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Monday, October 1, 2007

Tyler Currie is running as an Progressive Conservative candidate in the Ontario provincial election, in the riding of Trinity-Spadina. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Kapil Sibal, India’s Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) held a meeting Monday to present his reform plans for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) sector by increasing the entrance percentage to 80% and above in the class XII (final year) board exams. A three-member committee was set up to review the proposal.

Sibal said, “The present criteria is that students need to secure 60% in class XII for appearing in IIT-JEE. This is not acceptable”, pointing out that the current criteria where students getting more than 60% in the board exam of the twelfth class are eligible for IIT-JEE is not good enough and that it has to be raised to 80-85%.

He also stated that students undervalue final year board exams, preparing instead for the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE); they enrol in coaching institutes and concentrate on their study material in order to enter IIT. He wants to abolish these “teaching shops.”

The meeting decided that they would set up two committees, one headed by Anil Kakodkar, Atomic Energy Commission (Chairman) and other by T. Ramasamy, Department of Science and Technology (Secretary). The first committee is scheduled to decide final year board percentage and the second one is scheduled to set the curriculum.

The Kakodkar committee also plans to decide how to abolish coaching institutes and how to move IIT field forward with a greater emphasis on research. The committee is expected to submit its report in the next six months. The minister also clarified that some of these will be implemented from the 2010 academic year and some from 2011.

The meeting was also expected to reduce the fee for African and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries as their fees are higher than those of Indians. The review committee says that people of other countries are tempted to study in India but they refrain due to high fees. The Ramasamy committee is expected to submit its report in the next three months.

Lastly, the meeting said that it will appoint board members and directors on the basis of nominations and independent rank and power to ensure IIT’s activity.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Sharks lead series 1-0. (Best of Seven)

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The UK Defence Secretary Des Browne has announced a plan to seek approval from Parliament to grant a group pardon to more than 300 British soldiers executed during the First World War for offences such as cowardice and desertion.

The proposed pardon will include the case of Pte. Harry Farr, whose family had appealed to the Defence Secretary to grant a full, posthumous pardon. The Ministry of Defence informed the family lawyers of the decision hours before making a public announcement.

Farr’s family members said in a statement that they were “overwhelmed”.

The government proposes to pardon all those executed in World War I under the Army Act 1881 and the Indian Army Act 1911, for what are considered “battlefield offences”, such as cowardice or desertion, which may have been influenced by the stress of the battle. The proposal involves several Commonwealth and former colonial countries whose troops also fought alongside British troops. Mr. Browne said that he intends to introduce a suitable amendment to the current Armed Forces Bill to request Parliament’s approval.

Announcing the plan, Mr. Browne said, “I am conscious of how the families of these men feel today. They have had to endure a stigma for decades. […] I believe it is appropriate to seek a statutory pardon.”

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Caroline Kennedy, considered to be among the front-runners for the United States Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yesterday withdrew her name from consideration for the seat. New York state Governor David Paterson had been reported as intending to name her as Clinton’s replacement this Saturday.

Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, issued a statement at midnight saying she had quit her bid because of “personal reasons”.

A close associate of Kennedy, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that the decision was not related to the recent health issues of Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Caroline Kennedy’s uncle. The senator suffered a seizure Tuesday while attending a luncheon with the newly inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.. He was rushed out of the event in a wheelchair and taken for treatment to Washington Hospital, where he remains. In May 2008 he was diagnosed with brain cancer, which required an operation.

The New York Post has reported that Kennedy withdrew her bid because Paterson was not going to choose her for the position. Citing the anonymous source, the Post said that “her poor performances in media interviews and in private sessions with various officials” is Paterson’s reason for not appointing her to the position. Paterson will reportedly make his decision by Saturday, January 26.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is the highest-profile candidate still up for consideration for the last two years of Clinton’s term. Cuomo, who has not commented on this recent turn of events, was the housing secretary during former President Bill Clinton‘s time in office, and in his current role as attorney general has overseen nation-wide reforms for student loans and participated in limiting Wall Street corporate spending.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Mauritanian refugees stuck in Senegal for nearly two decades after fleeing ethnic clashes in their home country have begun returning to Mauritania under a U.N.-sponsored program. But many do not want to return.

There were goodbye ceremonies and welcoming ceremonies attended by officials on both sides of the Senegal River as more than 100 former refugees were ferried on motorized pirogues.

A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency, Alphonse Munyaneza, explained international funding will help pay for resettlement.

“Each refugee returning back to Mauritania will receive a piece of land equivalent to 140 square meters for establishing a house. UNHCR and the government of Mauritania will provide construction material so that they can build a house,” explained Munyaneza. “We will provide three months of food ration. We will provide a tent also.”

Mauritanian refugee children broke out in song and laughter when officials arrived at their camps close to the border to get the process going.

There are more than 20,000 Mauritanian refugees in Senegal. Officials say the return program will extend over 18 months.

One of those happy to go is Haddy Sy. She says she left Mauritania after she was beaten up. This took place during a wave of ethnic violence that began in Arab Moor-dominated Mauritania in 1989 and escalated into border clashes, forcing tens of thousands of black, mostly ethnic Fula, Mauritanians into exile.

In the late 1990s, more than 30,000 refugees returned by their own means and some U.N. assistance.

Sy says she is leaving behind many good things in Senegal, including a peaceful setting, but that she is still happy to return to her home country.

Since taking office last year, the government of the elected, post-coup President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi has been making efforts to bring home the refugees, including several thousand more in Mali.

But many in Senegal do not want to return home, like Yaraah Sow, who lives in the Dagana refugee camp about 400 kilometers northwest of Dakar.

He says he is still very bitter about what happened nearly 20 years ago. He said his father, who was a civil servant, was attacked by a mob and died of internal bleeding at the gates of a hospital after doctors refused to treat him.

Sow accuses the military of seizing all his family’s property. He says that two of his younger brothers died on the trip to Senegal. He says his children are now going to school and that they are better off in Senegal.

One of the refugee leaders, Mohamed Ali Sow, who left when he was 10, says he is studying at a university in Senegal to become a lawyer to defend the rights of chased out Mauritanians.

He says the return program has been rushed, because he says people who had their property seized, houses burned, and jobs taken away, should have guarantees these will be restored. He says until then, he does not think it is wise to go back.