IGIHE

Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

  • Is soda bad for your brain? (And is diet soda worse?)

    {Both sugary, diet drinks correlated with accelerated brain aging}

    Americans love sugar. Together we consumed nearly 11 million metric tons of it in 2016, according to the US Department of Agriculture, much of it in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages like sports drinks and soda.

    Now, new research suggests that excess sugar — especially the fructose in sugary drinks — might damage your brain. Researchers using data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) found that people who drink sugary beverages frequently are more likely to have poorer memory, smaller overall brain volume, and a significantly smaller hippocampus — an area of the brain important for learning and memory.

    But before you chuck your sweet tea and reach for a diet soda, there’s more: a follow-up study found that people who drank diet soda daily were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia when compared to those who did not.

    Researchers are quick to point out that these findings, which appear separately in the journals Alzheimer’s & Dementia and Stroke, demonstrate correlation but not cause-and-effect. While researchers caution against over-consuming either diet soda or sugary drinks, more research is needed to determine how — or if — these drinks actually damage the brain, and how much damage may be caused by underlying vascular disease or diabetes.

    “These studies are not the be-all and end-all, but it’s strong data and a very strong suggestion,” says Sudha Seshadri, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine (MED) and a faculty member at BU’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center, who is senior author on both papers. “It looks like there is not very much of an upside to having sugary drinks, and substituting the sugar with artificial sweeteners doesn’t seem to help.”

    “Maybe good old-fashioned water is something we need to get used to,” she adds.

    Matthew Pase, a fellow in the MED neurology department and an investigator at the FHS who is corresponding author on both papers, says that excess sugar has long been associated with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes, but little is known about its long-term effects on the human brain. He chose to study sugary drinks as a way of examining overall sugar consumption. “It’s difficult to measure overall sugar intake in the diet,” he says, “so we used sugary beverages as a proxy.”

    For the first study, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia on March 5, 2017, researchers examined data, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and cognitive testing results, from about 4,000 people enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study’s Offspring and Third-Generation cohorts. (These are the children and grandchildren of the original FHS volunteers enrolled in 1948.) The researchers looked at people who consumed more than two sugary drinks a day of any type — soda, fruit juice, and other soft drinks — or more than three per week of soda alone. Among that “high intake” group, they found multiple signs of accelerated brain aging, including smaller overall brain volume, poorer episodic memory, and a shrunken hippocampus, all risk factors for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers also found that higher intake of diet soda — at least one per day — was associated with smaller brain volume.

    In the second study, published in Stroke on April 20, 2017, the researchers, using data only from the older Offspring cohort, looked specifically at whether participants had suffered a stroke or been diagnosed with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. After measuring volunteers’ beverage intake at three points over seven years, the researchers then monitored the volunteers for 10 years, looking for evidence of stroke in 2,888 people over age 45, and dementia in 1,484 participants over age 60. Here they found, surprisingly, no correlation between sugary beverage intake and stroke or dementia. However, they found that people who drank at least one diet soda per day were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia.

    Although the researchers took age, smoking, diet quality, and other factors into account, they could not completely control for preexisting conditions like diabetes, which may have developed over the course of the study and is a known risk factor for dementia. Diabetics, as a group, drink more diet soda on average, as a way to limit their sugar consumption, and some of the correlation between diet soda intake and dementia may be due to diabetes, as well as other vascular risk factors. However, such preexisting conditions cannot wholly explain the new findings.

    “It was somewhat surprising that diet soda consumption led to these outcomes,” says Pase, noting that while prior studies have linked diet soda intake to stroke risk, the link with dementia was not previously known. He adds that the studies did not differentiate between types of artificial sweeteners and did not account for other possible sources of artificial sweeteners. He says that scientists have put forth various hypotheses about how artificial sweeteners may cause harm, from transforming gut bacteria to altering the brain’s perception of “sweet,” but “we need more work to figure out the underlying mechanisms.”

