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  • North Korea Fires Missiles into Sea of Japan

    North Korea Fires Missiles into Sea of Japan

    {{North Korea test-fired two medium-range missiles on Wednesday as US President Barack Obama hosted talks with Japan and South Korea, pledging “unwavering commitment” to Tokyo and Seoul in the face of Pyongyang’s nuclear threat.}}

    A US State Department statement said officials were closely coordinating with allies and partners, including in the UN Security Council, “to take the appropriate measures in response” to the test, which it said was a violation of UNSC resolutions and represented “a troubling and provocative escalation”.

    South Korea’s defence ministry said both ballistic missiles flew 650 kilometres (400 miles) into the Sea of Japan, upping the ante after a series of shorter-range launches by Pyongyang in recent weeks.

    Defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said the speed and range suggested they were Rodong-class missiles with a maximum range of between 1,000-1,500 kilometres.

    “This missile is capable of hitting not only most of Japan but also Russia and China. So it is a fairly dangerous missile,” Kim said, adding that the missiles appeared to have been fired from mobile launchers near the capital.

    ‘Attention seeking’

    UN Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from conducting any ballistic missile tests.

    North Korea last tested a Rodong missile, also known as Nodong, in July 2009, following UN condemnation of its second nuclear test in May of the same year.

    Kim said the tests were clearly timed to coincide with the summit in The Hague between Obama, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye.

    “The North is boasting its military capability to grab the attention of the international community,” Kim said.

    Japanese media quoted a foreign ministry official saying on Tuesday that despite the tests, upcoming talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes would go ahead.

    Separately, Japanese media reported that Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told a parliamentary committee that the Japanese government had protested against the missile launches through its embassy in Beijing.

    agencies

  • 3 Secrete Service Agents Dropped from Obama Security

    3 Secrete Service Agents Dropped from Obama Security

    {{Three Secret Service agents have been removed from US President Barack Obama’s security detail after reportedly going out for a night of drinking in Amsterdam.}}

    Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary confirmed on Tuesday that the three had been sent back to the United States for disciplinary reasons, but declined to give any further details.

    The agents were removed from their detail after going out for a night of drinking, according to the Washington Post. One of the agents was found passed out drunk in a hotel hallway a day before the president arrived in Europe, the Post reported, citing three people familiar with the incident.

    None of the agents were supervisors, a Secret Service source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    The incident comes despite the agency’s efforts to restore its reputation after a scandal in 2012 involving prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia.

    A report by the US Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general released in December urged tougher management and disciplinary standards, recommending that the Secret Service monitor and address excessive alcohol consumption and personal conduct within its workforce.

    The agency was also urged to strengthen and clarify its policies for dealing with misconduct and disciplining employees.

    Following the scandal in Colombia, Obama appointed Julia Pierson as the Secret Service’s first woman director in March 2013.

    {agencies}

  • French to Be World’s Most-Spoken Language by 2050

    French to Be World’s Most-Spoken Language by 2050

    {{If the consensus seems to be that France is in a bad mood these days, one thing might cheer the country’s citizens up: despite reports to the contrary, their language is alive and well.}}

    A recent study by French investment bank Natixis suggests that French could be the most-spoken language – ahead of even English and Mandarin – within 40 years.

    That projection, which estimates 750 million French speakers by 2050, is based on the fact that the language is spoken in the fastest-growing areas of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.

    The methodology of the study has been disputed, notably by Forbes, since it counts all inhabitants of countries in which French is an official language as Francophone.

    Still, the report comes as good news for defenders of the French tongue, which remains an official language of major international bodies like the UN, EU and Olympics Committee.

    The Natixis report comes on the heels of a New York Times article about a French-language renaissance in New York – at least in public schools, where bilingual French-English curriculums are becoming increasingly common and popular.

    france24

  • Russian-U.S. Crew Blasts off For Space

    Russian-U.S. Crew Blasts off For Space

    {{Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut blasted off for six-month stay aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday, a partnership unaffected by the political rancor and economic sanctions triggered by Russia’s annexation of Crimea.}}

    The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson lifted off at 5:17 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

    The trip to the space station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 260 miles above Earth, was scheduled to take about six hours. However, an unknown problem caused the crew’s Soyuz capsule to skip two planned steering maneuvers, delaying the crew’s arrival until Thursday.

