Author: Publisher

Major Mistakes Holding You Back at Work

While everyone makes mistakes in the workplace, it’s important to know and understand which mistakes could have long-lasting effects on your career. Take a look at the top 4.

1. You’re put off after one mistake. The only way to grow in your career is to accept new challenges and bigger responsibilities.

However, with new tasks you also run the risk of making mistakes. And if you’ve always been a star employee you might not be used to making mistakes and persevering until you get better.

Don’t put yourself down about not understanding something – it’s ok. A sure-fire way to hold yourself back in your career is to shut down once you’ve made a mistake. With enough practice you’ll get better at your new tasks and you’ll soon become an incredible employee again.

2. You don’t handle feedback or criticism well. Some people are really not good at accepting criticism at work. What you have to realise is that constructive criticism will only help your career in future.

If you were previously not used to getting told that your work could be better, and how you could better it, you might become defensive and come across as immature and unprofessional.

Getting constructive criticism is not an attack on you; the person giving the criticism might have more experience in the field and give you advice that will only help you get back to being a top employee. Be careful not to push helpful advice away.

3. You’re not polite. No matter how great your work is, if you’re not polite to your colleagues, you won’t get very far. A good manager won’t allow for such behaviour in the workplace and you’ll soon get a reputation of being ‘hard to work with’ – no one likes to hire someone like that.

4. You’re uncertain of what your boss expects of you. Make sure you regularly refer to your Key Performance Areas that your boss has discussed with you.

No matter how great you are at organising functions, for example, if it’s not what your boss needs you to be good at, you’ll never accelerate your career. If you don’t have a KPA, set up a meeting with your manager and discuss what is needed of you.

Check your performance plan regularly to ensure you’re doing what is required of you, and then tackle additional tasks.

{careers24}

May 1, 2014
US Congressman Warns of Genocide in South Sudan

{{US congressman Frank Wolf has called on president Barack Obama to send former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to South Sudan to help resolve the ongoing crisis, amid warnings the conflict is eerily reminiscent of the genocide that unfolded in Rwanda 20 years ago.}}

“I stand before you as concerned as I have ever been about the state of affairs in South Sudan and the potential for the recent violence to spiral into genocide – a genocide that could defy even the horrors of Rwanda given the oil reserves that are in play,” he said.

Wolf made the comments at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday in which he showed graphic photos of mass killings taken by an expert who witnessed the atrocities taking place during a recent wave of ethnic violence.

“I stand before you as concerned as I have ever been about the state of affairs in South Sudan and the potential for the recent violence to spiral into genocide – a genocide that could defy even the horrors of Rwanda given the oil reserves that are in play,” he said.

“MORAL OBLIGATION”

The US played a pivotal role in South Sudan’s secession from Sudan in 2011 following the signing of a peace agreement in 2005 aimed at ending the more than two-decades-long conflict, and thus had a “moral obligation to act”.

“President Obama must do more to resolve this crisis. America helped give birth to South Sudan,” Wolf said.

“Both sides are at fault and by immediately dispatching president Clinton and president Bush to help negotiate a halt to these killings, we would unequivocally convey to the long-suffering people of that nation that this is a US foreign policy priority,” he added.

Wolf’s comments come ahead of a visit to the capital, Juba, by secretary of state John Kerry as the US warns it is considering targeted sanctions on South Sudan.

The alleged massacre of more than 200 civilians sheltering in a mosque after rebel troops recaptured Unity state capital Bentiu from government forces has sparked international condemnation.

Rebels are accused of carrying out targeted killings after rounding up civilians based on ethnicity and nationality.

UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay and special envoy for the prevention of genocide Adama Dieng were in South Sudan this week where they held high level meetings with president Salva Kiir and former vice-president turned rebel leader Riek Machar as part of investigations into the circumstances surrounding the recent killings.

Wolf himself has travelled to both Sudan and South Sudan on several occasions and is widely recognised in Congress for his work in the region.

sudantribune

May 1, 2014
South African Tech Helps to Identify Missing Children

{{A technique developed by a University of Pretoria researcher may help to easily and reliably identify the remains of missing children.}}

Forensic anthropologist Dr Kyra Stull has developed a tool as part of her doctoral research in anatomy at UP, using technology developed by Lodox.

Stull used the Lodox Statscan to accurately measure skeletons of children younger than 12 years old to determine their gender and age.

“The machine was originally designed in South Africa for the diamond mining industry but has since been used in hospitals and morgues worldwide,” Stull said.

While the technology is relatively new in SA, it has already been put to use in the Western Cape province where the 18 facilities see about 10 000 sudden deaths per year – and 30% of those are murders.

The Lodox Statscan machine can give the pathologist an instant view of where in the body foreign objects, like bullets may be.

{{Accurate technique}}

This makes extraction for court cases easier and allows the department to conduct speedier examinations and expedites the release of the remains.

“In the Western Cape, we’re very fortunate; we’ve got very supportive top management in terms of ensuring we’ve got the necessary skills and capacity,” Bonita Thompson, director of Forensic Pathology for the Western Cape province told media.

Stull sourced skeletal information from 1 380 children from Cape Town’s Salt River Forensic Pathology Service and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.