    Source:Science Daily

  • RNP intensify fight against drug trafficking, three arrested

    {The Rwanda National Police (RNP) intensified operations to crackdown on drug dealers led to the arrest of three men in the City of Kigali, who had allegedly sneaked about seven sacks of cannabis into the country.}

    The three men identified as Antoine Nizeyimana, Issa Dusabyimana and Augustine Hategekimana, were arrested red-handed on April 19 at Giti K’inyoni in Nyarugenge District, where a Fuso truck registration number RAC 914Y, which was loaded with the narcotic drugs was intercepted by the anti-narcotics unit.

    The trio was paraded before the media on April 21, at the RNP General Headquarters in Kacyiru.

    Addressing journalists on the arrest, RNP spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Theos Badege, said that police had received information from residents reporting the same truck that was headed to Kigali from Rubavu, loaded with illegal goods.

    “At about 7pm on April 19, based on credible information from members of the public, officers found the truck supplying other drug dealers at Giti k’inyoni,” ACP Badege said.

    “The prime suspect, Nizeyimana, who had allegedly trafficked the drugs from DRC, Hategekimana, who had bought a sack from him, and a motorcyclist (Musabyimana) who was transporting his (Hategekimana) sack, were immediately arrested at the scene,” ACP Badege said.

    The motorcycle that was at the time being used to transport the sack of cannabis, was also impounded.

    “When officers searched the vehicle, they recovered over 12, 000 rolls of cannabis packed in plastic bags and concealed in seven sacks. They also recovered in the same truck quantities of smuggled liquor in different brands.”

    Police said the intercepted drugs are worth over Rwf25 million.

    “This arrest, on one side, signifies the significance of partnership and timely information, and also a strong warning to whoever is still involved in this criminal act,” said the spokesperson.

    He advised drug dealers to channel such big sums of money into lawful ventures “rather than burning it in criminal businesses and sinking in heavy loses.”

    Same smuggling routes, ACP Badege said that they are the same routes used by drug traffickers.

    Meanwhile, the ringleader, Nizeyimana confirmed police reports of rackets that traffics cannabis from DRC, stores them somewhere in Rubavu before it is transported in Kigali in small quantities where it is sold to other wholesalers and retailers.

    Nizeyimana is suspected to be part of the racket.

    The three suspects, meanwhile, who confessed to the crime, asked for leniency.

    “The normal process is that we first look for market, then traffic the drugs into Rubavu and use different means to deliver to our customers, especially at night,” Nizeyimana told reporters.

    ACP Badege warned that RNP will continue with such operations and investigations to break criminal networks and have them prosecuted.

    If convicted, the trio could be sentenced to tens years in prison and a fine of up to Rwf10 million each.

    Source:Police

  • Making batteries from waste glass bottles

    {Researchers are turning glass bottles into high performance lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and personal electronics}

    Researchers at the University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering have used waste glass bottles and a low-cost chemical process to create nanosilicon anodes for high-performance lithium-ion batteries. The batteries will extend the range of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and provide more power with fewer charges to personal electronics like cell phones and laptops.

    Titled “Silicon Derived from Glass Bottles as Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Full Cell Batteries,” an article describing the research was published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. Cengiz Ozkan, professor of mechanical engineering, and Mihri Ozkan, professor of electrical engineering, led the project.

    Even with today’s recycling programs, billions of glass bottles end up in landfills every year, prompting the researchers to ask whether silicon dioxide in waste beverage bottles could provide high purity silicon nanoparticles for lithium-ion batteries.

    Silicon anodes can store up to 10 times more energy than conventional graphite anodes, but expansion and shrinkage during charge and discharge make them unstable. Downsizing silicon to the nanoscale has been shown to reduce this problem, and by combining an abundant and relatively pure form of silicon dioxide and a low-cost chemical reaction, the researchers created lithium-ion half-cell batteries that store almost four times more energy than conventional graphite anodes.