    “The crew is in no danger. The Soyuz (is) equipped with plenty of consumables to go even beyond the next two days, should that be become necessary. Nobody expects that that will be the case,” mission commentator Rob Navias said during a NASA Television broadcast.

    Russian flight controllers expect to get more information about why the Soyuz’s thrusters failed to fire when the capsule flies over ground communications stations later on Tuesday.

    “Initial information indicates the problem may have been the spacecraft was not in the proper orientation for the burn,” NASA said in a status report posted on its website.

    Russia’s state television channel Rossiya-24 quoted national space agency Roscosmos as saying the flight of the Soyuz spaceship was now taking place “in a reserve mode” after its orientation engines failed to ignite.

    “It’s all normal on board,” it said.

    Docking was tentatively retargeted for 7:58 p.m. EDT on Thursday.

    Several hours before the docking, Soyuz will make a final emergency maneuver to enter the orbit of the space station, RIA news agency quoted a Russian space official as saying.

    The arrival of Skvortsov, Artemyev and Swanson will return the station to a full six-member crew. The orbital outpost, a project of 15 nations, has been short-staffed since two other cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut returned to Earth on March 11.

    The space station partnership, overseen by the United States and Russia, so far has been immunized from the political and economic fallout following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

    “We don’t want to see political turmoil and it could ultimately get in the way of our spaceflight, but from the operator standpoint … this is absolutely a non-issue for us,” NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, who is due to fly to the station in May, said in a CBS News interview on March 18.

    Agencies

  • Brazil’s anti-spy Internet Bill Clears Lower House Vote

    Brazil’s anti-spy Internet Bill Clears Lower House Vote

    {{Brazil’s lower chamber of Congress approved groundbreaking legislation on Tuesday aimed at guaranteeing equal access to the Internet and protecting the privacy of its users in the wake of U.S. spying revelations.}}

    To ensure passage of the bill, the government had to drop a contentious provision that would have forced global Internet companies to store data on Brazilian servers inside the country.

    The rule was added last year to proposed Internet governance legislation after revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency had spied on the personal communications of Brazilians, including those of President Dilma Rousseff.

    Instead, the bill says companies such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc are subject to Brazilian laws and courts in cases involving information on Brazilians, even if the data is stored on servers abroad.

    The government refused to drop another a key provision on net neutrality that was opposed by telecom companies because it bars them from charging higher prices for different content, such as video streaming and voice services such as Skype.

    The legislation dubbed Brazil’s “Internet Constitution” protects freedom of expression and sets limits to the gathering and use of metadata about Internet users.

    Experts, such as World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, have praised the bill for balancing the rights and duties of individuals, governments and corporations, while ensuring the Internet continues to be an open and decentralized network.

    Following the spying revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, including allegations that the NSA secretly collected data stored on servers by Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo Inc, Brazil sought to force them to store data on Brazilian servers in the country.

    Internet companies complained that would push up their costs and create barriers to the free flow of information.

    reuters

  • Former Executive Secretary in Court over Aiding FDLR

    Former Executive Secretary in Court over Aiding FDLR

    {{Fifteen suspects including Alfred Nsengimana former Executive secretary of cyuve sector in Musanze district have appeared before the high court of Musanze to answer charges of collaborating with the FDLR and aiding attacks that claimed lives.}}

    The suspects appeared before court on Tuesday where one of the suspects admitted to aiding the FLDR in executing an attack that claimed a Policeman and another attack on the home of Musanze district mayor which claimed another life.

    Prosecution charged the suspects with among others; murder, colluding with terrorists, treason, belonging to a terrorist group with aim of overthrowing government among others.

    One of the suspects identified as Nsengiyumva Jotham admitted to having shot dead a Police officer and that he threw a grenade in the home of the district mayor which killed one child aged 18months.

    Nsegiyumva also admitted to having thrown a grenade in musanze town center that seriously injured six people. Both attacks were conducted in January 2014.

    Prosecution also presented that Nsengimana was very instrumental in aiding the terror activities of FDLR in Musanze providing evidence (as seen in his passport) the suspect had travelled several times to DRCongo and Uganda yet without any permission from his superiors.

    Among the suspects are three women who told court that they smuggled grenades and other explosives provided to them by one FDLR rebel they identified as Nohel.