She used the information to develop the first accurate technique to estimate the age and gender of children.

“Estimating age from the skeletal components of a living child is complex. It is even more difficult when the child is deceased and unknown,” said Stull.

She said that the analysis of a skeleton was key to help police identify the victim.

“The main goal of a forensic anthropological analysis is to establish an accurate biological profile consisting of estimations of sex, age, ancestry and stature of unidentified human remains. The biological profile is then used by the police to narrow down the list of missing individuals to ultimately identify the person.”

news24

May 1, 2014
France Slams Egypt’s Mass Death Sentences

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius Wednesday criticised Egypt for imposing death sentences on nearly 700 suspected Islamists.

“These sort of slaughter sentences are absolutely unacceptable,” Fabius told French lawmakers.

“One does not build peace through mass executions. One builds peace through reconciliation, and that is true for Egypt and for all nations in the world,” he said.

An Egyptian court on Monday imposed death sentences on 683 people, including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, amid a crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Paris had asked Egypt to take steps to ensure that they received a fair trial.

The death sentences have been widely criticised internationally.

– AFP

May 1, 2014
Polygamy Legalised in Kenya

{{Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law a controversial marriage bill legalising polygamy.}}

It brings civil law, where a man was only allowed one wife, into line with customary law, where some cultures allow multiple partners.

Controversy surrounded an amendment to the bill, supported by many male MPs, allowing men to take more wives without consulting existing spouses.

Traditionally, first wives are supposed to give prior approval.

{{‘Demeaning’}}

Last month, female MPs walked out of parliament in disgust after their male counterparts voted through the amendment.

They argued that a decision to take on another wife would affect the whole family, including the financial position of other spouses.

The bill was also opposed by Christian leaders who urged the president not to sign it into law, saying it undermined Christian principles of marriage and family.

“The tone of that bill, if it becomes law, would be demeaning to women since it does not respect the principle of equality of spouses in the institution of marriage,” Archbishop Timothy Ndambuki, from the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), was quoted by Kenya’s Standard newspaper as saying.

The marriage legislation has been under discussion for several years and some initial proposals were scrapped at committee stages.

It has abolished the practice of unofficial traditional marriages which were never registered and could be ended without any legal divorce proceedings.

But plans to ban the payment of bride prices were dropped – although a person must be 18 to marry and this now applies to all cultures.

{{Inheritance chaos?}}

MPs did reject the committee amendment which said a woman should only be entitled to 30% of matrimonial property after death or divorce.

The law now allows for equal property and inheritance rights – previously a woman had to prove her contribution to the couple’s wealth.

However, reporters in Nairobi, say this aspect of the legislation could create chaos in polygamous marriages.

The law stipulates that a wife is entitled to an equal share of whatever the couple acquired during their marriage but in the case of multiple partners it is going to be difficult to determine what each spouse is entitled to if one of them divorces or their husband dies, she says.

There had also been a proposal to recognise co-habiting couples, known in Kenya as “come-we-stay” relationships, after six months, but this too was dropped.

It would have allowed a woman to seek maintenance for herself and any children of the union, had the man left.

BBC

May 1, 2014
US Says al Qaeda Affiliates More Aggressive

{{The United States said on Wednesday that while al Qaeda’s Pakistan-based “core organization” had been severely degraded, affiliates of the militant group in Africa and the Middle East were becoming more “operationally autonomous” and aggressive.}}

The State Department said in its annual global report on terrorism that the central organization of al Qaeda, under the leadership of Ayman al Zawahiri, had been “much diminished” by international efforts and had lost many of its senior leaders.

But the report said instability and weak governments in the Middle East and North Africa had enabled al Qaeda affiliates and like-minded groups to “broaden and deepen their operations” in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, North Africa and Somalia.

Groups such as the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network continue to attack American and local targets on both sides of the Afghan/Pakistani border, and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba believe U.S. interests are “legitimate targets for attacks,” the report said.

Thousands of militants, some of them English-speaking, have traveled to Syria to train and fight with groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad, according to the report.

Some have joined “violent extremist groups,” and U.S. and other Western countries fear they may plot attacks when they return home, it said.

The report said various national authorities had estimated that in 2013, 90 militants went to Syria from Denmark, 184 from France, 240 from Germany, 30-40 from Norway, 100-200 from Belgium, and 75 from Sweden.

British government sources have estimated that at least 400 Britons have cycled in and out of the conflict, with up to 250 participating at any one time.

agencies

May 1, 2014
EU Troops Take Over Central African Republic Airport

{{European Union peacekeepers took charge of security at Central African Republic’s main airport on Wednesday in their first major operation to try and end months of sectarian slaughter.}}

Just ahead of the handover, four people were killed overnight and on Wednesday morning in the capital, the local branch of the Red Cross said. One of the dead, a Muslim, was decapitated, his heart ripped out and his body mutilated, a Reuters witness said.

The EU peacekeepers are meant to share the burden of around 2,000 French troops and 5,000 African peacekeepers already in the country who have so far failed to stop the bloodshed.

Fighting surged when mostly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power a year ago in the majority Christian nation, launching a wave of killings and rights abuses, said U.N. and aid officials.