    To create the anodes, the team used a three-step process that involved crushing and grinding the glass bottles into a fine white power, a magnesiothermic reduction to transform the silicon dioxide into nanostructured silicon, and coating the silicon nanoparticles with carbon to improve their stability and energy storage properties.

    As expected, coin cell batteries made using the glass bottle-based silicon anodes greatly outperformed traditional batteries in laboratory tests. Carbon-coated glass derived-silicon (gSi@C) electrodes demonstrated excellent electrochemical performance with a capacity of ~1420 mAh/g at C/2 rate after 400 cycles.

    Changling Li, a graduate student in materials science and engineering and lead author on the paper, said one glass bottle provides enough nanosilicon for hundreds of coin cell batteries or three-five pouch cell batteries.

    “We started with a waste product that was headed for the landfill and created batteries that stored more energy, charged faster, and were more stable than commercial coin cell batteries. Hence, we have very promising candidates for next-generation lithium-ion batteries,” Li said.

    This research is the latest in a series of projects led by Mihri and Cengiz Ozkan to create lithium-ion battery anodes from environmentally friendly materials. Previous research has focused on developing and testing anodes from portabella mushrooms, sand, and diatomaceous (fossil-rich) earth.

    Waste glass bottles are turned into nanosilicon anodes using a low cost chemical process.

    Source:Science Daily

  • Why children struggle to cross busy streets safely

    {New research shows perceptual judgment, motor skills not fully developed until age 14}

    For adults, crossing the street by foot seems easy. You take stock of the traffic and calculate the time it will take to get from one side to the other without being hit.

    Yet it’s anything but simple for a child.

    New research from the University of Iowa shows children under certain ages lack the perceptual judgment and motor skills to cross a busy road consistently without putting themselves in danger. The researchers placed children from 6 to 14 years old in a realistic simulated environment and asked them to cross one lane of a busy road multiple times.

    The results: Children up to their early teenage years had difficulty consistently crossing the street safely, with accident rates as high as 8 percent with 6-year-olds. Only by age 14 did children navigate street crossing without incident, while 12-year-olds mostly compensated for inferior road-crossing motor skills by choosing bigger gaps in traffic.

    “Some people think younger children may be able to perform like adults when crossing the street,” says Jodie Plumert, professor in the UI’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. “Our study shows that’s not necessarily the case on busy roads where traffic doesn’t stop.”

    For parents, that means taking extra precautions. Be aware that your child may struggle with identifying gaps in traffic large enough to cross safely. Young children also may not have developed the fine motor skills to step into the street the moment a car has passed, like adults have mastered. And, your child may allow eagerness to outweigh reason when judging the best time to cross a busy street.

    “They get the pressure of not wanting to wait combined with these less-mature abilities,” says Plumert, corresponding author on the study, which appears in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, published by the American Psychological Association. “And that’s what makes it a risky situation.”

    The National Center for Statistics and Analysis reported 8,000 injuries and 207 fatalities involving motor vehicles and pedestrians age 14 and younger in 2014.

    Plumert and her team wanted to understand the reasons behind the accident rates. For the study, they recruited children who were 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 years old, as well as a control group of adults. Each participant faced a string of approaching virtual vehicles travelling 25 mph (considered a benchmark speed for a residential neighborhood) and then crossed a single lane of traffic (about nine feet wide). The time between vehicles ranged from two to five seconds. Each participant negotiated a road crossing 20 times, for about 2,000 total trips involving the age groups.

    The crossings took place in an immersive, 3-D interactive space at the Hank Virtual Environments Lab on the UI campus. The simulated environment is “very compelling,” says Elizabeth O’Neal, a graduate student in psychological and brain sciences and the study’s first author. “We often had kids reach out and try to touch the cars.”

