Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

Red Cross: 115 bodies found in CAR’s Bangassou

Scores of bodies discovered in border town where 26 people were previously reported dead, aid group says.

Red Cross on Wednesday said its workers had found 115 bodies in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) border town of Bangassou after several days of militia attacks, raising by more than four times a previously reported death toll.

Antoine Mbao Bogo, the president of the aid group’s local branch, told the Reuters news agency that those killed had “died in various ways”, including from knives, clubs and bullet wounds.

“We found 115 bodies and 34 have been buried,” he said from the capital, Bangui.

A senior UN official had previously reported 26 civilian deaths.

According to the UN refugee agency, the situation in Bangassou sent an estimated 2,750 refugees fleeing across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the weekend.

The violence represents a new escalation in a conflict that began in 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters seized power and removed then-president Francois Bozize, prompting reprisal killings from Christian anti-Balaka militias.

The UN high commissioner for human rights warned on Tuesday the violence in areas previously spared major bloodshed was “highly worrying”.

“The hard-earned relative calm in [the capital] Bangui and some of the bigger towns in CAR risks being eclipsed by the descent of some rural areas into increasing sectarian violence, with defenceless civilians – as usual – paying the highest price,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said.

In a statement on Tuesday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also said unverifiable figures indicate up to 100 people may have been killed in three days of clashes from May 7 to 9 in the town of Alindao between anti-Balaka fighters and an ex-Seleka group.

Source:Al Jazeera

May 18, 2017
Migrant children less obese due to absent grandmothers

Children of migrants to Chinese cities have lower rates of obesity than youngsters in more affluent established urban families — probably because their grandparents are not around to over-feed them, a new study has found.

Fewer opportunities for unhealthy snacking and less pressure for academic achievement, leading to more active play, also contribute to migrant children’s lower obesity rates.

Large-scale migration sees millions of Chinese families leave the countryside and settle in the country’s biggest cities in search of economic prosperity.

However, migrant children are still at risk of increasing obesity because, unlike youngsters from affluent families, lack of parental supervision after school and unsafe neighbourhoods cause them to eat unhealthily and limit opportunities for active play.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham interviewed parents, grandparents and teachers at schools in the city of Guangzhou, in southern China. Their study — published today in the journal PLOS ONE — explored the differences in perceived causes of childhood obesity between local and migrant communities.

They worked in partnership with the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and the Guangzhou Health Care Promotion Centre for Primary and Middle Schools to carry out the first qualitative study to explore and identify these differences in urban China.

Dr Bai Li, from the University of Birmingham, said: “Childhood obesity is a global public health crisis — particularly in China, yet the health of children who migrate with their parents to major Chinese cities has rarely been explored.

“It is clear that an important step towards preventing the rise of obesity in migrant children is understanding the perceptions of parents, grandparents and teachers on the causes of childhood obesity.”

She added that 15 per cent of Chinese children and adolescents, aged 7-18, are overweight or obese — accounting for 30.43 million individuals. Live-in grandparents in local families often took responsibility for looking after their grandchild, but many viewed a fat child as a symbol of health and success and, as a result, overfed them.

However, grandparents of migrant children remained living in their hometown and had no influence on childcare.

Migrant children had fewer opportunities for unhealthy snacking after school, because they had to catch buses home — getting on and off the vehicles within their school. Yet, local children often bought food from unlicenced street traders or were met at the school gates by their grandmothers bearing snacks.

“Although childhood obesity in major Chinese cities is currently more prevalent among local children than migrant children, recent trends suggest a steeper increase among youngsters coming to the cities from rural areas,” commented Dr Li.

“The results of our study highlight the need for tailored interventions to prevent a significant rise in the number of migrant children who are overweight or obese and the associated short and longer term health consequences.

“Future interventions for local communities should include education for grandparents, enforcement of regulations limiting illegal food traders outside schools and education policies that re-balance academic focus with increased physical activity. Within migrant communities on the other hand, interventions should focus on supporting parents and providing more physical activity opportunities outside of school.”

