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  • Iranian Pharrell Fans Arrested

    Iranian Pharrell Fans Arrested

    A group of Iranian fans who created a tribute to Pharrell Williams’ hit song Happy have been arrested.

    The video shows three men and three unveiled women dancing to the song on the streets and rooftops of Tehran.

    Police chief Hossein Sajedinia said the “vulgar clip” had “hurt public chastity”, the ISNA news agency said.

    Iran’s state-run TV broadcast a programme on Tuesday, apparently showing the men and women confessing on camera.

    A subtitled edition of the TV clip, posted on YouTube, identified the detainees as “actors” who claimed they were tricked into making the Happy video for an audition.

    “They told me they are making a feature film and they had a permit for it,” said one man in the video. “They said those things and they fooled me.”

    Another young woman added: “They had promised us not to publish the video.”

    According to some unconfirmed reports, a total of 13 people were arrested in connection with the video, but official sources have not confirmed the exact number of detainees.

    wirestory

  • Microsoft Launches Larger Surface Pro 3

    Microsoft Launches Larger Surface Pro 3

    {{Microsoft has unveiled the Surface Pro 3 – a bigger-screened, faster Windows 8 tablet than its predecessor.}}

    The new model features a 12in (30.5cm) touchscreen, 38% larger than before.

    The firm boasted that at 9.1mm (0.36in) thick – without an optional clip-on keyboard – it becomes the “thinnest PC” to be powered by one of Intel’s higher-end Core processors.

    One analyst said he believed there was pent-up demand for such a device in the corporate world.

    However, the platform has previously been outsold by rivals.

    “The question that needs to be asked and answered is, ‘Why hardware?’” said chief executive Satya Nadella at the launch event in New York.

    “We clearly are not interested in building refrigerators or toasters. We are not building hardware for hardware’s sake.

    “We are not interested in competing with our OEMs [original equipment manufacturers].

    “In fact, our goal is to create new categories and spark new demand for our entire ecosystem. That’s what inspires us and motivates us with what we are doing in our devices and hardware.”

    According to research firm IDC, Apple, Samsung, Asus, Lenovo and Amazon have each outsold Microsoft with their tablets.

    internet

  • Pistorius Sent for Psychiatric Tests

    Pistorius Sent for Psychiatric Tests

    {{The judge in the Oscar Pistorius trial has ordered him to start daily tests on Monday to assess his mental state when he killed his girlfriend.}}

    Judge Thokozile Masipa told the South African athlete to attend Weskoppies psychiatric hospital in Pretoria as an outpatient for a month.

    It comes after a defence witness said the double amputee was suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder (Gad).

    Mr Pistorius denies intentionally killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

    He says he accidentally shot her through the toilet door on Valentine’s Day last year in a state of panic, mistaking the 29-year-old model and law graduate for an intruder.

    {{‘Criminally responsible’}}

    The prosecution had argued the tests were essential after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster told the court in Pretoria the double amputee was “a danger to society”.

    But the defence vigorously opposed the move.

    Judge Masipa said on Tuesday that four appointed psychiatrists would “inquire into whether the accused by reason of mental illness or mental defect was at the time of the commission of the offence criminally responsible for the offence as charged.”

    She said the team would decide whether he was “capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his act”.

    wirestory

  • Russia & China Sign 30 year gas Deal

    Russia & China Sign 30 year gas Deal

    {{Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has signed multi-billion dollar, 30-year gas deal with China.}}

    The deal between Russia’s Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has been 10 years in the making. No official price has been given but it estimated to be worth over $400bn.

    Russia has been keen to find an alternative energy market for its gas as it faces the possibility of European sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine.

    Gazprom shares rose 2% on the news.

    The agreement, signed at a summit in Shanghai, is expected to deliver some 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year eastward to China’s burgeoning economy, starting around 2018.

    The main argument has been over price and China is thought to have been driving a hard bargain.

    Over the last 10 years it has found other gas suppliers. Turkmenistan is now China’s largest foreign gas supplier, and last year it started importing piped natural gas from Myanmar.

  • APE Rugunga in Ant-Drugs Abuse

    APE Rugunga in Ant-Drugs Abuse

    {{Drug abuse remains one of the most committed and registered crime in Rwanda, though the vice has shown a downward trend due to vigorous measures initiated by the Rwanda National Police in partnership with other stakeholders and the general public to combat it.}}

    The Rwanda National Police conducts awareness programmes in communities and in schools in particular owing to the fact that majority of the abusers are the youth, including students.

    On May 20, the campaign against drug abuse and crimes in general was held at APE Rugunga in Nyarugenge District where students and the school administration committed to fight the scourge.

    Chief Inspector of Police Claude Kabandana, head of training and sensitization in RNP, while speaking to students, said that some of their colleagues, who are drug abusers have dropped out of school while others become young parents, especially girls.

    He identified cannabis and kanyanga, an illicit gin as some of the drugs consumed by the youth.

    CIP Kabandana urged them to focus on their studies and always provide security organs with timely information on drug dealers and abusers and anything that can cause insecurity.

    He urged them to form crime clubs through which they will discuss and lay strategies against crimes.

    Christian Saido, the school head teacher lauded Police for the lessons adding that they are key guides in fighting drug abuse and other crimes.

    “The responsibility remains with us school leaders to implement the provided advices to fight drug abuse in our school and communities,” Saido observed.

    Students also committed to carry on the campaign and report those involved in crimes.