    The researchers found 6-year-olds were struck by vehicles 8 percent of the time; 8-year-olds were struck 6 percent; 10-year-olds were struck 5 percent; and 12-year-olds were struck 2 percent. Those age 14 and older had no accidents.

    Children contend with two main variables when deciding whether it’s safe to cross a street, according to the research. The first involves their perceptual ability, or how they judge the gap between a passing car and an oncoming vehicle, taking into account the oncoming car’s speed and distance from the crossing. Younger children, the study found, had more difficulty making consistently accurate perceptual decisions.

    The second variable was their motor skills: How quickly do children time their step from the curb into the street after a car just passed? Younger children were incapable of timing that first step as precisely as adults, which in effect gave them less time to cross the street before the next car arrived.

    “Most kids choose similar size gaps (between the passing car and oncoming vehicle) as adults,” O’Neal says, “but they’re not able to time their movement into traffic as well as adults can.”

    The researchers found children as young as 6 crossed the street as quickly as adults, eliminating crossing speed as a possible cause for pedestrian-vehicle collisions.

    So what’s a child to do? One recommendation is for parents to teach their children to be patient and to encourage younger ones to choose gaps that are even larger than the gaps adults would choose for themselves, O’Neal says. Also, civic planners can help by identifying places where children are likely to cross streets and make sure those intersections have a pedestrian-crossing aid.

    “If there are places where kids are highly likely to cross the road, because it’s the most efficient route to school, for example, and traffic doesn’t stop there, it would be wise to have crosswalks,” Plumert says.

    New research from the University of Iowa shows children under certain ages lack the perceptual judgment and motor skills to cross a busy road consistently without putting themselves in danger.

    Source:Science Daily

  • Some dating tips you should know today

    {Dating can be hard work if you’re involved with the wrong person, just as its fun if with the right person. In a relationship, happiness and self-worth are everything. If the person you’re going to be with is going to zap your energy and make you feel worthless eventually, then, trust me, it’s not worth it. That is the reason it’s important to take note of the following as you go into that relationship.}

    1. In a relationship, respect is everything. If your partner isn’t going to respect you enough, you might as well not be with them. It’s one thing if it happens just once, but it’s entirely different if it happens every time. If they disrespect you all the time, you should let them go, they don’t deserve you.

    2. Do not be with someone who’s not sure if they want to be with you or not. Indecisive people are not worth being with. Don’t be a pity case for anybody.

    3. You can’t buy love. Do not think you can get someone’s affection by buying them expensive gifts and throwing money at them. If they do show you love, they’re doing it because of the money and gifts. Let things flow naturally. If they don’t like you the way you are, nothing will change that.

    4. Guys, it’s definitely not real love if she uses sex as a means of negotiation to get what she wants. If she does the same to you, she’ll do it to another man.

    5. Before you throw caution to the wind, and love with your all, be sure they feel exactly the same, so you don’t end up regretting and hurt. You always know when it’s mutual. If it’s not, it’s not worth it.

    6. Guys, desperation is not attractive. It won’t make you seem serious to her. It’s a huge turnoff to women (men too). Try to give her space sometimes.

    7. If they keep comparing you to their Ex, it’s not a healthy sign. You may want to leave because you’ll never really cut it enough for them.

    8. You can’t be the one to make all the efforts in your relationship; ‘it takes two to tango’ they say. If they aren’t ready to put in as much effort as you, you should look for someone who will.

    9. Do not lose your identity to your partner. It’s a relationship, and you’re supposed to complement each other. If they make you feel like you need to be somebody else, it’s not worth it.

    10. This may seem harsh, but it’s the truth. If your partner ever cheats on you, just forget it and move on. It’s a known fact that most cheaters always do it over and over again.

    I hope you find this piece useful. Good luck.