    Prosecution represented by Gaspard Rudatinya sought the suspects be remanded for 30 days subject to the weight and nature of crimes they are suspected to have committed.

  • Rwanda And Seychelles to Establish Trade Links

    Rwanda And Seychelles to Establish Trade Links

    {{Rwanda and the Seychelles republic have held talks during which both countries sought to establish trade links and also the possibility of Rwandair starting commercial flights to the island nation.}}

    The speaker of Seychelles National Assembly Dr. Patrick Herminie was in Rwanda where he met with President of the Rwanda senate Dr.Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo.

    The two officials pledged to establish links aimed at improving tourism, agriculture and trade between the two countries.

    Dr. Ntawukuriryayo told IGIHE that their discussions focused on Investment opportunities available in countries, import and export of goods produced in either countries and establishing flights by Rwandair to link the two countries.

    The Seychelles delegation which arrived in the country on 25 March will also specifically focus on learning from Rwanda’s experience in the use of ICT in the parliament. Seychelles national assembly still lags behind in the daily use of ICT by its members.

    Dr. Herminie told reporters, “Seychelles seeks to learn from Rwanda’s experiences that have transformed the east African country in just a few years”.

    The speaker of the Seychelles national assembly is scheduled to meet Presdient Paul Kagame will also visit Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Rwandair, Kigali genocide Memorial site and also travel to the eastern Province to meet pineapple farmers and later visit the traditional cultural sites in Nyanza and lastly attend a joint session of senate and lower chamber of parliament.

    {L-President of the Rwanda senate Dr.Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo and Speaker of Seychelles National Assembly Dr. Patrick Herminie}

    {Speaker of Seychelles National Assembly Dr. Patrick Herminie}

    {President of the Rwanda senate Dr.Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo }

  • ICGLR Committee Calls for Immediate Action Against FDLR

    ICGLR Committee Calls for Immediate Action Against FDLR

    {{President Kagame, President Museveni, President Sassou Nguesso, President Kabila and President Zuma gathered Tuesday in Luanda-Angola for a meeting on regional security hosted by President dos Santos of Angola.}}

    As members of the ICGLR committee charged with monitoring the situation in DRC alongside special guest President Zuma, the heads of states met to discuss additional ways to neutralize negative forces operating in Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Opening the summit, President Dos Santos who is currently serving as the President of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, urged members to take further steps to bring peace to the region:

    “We refer to groups of ADF and FDLR and the need to undertake the multidisciplinary action in political, social and military areas to achieve full and lasting peace.”

    President Dos Santos also called on countries to play an active part to prevent safe haven of negative forces on their territory:

    “Countries should not allow their territories to be used for carrying out hostile actions against other states. We cannot allow rebel groups, without any social support base to continue to undermine the rule of law and the integrity of national borders, to destabilize the economic and social life and to keep the populations hostage of their illegal and criminal practices.”

    Following an explanation of President Kagame and President Sassou Nguesso on FDLR, the summit committed to continue repatriation of FDLR members who are willing to disarm and return voluntarily and to engage urgent military actions against those unwilling to disarm.

    The meeting concluded with all members agreeing to adopt a general approach for fighting against negative forces, including political and economic sanctions against all negative forces; to strengthen the regional and international cooperation in identification and neutralization of leaders of all negative forces sill active in the region and to work on the quick repatriation, in collaboration with the United nations, of the ex-M23 elements from Uganda and Rwanda.

    The summit also commended the promulgation of the amnesty law by the DRC Government and called upon DRC government to speed up the implementation of Nairobi Declaration in order to facilitate the resolution of the issue of ex-M23.

    The committee of the ICGLR was established during the last meeting of the ICGLR held in January of this year. The aim of this committee is to monitor the situation in DRC.

    {Presidents (L-R) Joseph Kabila (DRC),Paul Kagame (Rwanda),Jacob Zuma (south Africa),Eduardo Do santos (Angola also chair of ICGLR), Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo-Brazaville) and Yoweri Museveni (Uganda)}

  • Facebook to Buy Oculus for $2 billion

    Facebook to Buy Oculus for $2 billion

    {{Facebook Inc will acquire two-year-old Oculus VR Inc, a maker of virtual-reality glasses for gaming, for $2 billion, buying its way into the fast-growing wearable devices arena with its first-ever hardware deal.}}

    The acquisition, which comes hot on the heels of its $19 billion deal for messaging service WhatsApp, marks a big bet by Facebook to anticipate the next shift in an evolving technology industry, at a time when consumers are increasingly abandoning their PCs for smartphones.