Earlier research by Birmingham and Guangzhou researchers showed that the prevalence of obesity in resident children in Guangzhou was 20% compared with 14.3% in migrant children. Migrants now comprise up to 50% of the population in major cities across China. In general, they tend to have lower levels of income and education than city residents.

The earlier study found that the obesity among resident urban children was higher in boys than compared with girls. It also increased as children grew older and per-capita household income and maternal education increased.

Dr Weijia Liu said: “Childhood obesity is an important public health problem in China. With the cooperation of the University of Birmingham, the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control is able to deepen the research of factors contributing to childhood obesity in China.

“Our research does not only provide a scientific basis for formulating effective intervention for childhood obesity in the city, but also strengthens the friendship and cooperation between the two cities.”

Source:Science Daily

May 18, 2017
Blind people have brain map for ‘visual’ observations too

Is what you’re looking at an object, a face, or a tree? When processing visual input, our brain uses different areas to recognize faces, body parts, scenes, and objects. Scientists at KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Belgium, have now shown that people who were born blind use a ‘brain map’ with a very similar layout to distinguish between these same categories.

Our brain only needs a split second to determine what we’re seeing. The area in our brain that can categorize these visual observations so quickly is the so-called ventral-temporal cortex, the visual brain. Like a map, this region is divided into smaller regions, each of which recognizes a particular category of observations — faces, body parts, scenes, and objects.

Scientists have long wondered whether we’re born with this map, or whether its development relies on the visual input that we receive.

To answer this question, researchers from the KU Leuven Laboratory for Biological Psychology conducted an experiment with people who were born blind — some of them even without eyeballs — and have therefore never processed any visual information.

They asked the blind participants to listen to sounds from four categories: laughing, kissing, and lip smacking for faces; hand clapping and footsteps for body parts; forest and beach sounds for scenes; and a clock, washing machine, and car for objects. Meanwhile, a scanner measured the activity in their visual brain.

“We found that blind individuals also use the map in the visual brain,” Professor Hans Op de Beeck from the KU Leuven Laboratory of Biological Psychology explains. “Their visual brain responds in a different way to each category. This means that blind people, too, use this part of the brain to differentiate between categories, even though they’ve never had any visual input. And the layout of their map is largely the same as that of sighted people. This means that visual experience is not required to develop category selectivity in the visual brain.”

But these findings also raise new questions. For one thing, sounds are very different from visual input such as images and videos, so what exactly is being processed in blind people’s visual brain? Further research will have to show.

Source:Science Daily

May 18, 2017
New research reveals how exercising can make ten years younger

There’s no therapy, diet or cream that can stop the effect of ageing; ageing is a natural process that has been, from the beginning of time.

However, the effects of ageing can be slowed down, as we can see that some people tend to age faster than some people. Besides genetics, ageing can also be slowed down, various researches has found.

A new research reveals you may be able to slow one type of aging – the kind that happens inside your cells – if only you’re willing to sweat.

The study which was conducted by researchers from Brigham Young University finds that people who have consistently high levels of physical activity have significantly longer telomeres than those who have sedentary lifestyles, as well as those who are moderately active.

Telomeres are the protein endcaps of our chromosomes. They’re like our biological clock and they’re extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, we lose a tiny bit of the endcaps. Therefore, the older we get, the shorter our telomeres.

Exercise science professor Larry Tucker found adults with high physical activity levels have telomeres with a biological aging advantage of nine years over those who are sedentary, and a seven-year advantage compared to those who are moderately active. To be highly active, women had to engage in 30 minutes of jogging per day (40 minutes for men), five days a week.

“Just because you’re 40, doesn’t mean you’re 40 years old biologically,” Tucker said. “We all know people that seem younger than their actual age. The more physically active we are, the less biological aging takes place in our bodies.”

“If you want to see a real difference in slowing your biological aging, it appears that a little exercise won’t cut it,” Tucker added. “You have to work out regularly at high levels.”

The study was published in the medical journal Preventive Medicine.

Source:Elcrema

May 18, 2017
Large volcanic eruption may have caused the first mass extinction

Researchers in the USA and Japan say they may have found the cause of the first mass extinction of life.