Mainly Christian groups formed what they called “anti-balaka” self-defense militias who have also been accused of atrocities that have continued even though the rebels stepped aside in January.

French troops handed control of Bangui airport over to the EU peacekeepers, who are also commanded by a French officer, Major-General Philippe Ponties, at midday local time, the EU said in a statement.

Thousands of civilians have taken refuge in a sprawling settlement of cardboard shacks and tarpaulins beside the airport to escape the violence that rights groups have described as ethnic cleansing and warned may spread insecurity in a fragile region.

Many others, including almost all of the city’s Muslim population, have fled, U.N. and aid officials have said.

May 1, 2014
Antibiotic Resistance Now ‘Global Threat’–WHO

{{Resistance to antibiotics poses a “major global threat” to public health, says a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO).}}

It analysed data from 114 countries and said resistance was happening now “in every region of the world”.

It described a “post-antibiotic era”, where people die from simple infections that have been treatable for decades.

There were likely to be “devastating” implications unless “significant” action was taken urgently, it added.

The report focused on seven different bacteria responsible for common serious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and blood infections.

It suggested two key antibiotics no longer work in more than half of people being treated in some countries.

One of them – carbapenem – is a so-called “last-resort” drug used to treat people with life-threatening infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns, caused by the bacteria K.pneumoniae.

Bacteria naturally mutate to eventually become immune to antibiotics, but the misuse of these drugs – such as doctors over-prescribing them and patients failing to finish courses – means it is happening much faster than expected.

The WHO says more new antibiotics need to be developed, while governments and individuals should take steps to slow this process.

In its report, it said resistance to antibiotics for E.coli urinary tract infections had increased from “virtually zero” in the 1980s to being ineffective in more than half of cases today.

In some countries, it said, resistance to antibiotics used to treat the bacteria “would not work in more than half of people treated”.

{{Gonorrhoea treatment ‘failure’}}

Dr Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general at WHO, said: “Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill.”

He said effective antibiotics had been one of the “pillars” to help people live longer, healthier lives, and benefit from modern medicine.

“Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods and the implications will be devastating,” Dr Fukuda added.

The report also found last-resort treatment for gonorrhoea, a sexually-transmitted infection which can cause infertility, had “failed” in the UK.

It was the same in Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Norway, South Africa, Slovenia and Sweden, it said.

More than a million people are infected with gonorrhoea across the world every day, the organisation said.

{{‘Wake-up call’}}

The report called for better hygiene, access to clean water, infection control in healthcare facilities, and vaccination to reduce the need for antibiotics.

Last year, the chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, said the rise in drug-resistant infections was comparable to the threat of global warming.

Dr Jennifer Cohn, medical director of Medecins sans Frontiers’ Access Campaign, said: “We see horrendous rates of antibiotic resistance wherever we look in our field operations, including children admitted to nutritional centres in Niger, and people in our surgical and trauma units in Syria.

“Ultimately, WHO’s report should be a wake-up call to governments to introduce incentives for industry to develop new, affordable antibiotics that do not rely patents and high prices and are adapted to the needs of developing countries.”

She added: “What we urgently need is a solid global plan of action which provides for the rational use of antibiotics so quality-assured antibiotics reach those who need them, but are not overused or priced beyond reach.”

Professor Nigel Brown, president of the UK Society for General Microbiology, said it was vital microbiologists and other researchers worked together to develop new approaches to tackle antimicrobial resistance.

“These approaches will include new antibiotics, but should also include studies to develop new rapid-diagnostic devices, fundamental research to understand how microbes become resistant to drugs, and how human behaviour influences the spread of resistance.”

BBC

{agencies}

May 1, 2014
Kenyan Policewoman Arrested Over ‘Tight’ Skirt

{{A policewoman’s uniform in Kenya has caused a social media storm.

Kenyans on Twitter are outraged after Corporal Linda Okello was reprimanded for wearing a tight skirt.

Thousands tweeted their messages of support using the hashtag #KenyansForLindaOkello.

It’s not the first time police uniforms have hit the headlines in Kenya. Last year police were barred from wearing lipstick and big earrings while on duty as it was considered “unprofessional”.

The move angered Kenyan Members of Parliament who said it was “archaic and extreme”.}}

{wirestory}

May 1, 2014
UNESCO Warns Australia Over Barrier Reef

{{Unesco has threatened to list the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage in Danger site, amid controversy over a plan to dump dredged sediment.}}

Reef authorities granted permission for the dumping in January as part of a project to create one of the world’s biggest coal ports.

But scientists have warned that the sediment could smother or poison coral.

Unesco said given “significant threats” to the reef, it should be considered for inclusion on the danger list.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral structure, rich in marine life. It stretches for more than 2,600km (1,680 miles) along Australia’s eastern coast.

‘Other alternatives’
The dumping is part of a major development that would allow several companies to export coal reserves from the Galilee Basin area through the Abbot Point port.

Abbot Point lies south of Townsville on the Queensland coast.

Late last year, the government approved an application for the coal terminal to be expanded. The dredging is needed to allow ships into the port.

wirestory

May 1, 2014