    Source:Elcrema

  • In young bilingual children, two languages develop simultaneously but independently

    {Study also shows Spanish is vulnerable to being taken over by English, but English is not vulnerable to being taken over by Spanish}

    A new study of Spanish-English bilingual children by researchers at Florida Atlantic University published in the journal Developmental Science finds that when children learn two languages from birth each language proceeds on its own independent course, at a rate that reflects the quality of the children’s exposure to each language.

    In addition, the study finds that Spanish skills become vulnerable as children’s English skills develop, but English is not vulnerable to being taken over by Spanish. In their longitudinal data, the researchers found evidence that as the children developed stronger skills in English, their rates of Spanish growth declined. Spanish skills did not cause English growth to slow, so it’s not a matter of necessary trade-offs between two languages.

    “One well established fact about monolingual development is that the size of children’s vocabularies and the grammatical complexity of their speech are strongly related. It turns out that this is true for each language in bilingual children,” said Erika Hoff, Ph.D., lead author of the study, a psychology professor in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, and director of the Language Development Lab. “But vocabulary and grammar in one language are not related to vocabulary or grammar in the other language.”

    For the study, Hoff and her collaborators David Giguere, a graduate research assistant at FAU and Jamie M. Quinn, a graduate research assistant at Florida State University, used longitudinal data on children who spoke English and Spanish as first languages and who were exposed to both languages from birth. They wanted to know if the relationship between grammar and vocabulary were specific to a language or more language general. They measured the vocabulary and level of grammatical development in these children in six-month intervals between the ages of 2 and a half to 4 years.

    The researchers explored a number of possibilities during the study. They thought it might be something internal to the child that causes vocabulary and grammar to develop on the same timetable or that there might be dependencies in the process of language development itself. They also considered that children might need certain vocabulary to start learning grammar and that vocabulary provides the foundation for grammar or that grammar helps children learn vocabulary. One final possibility they explored is that it may be an external factor that drives both vocabulary development and grammatical development.

    “If it’s something internal that paces language development then it shouldn’t matter if it’s English or Spanish, everything should be related to everything,” said Hoff. “On the other hand, if it’s dependencies within a language of vocabulary and grammar or vice versa then the relations should be language specific and one should predict the other. That is a child’s level of grammar should predict his or her future growth in vocabulary or vice versa.”

    Turns out, the data were consistent only with the final possibility — that the rate of vocabulary and grammar development are a function of something external to the child and that exerts separate influences on growth in English and Spanish. Hoff and her collaborators suggest that the most cogent explanation would be in the properties of children’s input or their language exposure.

    “Children may hear very rich language use in Spanish and less rich use in English, for example, if their parents are more proficient in Spanish than in English,” said Hoff. “If language growth were just a matter of some children being better at language learning than others, then growth in English and growth in Spanish would be more related than they are.”

    Detailed results of the study are described in the article, “What Explains the Correlation between Growth in Vocabulary and Grammar? New Evidence from Latent Change Score Analyses of Simultaneous Bilingual Development.”

    “There is something about differences among the children and the quality of English they hear that make some children acquire vocabulary and grammar more rapidly in English and other children develop more slowly,” said Hoff. “I think the key takeaway from our study is that it’s not the quantity of what the children are hearing; it’s the quality of their language exposure that matters. They need to experience a rich environment.”

    A new study of Spanish-English bilingual children by researchers at Florida Atlantic University published in the journal Developmental Science finds that when children learn two languages from birth each language proceeds on its own independent course, at a rate that reflects the quality of the children's exposure to each language.

    Source:Science Daily

  • Rwanda- UNHCR collaboration turns Mahama refugee settlement into a model center

    {Since its opening by the Government of Rwanda and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) just two years ago, Mahama is today a model settlement that sets the standard for other camps in the country and beyond. }

    Mahama continues to grow in order to accommodate new arrivals who are fleeing from Burundi into Rwanda every day. Despite being Rwanda’s newest refugee camp, Mahama is by far the largest, hosting over 53,000 individuals and counting in a sector which is home to 23,000 generous Rwandans.