There have been five mass extinctions since the divergent evolution of early animals 600 -450 million years ago. The cause of the third and fourth was volcanic activity, while an asteroid impact led to the fifth. But triggers of the first and second mass extinctions had, until now, been unknown.

The first mass extinction occurred at the end of the Ordovician. This age is between the divergence of the Ordovician and land invasion of vascular land plant and animals. Animals in the Ordovician-Silurian comprised marine animals like corals, trilobites, sea scorpion, orthoceras, brachiopods, graptolite, crinoid and jawless fish. Approximately 80% of species disappeared at the end of the Ordovician.

A team led by Dr. David S. Jones of Amherst College and Professor Kunio Kaiho of Tohoku University, looked into possible triggers of the first mass extinction. They took sedimentary rock samples from two places — North America and southern China — and analyzed the mercury (Hg) in them. They found Hg enrichments coinciding with the mass extinction in both areas.

This, they believe, is the product of large volcanic eruptions because Hg anomaly was also observed in other large igneous province volcanisms.

Huge volcanic eruptions can produce sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere. Sulfate aerosols are strong, light-reflecting aerosols, and cause global cooling. This rapid climate change is believed to be behind the loss of marine creatures.

Kaiho’s team is now studying the second mass extinction in the hopes of further understanding the cause and processes behind it.

Source:Science Daily

May 18, 2017
How scientists turned a flag into a loudspeaker

A paper-thin, flexible device created at Michigan State University not only can generate energy from human motion, it can act as a loudspeaker and microphone as well, nanotechnology researchers report in the May 16 edition of Nature Communications.

The audio breakthrough could eventually lead to such consumer products as a foldable loudspeaker, a voice-activated security patch for computers and even a talking newspaper.

“Every technology starts with a breakthrough and this is a breakthrough for this particular technology,” said Nelson Sepulveda, MSU associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and primary investigator of the federally funded project.

“This is the first transducer that is ultrathin, flexible, scalable and bidirectional, meaning it can convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and electrical energy to mechanical energy.”

In late 2016, Sepulveda and his team successfully demonstrated their sheet-like device — known as a ferroelectret nanogenerator, or FENG — by using it to power a keyboard, LED lights and an LCD touch-screen. That process worked with a finger swipe or a light pressing motion to activate the devices — converting mechanical energy to electrical energy.

The current breakthrough extends the FENG’s usability. The researchers discovered the high-tech material can act as a microphone (by capturing the vibrations from sound, or mechanical energy, and converting it to electrical energy) as well as a loudspeaker (by operating the opposite way: converting electrical energy to mechanical energy).

To demonstrate the microphone effect, the researchers developed a FENG security patch that uses voice recognition to access a computer. The patch was successful in protecting an individual’s computer from outside users. “The device is so sensitive to the vibrations that it catches the frequency components of your voice,” Sepulveda said.

To demonstrate the loudspeaker effect, the FENG fabric was embedded into an MSU Spartan flag. Music was piped from an iPad through an amplifier and into the flag, which then reproduced the sound flawlessly. “The flag itself became the loudspeaker,” Sepulveda said. “So we could use it in the future by taking traditional speakers, which are big, bulky and use a lot of power, and replacing them with this very flexible, thin, small device.”

Imagine a day when someone could pull a lightweight loudspeaker out of their pocket, slap it against the wall and transmit their speech to a roomful of people, Sepulveda said.

“Or imagine a newspaper,” he added, “where the sheets are microphones and loudspeakers. You could essentially have a voice-activated newspaper that talks back to you.”

Wei Li, an MSU engineering researcher and lead author of the paper in Nature Communications, said other potential applications of the FENG include noise-cancelling sheeting and a health-monitoring wristband that is voice-protected.

“Many people are focusing on the sight and touch aspects of flexible electronics,” Li said, “but we’re also focusing on the speaking and listening aspects of the technology.”

The innovative process of creating the FENG starts with a silicone wafer, which is then fabricated with several layers, or thin sheets, of environmentally friendly substances including silver, polyimide and polypropylene ferroelectret. Ions are added so that each layer in the device contains charged particles. Electrical energy is created when the device is compressed by human motion, or mechanical energy.

