Blancer.com Tutorials and projects
Freelance Projects, Design and Programming Tutorials
world news,online new,us news,uk news
A woman who caught a 16-month-old girl who fell from a third floor balcony in Florida, saving her from possible serious injury, has been speaking to BBC Breakfast about the incident.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A highly developed sense of smell kick-started the development of mammals’ big brains.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Hafiz Saeed figures prominently on India’s most wanted list India is reviewing a list of its 50 most wanted fugitives purportedly hiding in Pakistan, a day after one of them was traced to a prison in Mumbai (Bombay).
Feroz Abdul Rashid Khan, who is accused of involvement in a 2003 train bombing, was arrested last year and is behind bars in the Arthur Road jail.
The list, which was given to Pakistan, has been removed from the website.
Earlier another “fugitive” was found living in Mumbai with his mother.
On Wednesday it emerged that Wazhul Kamar Khan, who is also accused of involvement in a 2003 Mumbai train bombing, had been released on bail.
Correspondents say these mistakes are likely to cost India dear, as well as being hugely embarrassing. They say Islamabad will now be able to raise doubts about the other names on the list too.
“We have an inmate called Feroze Khan in the Arthur Road jail,” the Times of India newspaper quoted the inspector general of prisons, Surendra Kumar, as saying.
Mr Khan’s lawyer Farzana Shah told the BBC that he had been arrested on 5 February last year and has been in jail since then.
In a statement, the CBI said “a preliminary inquiry has revealed a lapse regarding inclusion of Feroz Abdul Rashid Khan in the list”.
An inspector has been suspended and two officials have been transferred and an inquiry has been launched into the lapse, the statement said.
India gave the list to Pakistan at the end of March when the home secretaries of the two countries met for talks.
India blames Pakistan-based militant groups, such as the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for carrying out many of the attacks in India in recent years.
It also accuses Pakistan of providing a safe sanctuary to former Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Mr Ibrahim and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed are among those named on the most-wanted list.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Why hasn’t life turned out like it is in science fiction?
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Gen Lo Hsien-che is Taiwan’s most senior officer accused of espionage since the 1960s Military prosecutors say they have indicted a senior Taiwanese general on suspicion of spying for China.
The defence ministry claims that Maj Gen Lo Hsien-che began passing military intelligence to China in 2004, and was paid $150,000 (£92,000) in exchange.
Maj Gen Lo – Taiwan’s highest-ranking officer allegedly involved in espionage in decades – has been in detention since February.
Prosecutors said they would be seeking a life sentence.
Maj Gen Lo is alleged to have been recruited by China while he was stationed in Thailand between 2002 and 2005. He was promoted to major-general after his return to Taiwan.
At the time of his arrest earlier this year, he was head of the military command’s communications and information office.
Details of the Taiwanese state secrets Maj Gen Lo is alleged to have passed to the government in China have not been revealed.
But local media are reporting he leaked information about an integrated command, communications and control network that Taiwan was establishing with the US.
Taiwan’s defence ministry says Maj Gen Lo’s activities have harmed Taiwan’s interests and security, and had a big impact on the military’s reputation and morale.
Prosecutors initially wanted to seek capital punishment for Maj Gen Lo, but now seem more likely to seek a sentence of life imprisonment as they claim he has confessed and turned over the funds he had received, says the BBC’s Cindy Sui in Taipei.
The case has shocked Taiwan, our correspondent says.
Maj Gen Lo is the most senior Taiwanese officer accused of espionage since the 1960s when a vice-defence minister was arrested amid a crackdown on communist spies.
Critics say his alleged connection with China and the fact it took several years to detect has revealed a security loophole.
Tensions have run high between the two sides since 1949, when Taiwan was separated from China at the end of a civil war.
China sees Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force if the island ever moved to declare formal independence.
But there has been an unprecedented warming in relations since Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008.
