilities.

Counterintuitively, these developments limit the impact of technology on cybersecurity. Software patches and IT infrastructure alone are not sufficient barriers (and probably never were). Evolving organizations must look to human assets—high-level partnerships and entry-level risks. Individual employee susceptibility to phishing attacks and other manipulation remains high, and only increased awareness and training can strengthen the weakest links. Rising chatter and collaboration among hackers around the dark web must be met by intra-industry and multi-national efforts to share security information.

“We pretend that there’s cooperation, but generally it’s a bit superficial,” Allan says. “Having said that, organizations like the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center are a great forum to build upon.” Other institutional and law enforcement efforts are furthering a unified approach.

Perhaps before the next disappointing survey, more at-risk organizations will learn a simple lesson: the hackers’ growing arsenal of the latest tools of destruction is less useful if its targets take proactive precautions that keep them out of range in the first place.

EY’s Better Questions series asks some of the tough questions faced by today’s global businesses. Better questions. Better answers. Better working world. Discover more. #BetterQuestions

This article was produced on behalf of EY by the Quartz marketing team and not by the Quartz editorial staff.

STOP SNORING TODAY? NOW YOU CAN…

September 20, 2015

If you constantly feel exhausted, experience headaches for no obvious reason or have high blood pressure, it could be the result of snoring.

More than a simple annoyance, snoring is also the most common symptom of a potentially serious health problem—obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Over 18 million Americans snore, and it’s related to OSA. People who suffer from OSA repeatedly and unknowingly stop breathing during the night due to a complete or partial obstruction of their airway. It occurs when the jaw, throat, and tongue muscles relax, blocking the airway used to breathe. The resulting lack of oxygen can last for a minute or longer, and occur hundreds of times each night.

OSA has been linked to:

• Acid reflux
• Frequent nighttime urination
• Stroke
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Heart attack

People over 35 are at higher risk.

OSA can be expensive to diagnosis and treat — up to $5,000 — and those treatments can sometimes be quite painful. Plus, they’re not always covered by insurance.

However, a study published by Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicineconcluded that wearing a simple chinstrap while sleeping can be an effective treatment for OSA.

Figure 1a

Without chinstrap (mouth open). Notice narrow anterior to posterior airway space as a result of the tongue base and the posteriorly positioned epiglottis.

Figure 1b

With chinstrap (mouth closed). Notice significant improvement of the posterior airway space with the tongue base and epiglottis rotated forward.

The chin strap, which is now available from a company called Stop Snoring Today, works by supporting the lower jaw and tongue, preventing obstruction of the airway. It’s made from a high-tech, lightweight, and super-comfortable material. Thousands of people have used the Stop Snoring Today chinstrap and reported better sleeping, and better health overall because of it.

An effective clinically tested snoring solution for just $99

The “Stop Snoring Today” chinstrap is available exclusively from the company’s website, which is currently offering a limited time “2 for 1” offer. The product also comes with an unconditional 30-day, money-back guarantee!

Over 150,000 units shipped worldwide!

Stop Snoring Today manufacture their units from A to Z at the highest industry standards of wearable medical gear to ensure both comfort and maximum satisfaction.

If you want to stop snoring once and for all, without expensive CPAPs or other intrusive devices, this may be the solution you’ve been waiting for.

Learn more about this special $99 offer from Stop Snoring Today.