Story Source:Elcrema

May 18, 2017
REG gets new CEO

In what is seen as a move to strengthen competitiveness of the energy sector and meeting the EDPRS II targets of generating 563MW by 2018 and connect 70% of the households, the government has ushered in administrative changes that have seen the former CEO of Rwanda Energy Group (REG), Jean Bosco Mugiraneza, replaced by Ron Weiss an Israeli national.

The REG chairman board of directors, Prof. Manasseh Mbonye has told IGIHE that Mugiraneza has been replaced because he is likely to be appointed in other duties.

“The board has replaced him with a new CEO. It is usual,” he said.

Ron Weiss was the vice president of Israel Electric Corporation/IEC). He became visible when Israel Electric Corporation signed cooperation agreements with REG to support Rwanda address the challenge of electricity shortage.

The agreements incorporated clauses of training REG employees in construction, renovating, and resource management, making reports among other various areas in connection to electricity in Rwanda.

Prof. Mbonye explained that the new CEO was approved after outperforming others in an interview.

“We found him with enough expertise with the potential of helping us attain our targets. We selected a person with extra-ordinary technical and managerial skills,” he said.

He explained that Ron Weiss who led one of the strongest energy Corporation in Israel has started duties with the support of the outgoing CEO.

Mugiraneza has led REG since its inception in 2014.

May 18, 2017
RCS spends Rwf16 million on food per day, advised on self-reliance

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Budget and National Patrimony has advised Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) to engage inmates into productive work, especially in relation to agriculture so as to meet their food needs and save government Rwf 16 million per day spent on their feeding.

Parliament gave the advice yesterday as the Ministry of Justice and institutions under its supervision presented the draft budget for 2017/2018 financial year.

The chairperson of Standing Committee on Budget and National Patrimony, Mukayuhi Rwaka Constance, noted that once inmates become productive and prisons get to be self-food sustaining, much financial burden on the government budget will be relieved.

“I think there was a body created to supply food to inmates yet they (inmates) are supposed to be growing enough food for their consumption and surplus for sale,” she said.

The Commissioner General of RCS, CGP George Rwigamba said they have adopted policies of making inmates productive.

“We have existing policies where inmates are involved in income generating activities. A department in charge of production is operating. It has begun with agriculture. We have construction activities while a total of 4500 inmates are carrying community service (TIG),”he said.

CGP Rwigamba said inmates’ productivity should not be limited to agriculture because existing land is inadequate. According to statistics from RCS, beans and maize grown by inmates from one agricultural season can only feed them for 45 days.

The Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye said a new system of making inmates productive is set to be introduced where they will be employed in works related to their professions.

He pointed out an example where an inmate can teach children from scratch till they complete studies.

He noted that 30% of buildings in prisons are constructed by inmates. Signing and executing building and construction agreements with districts are among other activities by inmates which generated over Rwf 700 billion in 2016.

Inmates also make soaps used in various prisons in Rwanda.

Rwanda’s prisons accommodate over 59,000 inmates requiring an annual budget of Rwf 6 billion.

May 17, 2017
Protesters demand justice for Javier Valdez killing

Rights groups accuse Mexican authorities of failing to prosecute those who kill journalists covering drug gangs.

Media and rights groups have demanded the Mexican government catch the killers of the fifth and most high-profile journalist murdered this year in the country.

Javier Valdez, 50, who was shot dead in broad daylight on Monday in northwestern Sinaloa state. The awarding-winning journalist was one of the most prominent reporters on Mexico’s deadly “drug war”.

On Tuesday, the front pages of the country’s major newspapers carried pictures of Valdez as journalists demonstrated in the centre of the capital, Mexico City.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said he had ordered “an investigation of this outrageous crime”. He vowed to defend press freedom, “fundamental for our democracy”.

Press rights group Articulo 19 said that was the first time Pena Nieto had reacted publicly to one of the recent wave of journalists’ killings, which they consider a sign of rising pressure on the president.

But the killing fanned a wave of anger at the authorities, with rights groups saying corrupt officials are preventing journalists’ killers from being punished.