Despite this, officials insist there has been no reduction in spying by China, our correspondent says.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Tagging a wild bear that has lost its fear of humans is a tricky business, as Graham Bishop from Project Bear explains
Slovakia’s bears are a rare conservation triumph, but their growing number has forced some of them to swap forest life for a more urban setting. Now a radical plan is under way to try to understand these “problem bears”.
I get the call at 5am.
“Wake-up! We’ve got a bear – you best get ready,” booms the voice from the other end of the line, shaking me out of my sleepy blur.
“At the moment, we have very little knowledge about these problem bears”
Graham Bishop Project Bear
Overnight, an inquisitive bear has wandered into a cage, unable to resist the temptation to snack on some oats and fruit that have been left inside.
We arrive, and inside the small enclosure is a young female, standing about 1m tall.
For the last few weeks, she has been raiding the bins in a nearby village, totally unafraid of any humans living there.
But today, looking a bit bewildered at her predicament and emitting the odd low groan, she is going to give conservationists the first look into the private life of one of Slovakia’s so-called problem bears.
Unwelcome visitors
Until recently, getting a glimpse of a European brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) would mean venturing deep into Slovakia’s mountainous forests.
But now close encounters with these animals increasingly are happening much closer to home.
After these animals were hunted almost to extinction in the 1930s, the bears have made a big comeback. However, the boost in numbers has meant that some curious bears have started to take an interest in village life.
This camera-trap photo reveals a problem bear’s love of convenience food Pavol Majko, director of the High Tatras National Park – a stronghold for brown bears – says: “The majority of bears in this area stay in the mountains, but a small number have lost their fear of humans.
“They are coming to the villages, attracted by waste in unsecured bins.”
But for the people living in this area, these new visitors are not welcome.
Jan Mokos, Mayor of the High Tatras village, explains: “The people are scared and they’re coming here to complain almost every day. But it’s not only the people who live here – it’s tourists, too.”
He proposes drastic action.
“Of course, we can do something about this problem by making sure our bins are secure, but I think some controlled shooting is also necessary.”
Bear necessity
But conservationists say killing problem bears is not the answer. Instead they want to study them.
The collar records the bear’s location then sends the data in a text And the animal that has been captured will provide them with that chance. They are going to fit her with a GPS collar that will track her every move.
Graham Bishop is working on Project Bear, which is part-funded through an eco-tourism company and is a collaboration with scientists from the High Tatras National Park.
He says: “At the moment, we have very little knowledge about these problem bears. All of the information is from physical sightings.
“With the collar, we can find out what she is doing every hour of every day.”
First the bear is tranquilised, and then – only once she is sound asleep – the team tentatively approaches. They get to work fitting the collar; the bear, oblivious to the hubbub around her, gently snores.
The conservationists have to work quickly – if the bear wakes up early, the consequences could be terrible. But soon her new accessory is fixed and activated.
It works using global-positioning technology to record her position at regular intervals. Then, every few hours, it sends the team a text message containing this data.
The bear is anaesthetised while the collar is fitted It means the researchers can monitor the bear from the comfort of their office, plotting her positions on a map to find out more about her behaviour.
With a battery life of four years, the collar should provide the team with a wealth of data over this period. After this, it will automatically drop off.
Mr Bishop says: “Once we can see what the bear is doing, we can start to work out what is attracting her to the villages, and also what is repelling her away. We can then look at these factors and try and replicate them.”
In addition to making sure villagers secure all their waste, another idea, he suggests, could be to set up strategically placed feeding stations outside villages.
Speedy solution
But conservationists in Slovakia stress that a solution is needed soon.
With a growing bear population and increasing numbers of people coming to the country through tourism, the issue of problem bears is here to stay.
For now, though, some of these answers could be found with the help of the bear, called Galina by the team.
She begins to wake up from the anaesthetic – very sleepy and confused, nodding her head and licking the air, as the life begins to return to her limbs.
Eventually, a little unsteady on her feet, she gets up, and slowly wanders back into the forest.
She does not know it, but the data she provides could hold the key to finding a way for bears and humans to live together.