    Locally, the camp is often referred to as the “13th Sector” of Kirehe District in Eastern Province. The cordial relationship and warm welcome accorded to refugees by the host community have seen the local Executives Secretaries and the Mayor frequently joining UNHCR and MIDIMAR at the camp during important events and high-level visits.

    During the first weeks of the Burundi refugee crisis in April 2015, UNHCR and the Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs (MIDIMAR) with their partners deployed teams to establish emergency communal shelters, temporary water systems and emergency health clinics to enable the huge numbers of arriving refugees to live in basic safety and dignity.

    Today, two years later, Mahama camp has transformed from a panorama of plastic tents and temporary infrastructures into a model village where services are available to refugees and host community members alike.

    Various projects have been developed to improve living conditions inside and around the camp. In the beginning, UNHCR provided health care for refugees under plastic sheeting, but today it operates two solid health centers with its partners and this has led to improved access to quality health care for both refugees and the local population alike.

    Rwandan doctors and Burundian nurses mingle within the health center corridors, supporting patients , while cases requiring secondary and tertiary level care are referred to the local hospitals. For over 30,000 refugees living in urban settings, the Government is working on a plan to ensure they can access the national health insurance scheme.

    During the initial outbreak of the emergency, UNHCR and partners relied on costly trucking of water in order to reach the daily minimum standard, before constructing a temporary water treatment system which purified surface water from the Akagera River. UNHCR and partners constructed a permanent water treatment plant to provide sufficient water to the growing population of refugees. A pipeline to the surrounding host community—located in one of the driest areas of the country—is under construction to ensure they also benefit and get access to running water.

    UNHCR and its partner have constructed more than 190 classrooms in the local Paysannatschool, and today in partnership with MIDIMAR and Ministry of Education all schoolgoing-age refugee children in Mahama are integrated into the national school system and have access to education alongside Rwandan students from the host community. Kepler is also providing orientation classes in the camp for students who have been accepted on scholarships to study higher education in Kigali and obtain American-accredited university degrees without having to leave the country.

    To promote the empowerment of women refugees and mitigate risks of sexual and gender-based violence, MIDIMAR, the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, and UNHCR opened the Women and Girls Opportunity Centre last month, which will host different activities such as soap manufacturing, weaving and tailoring, offer a computer room to connect refugees in Rwanda to other women around the world, and counselling rooms and offices for women’s cooperatives. UNHCR has partnered with a social enterprise to provide access to export markets for for refugee women artisans, building on their existing skills in basket weaving to sell their products on the international market.

    Thus far, 50 refugee women have been assisted in forming a registered cooperative that has now made 6 shipments of exports to the USA that are being sold through an online store (see here: https://shop.indegoafrica.org/products/copy-of-plateau-basket-rp13).

    With support from MIDIMAR and UNHCR, the camp today features a vibrant market where refugees and host community members can get a haircut, shop for groceries, or catch the latest football match. Research conducted in Rwanda by University of California and University of Maastricht demonstrates that refugees contribute positively to the local economy through job-creasion and economic spill-over effects, and Mahama is no exception, with an expanded market for goods and services since the arrival of the refugees, benefitting Rwandans and refugees alike.

    The achievements that have been made in Mahama over the past two years—and also in the five camps hosting Congolese refugees—would not have been possible without the excellent cooperation between the Government and UNHCR. Recently the Government of Rwanda Leadership Retreat issued recommendations which will serve to improve the situation of refugees in the country, and UNHCR sees these recommendations – such as finding alternatives to firewood and discontinuing the use of plastic sheeting – as not only challenges but opportunities to work with the Government to respond to refugee situations in new, innovative ways that can serve as a model for other countries.

    Refugee situations all around the world require safeguard of humanitarian character of asylum and refugee camps. Indeed a draft joint strategy document has been submitted to the Government and it is currently being reviewed. A solid and strong partnership as well as a harmonious approach between Rwanda and UNHCR has led to provision of exceptional services to refugees in all camps to the extent that Rwanda is an example to follow in numerous fields.