“How long will there be killings without pity and with impunity?” said Valdez’s own weekly publication, Riodoce.

“Murderous impunity,” ran the headline of an editorial in La Jornada, the national daily for which Valdez worked as Sinaloa correspondent.

Just hours after Valdez’s assassination on Monday, in Autlan, gunmen opened fire on Sonia Cordova, an executive at the Semanario Costeno weekly magazine, and her son.

Cordova was wounded and taken to hospital and her adult son was killed in the attack, the state prosecutor’s office said.

A state police source said her son, Jonathan Rodriguez Cordova, worked as a reporter at the family-run magazine, which publishes local news that includes some crime reporting, Reuters news agency reported.

In a 2017 report titled “No Excuse”, journalist Adela Navarro Bello wrote for the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists that “covering corruption in Mexico means living with impunity”.

“Between 2006 and 2016, 21 journalists were murdered with complete impunity in Mexico, putting the country sixth on CPJ’s annual index that measures cases where perpetrators remain unpunished,” Bello wrote.

“The system seems to be corrupt down to its very foundation; either that or it’s simply incapable of achieving justice.”

Valdez was due to be cremated on Tuesday, his family said.

Journalists’ unions said they planned demonstrations in homage to Valdez, including one outside government headquarters in Mexico City and one in his home town of Culiacan, where he was shot.

Some media in Sinaloa canceled their Tuesday editions in protest.

“This wave of violence shows the state of emergency in which Mexican journalists are living,” said Emmanuel Colombie, Latin American director of Reporters Without Borders.

“The Mexican government must take action proportionate to the seriousness of the situation and strengthen protection for journalists as soon as possible.”

Numerous media and human rights organisations including Amnesty International have called for an impartial investigation.

They accused the authorities of failing to prosecute those who kill journalists covering the drug gangs in broad daylight, sometimes in front of their families.

Articulo 19 says 105 journalists have been murdered and a further 23 have disappeared since 2000.

Of those cases, 99.7 percent remain unsolved, meaning the culprits have gone unpunished, it says.

Source:Al Jazeera

May 17, 2017
Civilians killed in separate bomb blasts in Afghanistan

Children among those killed in separate unclaimed bombings in Kapisa and Kandahar provinces.

One of the explosions took place in Dar-e-Tapa village in the Nijrab district of Kapisa province, in an area where children were walking, provincial police chief Mohammad Razaq Yaqoubi told Al Jazeera.

The roadside mine killed two children and wounded another two.

“The wounded children were taken to hospital and now they are in stable condition,” Yaqoubi said.

In a separate incident, one civilian was killed and 10 people wounded, including three policemen, in a double bombing in Kandahar city, capital of the synonymous province.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either bombing.

Afghan army advances in Kunduz

Separately, the Afghan military on Tuesday regained control of a district in northern Kunduz province that had fallen to Taliban fighters earlier this month as part of their so-called spring offensive, security officials said.

The army’s advance came after Afghan forces launched a major operation against Taliban positions to retake the Qala-e-Zal district.

“The governor’s building, police headquarters and several key areas are cleared of terrorists, but the operation is still ongoing in other insecure areas of the district,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

Speaking to AFP news agency, Assadullah Sadat, a member of the Kunduz provincial council, said: “Around 2,000 families have been displaced with most relocating in Kunduz city. Some have fled to other nearby districts.”

The Taliban had taken full control of the district on May 6.

The group’s so-called spring offensive normally marks the start of the fighting season, though the Taliban had continued to battle government forces through this past winter. An attack on a military base in the nearby city of Mazar-i-Sharif last month killed at least 135 security forces.

Kunduz is among the most violence-wracked provinces in northern Afghanistan. Although the city centre itself is in government hands, the Taliban control most of the surrounding districts.

Security forces have been struggling to open the main highway into the city after it was blocked with mines and improvised roadside bombs.

Thousands of residents are reported to have fled their homes to avoid the fighting.

According to US estimates, the Afghan government controls only about 60 percent of the country, with the rest under Taliban control or contested by armed groups.

Source:Al Jazeera

May 17, 2017