    RNP

  • Three-Year Jail Sentence for Mubarak

    Three-Year Jail Sentence for Mubarak

    {{A court in Egypt has sentenced former President Hosni Mubarak to three years in prison after finding him guilty of embezzling public funds.}}

    His two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were also convicted and given four-year terms.

    The three were also fined $3m (£1.8m) and ordered to repay the $17.6m (£10.4m) they were accused of stealing.

    The 86 year old is also on trial for abuse of power and conspiring in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that forced him to resign.

    He was found guilty of the charge relating to the protesters in 2012 along with former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and sentenced to life in prison.

    But in January 2013 the Court of Cassation upheld an appeal by the two men against their convictions on technical grounds and ordered a retrial.

    In August, a court ordered Mubarak’s release from prison and transfer to a military hospital in Cairo, where he is being held under house arrest.

    Gamal, the president’s one-time heir apparent, and Alaa, a wealthy businessman, are also being retried on separate corruption charges.

    wirestory

  • Knowless Dedicates Third Album to Dad

    Knowless Dedicates Third Album to Dad

    {{Knowless has produced a new album ‘Butera’ which she says is a dedication to her father Mr Butera.

    Born Ingabire Jeanne d’Arc the artist has become popular with her stage name Knowless which has also become a household name. Knowless is still single.

    She says she chose to name her new album after has father because it’s him that she owes her existence.

    “I wish my father was still alive to see the kind of transformation I have undergone. It’s not possible because its too late he died in 1994”.

    ‘Butera’ is her third album which is scheduled for official launch on July 5 at Serena Hotel.
    }}

  • Expand Women’s Access to Financial Services, EAC Told

    Expand Women’s Access to Financial Services, EAC Told

    {{East African partner states need to harmonise laws that increase access of credit to women, activists have said. }}

    Women entrepreneurs from Kenya and Uganda operating small, medium and large scale enterprises observed that despite the formulation of the East African Common Market protocol, laws, regulations and practices that hinder women access to financial assistance are still present.

    The women under the Women and Girls Empowerment project (WOGE) echoed their concerns during an advocacy meeting organised by the East African sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) at the Blue York Hotel in Busia recently.

    EASSI is a regional civil society organisation advocating for effective mechanisms for the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality.

    Fridah Oyugah, the chairperson Wamama pamoja (Funyula) Samia group, noted that many women operating along the borders have been empowered, but added that more sensitisation is needed.

    NV

  • Kenya Slowly Loses Grip on EAC Market

    Kenya Slowly Loses Grip on EAC Market

    {{Thousands of jobs are on the line as Kenya’s manufacturers lose their market share in the East African Community.}}

    This has placed the country’s dominance of the regional market — which has a gross domestic product of $80 billion (Sh7 trillion) — in jeopardy.

    According to data from industry experts and the recently released Economic Survey 2014, Kenya’s dominance in intra-EAC trade the past year has declined considerably as the manufacturing sector reels from new double taxation policies.

    Slowed growth “Kenyan exports to the EAC region have reduced by a total of 7.4 per cent from about Sh134 billion in 2012 to Sh124 billion in 2013,” reads the Economic Survey.

    This is despite the output in Kenya’s manufacturing industry growing by 4.8 per cent last year, compared to 3.2 per cent in 2012. According to the survey, increased production of agricultural produce, particularly in the sugar and horticulture sectors, buoyed Kenya’s manufacturing industry.

    This led to an increased volume of output valued at a total Sh1 trillion. However, a deeper analysis of the figures, and cross-referencing trade balances between Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, has Kenyan manufacturers worried that they may be losing ground to their regional counterparts.

    “The volume of exports to Tanzania reduced from Sh46 billion to Sh40 billion, while exports to Uganda also reduced from Sh67 billion to Sh65 billion, and to Rwanda from Sh16 billion to Sh13 billion,” said Ms Phyllis Wakiaga, the head of policy and research at the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM).

    “The fact that countries in the EAC region are some of the biggest importers of Kenyan goods, this trend will be retrogressive to the country’s manufacturing industry and the economy.”

    {standard news}

  • EU Law Does Stop ‘Benefit Tourism’

    EU Law Does Stop ‘Benefit Tourism’

    {{European Union citizens travelling to another member state do not automatically have a right to social welfare benefits there, a lawyer at the EU’s top court said Tuesday.}}

    Taking up a German complaint about what has become a hot button issue in European Parliament elections next weekend, the lawyer at the European Court of Justice was careful to stress that freedom of movement remains a core EU right.

    A person and their family have the right to stay in another EU state for up to three months “as long as they do not become an unreasonable burden on the social welfare system of the host country,” Advocate General Melchior Wathelet wrote in an opinion.

    “If such people wish to stay more than three months, they must have sufficient resources” to manage on their own, Wathelet said.

    Commenting on the case of a Jobcentre in the east German city of Leipzig which had rejected a benefits request by a Romanian woman and her son, who was born in Germany, Wathelet said the authorities had the right to refuse.

    “It is a matter of preventing abuse and a certain type of ‘social tourism,’” the lawyer said, using a phrase which has become politically highly charged in countries such as Britain, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, where resentment has grown against some EU immigrants seeking welfare payments.

    Lumped together with benefit fraud, eurosceptic and parties to the right have made the issue a rallying call in the current election campaign.

    Wathelet’s opinion is not binding on the ECJ but in about 80 percent of cases, the court will follow an Advocate General’s reasoning in the subsequent ruling.

    wirestory