    As the sun sets each day at Mahama camp, hundreds of refugee are seen re-entering the camp after a day’s work at the local community, local markets or from learning in the nearby school. These activities help give to refugees a sense of normalcy that they once experienced in their home country. The freedom of movement, the access to modern schools, health services and ability to interact freely with the host community can only be attributed to the existing peace and good relationship between the Government of Rwanda, UNHCR and international community.

    Mahama camp opened on 22 April 2015, following a sudden mass influx of refugees from Burundi who were fleeing violence related to the presidential elections. In a span of just three weeks – between 1 April and 22 April, there were already 9,500 Burundian refugees in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. The number of Burundian refugees in Rwanda today stands at nearly 84,898, of which two thirds are living in Mahama camp.

    Mahama refugee camp has been transformed into a model settlement.

  • Prosecutors open terror investigation into Paris attack

    {French decision follows deadly Champs Elysees attack on police, just three days before first round of presidential vote.}

    French prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation into an attack in the Champs Elysees shopping district in Paris where an armed man killed one policeman and seriously injured two people.

    President Francois Hollande said he was “convinced” a “terrorism” investigation was the correct approach to the incident before the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack via its affiliate the Amaq website.

    Hollande promised “absolute vigilance, particularly with regard to the electoral process” as France braces itself for the first round of a presidential election on Sunday.

    French television networks reported that the attacker was a 39-year-old French national and was known to anti-terrorism police.

    Police said the gunman had been convicted in 2005 of three counts of attempted murder – two of them against police officers.

    Raids took place at his address in a suburb to the east of Paris.

    “The identity of the attacker is known and has been checked. I will not give it because investigations with raids are ongoing,” Francois Molins, Paris prosecutor, said.

    “The investigators want to be sure whether he had or did not have accomplices.”

    Joseph Downing, a researcher at the London Schools of Economics, said that if the attacker was, as reported, known to police, it raised questions of how he could still stage an attack.

    “This is something we’ve seen repeatedly in France, that everyone who has popped up to carry out an attack, has been on the police database,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “Even the person that murdered the priest [in Normandy] last year was actually on bail for terror offences at the time.”

    France’s interior ministry said a man sought by the authorities turned himself in to police in Belgium on Friday, adding that it was “too early to say” if he was linked to the shooting.

    Citing a source, the AFP news agency reported that the 35-year-old was described as “very dangerous” and had been sought by Belgian police as part of a separate investigation.

    Al Jazeera’s Natasha Butler, reporting from Paris, said the attack could benefit National Front Leader Marine Le Pen and conservative presidential hopeful Francois Fillon.

    “The attack has thrown the spotlight back on to security and people will have that firmly on their minds when they head to the polls on Sunday,” she said.

    “Le Pen and Fillon have both taken a very hard line on security during their campaigns, they both link immigration to terrorism, with Le Pen going as far as saying she will ban it altogether. So both will certainly be playing up that narrative when they speak later on Friday.”

    Several candidates announced after the attack that they had ended their campaigns early as a mark of respect.

    While Thursday’s attack shocked France and reverberated across the world, Al Jazeera’s Shafik Mandhai, reporting from Paris, said life in the capital had returned to normal on Friday morning.

    “The only notable difference to a normal day on the Champs Elysees are the satellite trucks parked up from various media outlets,” he said.

    “The police presence is also notably low key.”

    France has been under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a series of attacks that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

    The Charlie Hebdo magazine was hit in January 2015, sites around Paris including the Bataclan concert hall were targeted in November the same year, and families at a fireworks display in Nice in July 2016.

    Paul Gray, a US citizen working in Paris, told Al Jazeera that it was the second time he found himself caught up in an attack.

    “It was crazy, I work nearby and we were having a few beers with a colleague who was leaving and we just saw people running,” he said.