    The world’s largest social network was deemed late to recognize the shift to mobile devices and the company’s revenue has only recently begun to recover from the late start.

    Many in the industry believe that wearable devices could represent the next big platform shift. Google Inc has been testing Google Glass, a stamp-sized electronic screen mounted to a pair of eyeglasses for several years. Last week, it introduced an effort to develop computerized wristwatches.

    On Tuesday, Facebook said virtual-reality technology could emerge as the next social and communications platform.

    “The history of our industry is that every 10 or 15 years there’s a new major computing platform, whether it’s the PC, the Web or now mobile,” Facebook co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call with analysts and media on Tuesday to discuss the acquisition.

    “We’re making a long-term bet that immersive, virtual and augmented reality will become a part of people’s daily life,” the 29-year-old Zuckerberg said, noting that wearing the Oculus goggles was “different than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

    Zuckerberg said Facebook was not interested in becoming a hardware company and did not intend to try to make a profit from sales of the devices over the long term. Instead, he said Facebook’s software and services would continue to serve as the company’s underlying business, potentially generating revenue on Oculus devices through everything from advertising to sales of virtual goods.

    While Oculus will operate as an independent company, Zuckerberg stressed that Facebook’s plans for Oculus extended well beyond games.

    “Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face – just by putting on goggles in your home,” he said.

    In addition to game makers, Oculus has garnered some interest from developers keen on creating apps in areas like architecture, automobiles, marketing and education, the company has said.

    Shares of Facebook, which have risen 25 percent in the past six months, were down nearly 1 percent at $64.36 in late trading on Tuesday.

    Facebook’s recent spate of acquisitions is somewhat concerning, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to investors on Tuesday. But he said that for a company of Facebook’s size, the deal did not seem “irrational.”

    “The question this time is whether Facebook is too early or simply betting on the wrong platform. This won’t be known for some time. But if it gets the platform right, we’re relatively confident that Facebook will develop an effective monetization strategy for it, thus boosting its overall financial growth,” Mahaney said.

    {reuters}

  • Training to Equip Journalists With Skills to Report on Labour Issues

    Training to Equip Journalists With Skills to Report on Labour Issues

    {{The Rwanda Journalists Association in partnership with the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization has today kicked off a week-long training of trainers on labour rights.}}

    Journalists and media professionals play a leading role in shaping the public debate about social and development issues. They seek to both reflect and influence public opinion.

    But they are also pressurized by limited time and resources, making it hard to report and analyze these complex, important issues in a way that draws their audiences back, again and again.

    By highlighting the relevance of international labour standards adopted and supervised by the UN agency dealing with labour questions, namely the International Labour Organization, the training seeks to equip media professionals to handle labour issues in an effective way, broadening their news agendas, improving their reporting and analysis and its relevance to readers, viewers and listeners.

    The overall objective of the training of trainers is to equip journalists and media professionals with the knowledge and competencies to use international labour standards and the work of the international supervisory bodies at the national level, and to train on the use of international labour standards in labour and social reporting.

    “This training will equip the media with the skills to report about such a pertinent issue with an increased level of responsibility and professionalism,” Gonzaga Muganwa, the Executive Secretary of The Rwanda Association of Journalists said.

    “We look forward to a fruitful week of better understanding the internationally recognized human and labour rights and consequently playing our part in efficiently handling labour issues within our day-to-day media work”.

    “During the training the national journalistic prize “Media for Labour Rights in Rwanda” will also be launched” said Maura Miraglio, Programme Officer at the International Training Centre.

    “The prize is a further opportunity to spread information on international labour standards in the country and will give the author of the best news story mainstreaming them a grant to attend an international event for the media”.

    The training is part of the Project “Awareness raising and capacity building on human rights in Rwanda, with an emphasis on labour rights” (FED/2013/315367), which is co-funded by the European Union.

    The Project is implemented by the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization in partnership with the Institute of Legal Practice and Development and the Rwanda Journalists Association.