    “We were trapped, it was traumatic because the same thing happened to me the last time there was an attack.”

    ISIL has claimed responsibility for the attacks in revenge for French air strikes in Syria and Iraq.

    Police secure the Champs Elysees following the attack

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Police make new arrest in Dortmund team bus attack

    {Police say 28-year-old German-Russian national hoped to profit from a drop in Borussia Dortmund club’s share price.}

    German police have detained a man early in connection with last week’s attack on football club Borussia Dortmund’s team bus, according to federal prosecutors.

    Anti-terror police “have arrested a 28-year-old German-Russian national, Sergej W.”, a police statement said on Friday, indicating that the suspect was hoping to profit from a drop in the football club’s share price as a result of the attack.

    Germany has been on high alert since a series of attacks last year, including the Christmas market truck assault in Berlin in December that claimed 12 lives.

    According to the investigation, the suspect had bought 78,000 euros ($84,000) worth of shares in the club online from the team’s hotel.

    The man was detained during a police operation near the town of Tuebbingen in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, southwest Germany.

    The attack happened on April 11 as three explosions occurred while Borussia Dortmund team bus was heading to their stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco on Tuesday, injuring Spanish defender Marc Bartra.

    Initial investigations focused on letters claiming responsibility for the attack that were found close to the site of the blasts, which claimed the attack was carried out “in the name of Allah”, broadcaster ARD reported, citing other news media.

    But German investigators last week said they had “significant doubts” that the attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus on Tuesday was the work of “Islamists”.

    {{‘No evidence’ against Iraqi}}

    The police had arrested a 26-year-old Iraqi national, but later said there was “no evidence” he had taken part in carrying out the attack.

    However, they were seeking an arrest warrant to keep the man in detention over allegedly having been a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

    German newspaper Tagesspiegel said on its webiste last week it had received an anonymous far-right email claiming responsibility for Tuesday’s attack.

    It said the email referred to Adolf Hitler, railed against multiculturalism and suggested another attack might occur on April 22.

    The quarter-final first-leg match, rescheduled for the day after the attack, was won by Monaco amid heightened security.

    Extra forces were deployed around team hotels and their buses took designated safe routes to the stadiums.

    The assault was described by Dortmund city’s police chief as a “targeted attack” against the team, while Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “horrified” by the “repugnant act”.

    Three explosions on April 11 targeted Borussia Dortmund's team bus

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Julian Assange’s arrest a ‘priority’: Jeff Sessions

    {Attorney General Jeff Sessions remarks come amid reports that his office is preparing charges against Julian Assange.}

    The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US “priority”, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the leaker.

    “We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,” Sessions said at a news conference on Thursday in response to a reporter’s question about a US priority to arrest Assange.

    The justice department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented.

    “This is a matter that’s gone beyond anything I’m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious,” he said.

    “Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.”

    Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter.

    Several other media outlets cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange.

    Prosecutors had struggled to determine whether the First Amendment protected Assange from prosecution but had now found a way to move forward, officials told CNN.

    The justice department declined to comment on the reports.

    US election leaks

    Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies.

    He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010.

    Assange’s case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party.

    US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election.

    Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump.

    OPINION: WikiLeaks’ CIA document dump will cause a ripple effect

    Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agency’s top-secret hacking operations.

    The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence.

    Supporters of WikiLeaks say it is practising the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.

    CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week branded WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service,” saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators.

    Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States.

    “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence … And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organisations,” said Pompeo.

    “It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

    In response to Thursday’s report WikiLeaks reposted on Twitter an opinion piece written by Assange and published in the Washington Post earlier this month.

    “WikiLeaks’ sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths, which I remain convinced is the cornerstone of the United States’ remarkable liberty, success and greatness,” Assange wrote.

    Supporters of WikiLeaks say it is practising the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press

    Source:Al Jazeera