After being fitted with a collar, the bear heads back into the forest This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Fewer than half of newly qualified teachers in Wales are landing a first job at a school, figures show Only four out of 10 newly qualified teachers in Wales land substantive jobs in primary or secondary schools after training, according to new figures.
The General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) said almost the same proportion of new teachers (37.5%) were having to rely on supply work.
In 2003, nearly seven in 10 (66%) secured a first job after qualifying.
The Welsh Government said teacher recruitment and the use of supply teachers was a matter for schools.
The GTCW said the number of new teachers landing their first job had dropped 6% over the previous year and was the continuation of a falling trend over the past decade.
It has drawn the figures from the Wales’ teaching register, which has nearly 39,000 people registered as eligible to teach in state schools.
Jessica Jones, 28, of Porthmadog, Gwynedd, has made 20 job applications since teacher training at Bangor University.
“It slowly seems to have been getting worse,” she said.
“Not only are you competing with all the trainees of the 2011 cohort, you are also competing with just over a third of last year’s cohort that haven’t secured positions.
“I’ve already had my student debt from my first degree. I’ve had to take another student loan for this year.
“I can’t live at home for the rest of my life.
If I can’t secure supply work or a permanent position, then I will have to take office work or a bar job.
It should really be something I could fit around supply teaching, because you are called in at the last minute.”
GTCW deputy chief executive Hayden Llewellyn said the figures came against a background of “a little fluctuation over the years”.
He said: “There is now a very clear trend towards newly-qualified teachers failing to get substantive jobs and having to register with agencies in order to get temporary and intermittent work as supply teachers at various different schools.”
The Welsh Government said Education Minister Leighton Andrews had recently announced a 20-point plan to reform education in Wales which included a review of teacher training in Wales.
A spokesperson said: “Alongside this work we are also evaluating the number of Welsh [teacher training] places we fund in the future.
“The latest (2008/09) published figures show that, for students completing [teacher training] courses in Wales whose teaching activity was known six months after graduation, 81% were in a teaching post, which includes supply work.
“A further 13% were seeking a teaching post and 7% were not seeking a teaching post.”
The GTCW register has been published annually since 2002 and covers a range of indicators including the age, gender, ethnicity, qualifications and disability status of teachers and head-teachers.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Conservationists are fitting a GPS collar to a bear that has lost its fear of humans in a bid to understand its behaviour.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Nato said all the ships hit were “naval warships with no civilian utility” Nato air strikes have hit eight warships belonging to Col Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in co-ordinated raid on Tripoli, Al Khums and Sirte.
In a statement, a spokesman said Nato had to take “decisive action” given Col Gaddafi’s increasing use of naval assets to launch attacks on civilians.
Flames and smoke could be seen rising from vessels hit in the capital’s port.
Meanwhile, the Libyan rebel leadership has appealed for international help for towns in the mountains west of Tripoli.
The alliance statement said the use of indiscriminate mining by pro-Gaddafi maritime forces had disrupted the flow of much-needed aid into Libya and had also “demonstrated a clear intent to attack Nato forces”.
It said the strikes on Friday demonstrated Nato’s “resolve to protect the civilian population of Libya, using appropriate and proportionate force”.
“All the vessels targeted last night were naval warships with no civilian utility,” said Rear-Adm Russell Harding, Deputy Commander of Nato’s mission in Libya.
It was unclear if there were any casualties.
The Nato air strikes are being carried out under a UN mandate to protect civilians from the forces of Col Gaddafi, who is trying to crush the three-month-old uprising.
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier on Thursday that Col Gaddafi’s forces were suffering under the attacks and becoming more isolated every day.
“When Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end”
Barack Obama US president
“We have significantly degraded Gaddafi’s war machine and now we see the results – the opposition has gained ground,” he said.
The rebels’ National Transitional Council, based in Benghazi, has appealed for international help for towns in the Nafousa mountains, south west of Tripoli.
Ahmed Bemoussa, a council member who visited the region, said people there were under constant bombardment from Col Gaddafi’s forces and had run out of water.
Mr Bemoussa said Nato strikes in the region appeared to be doing little to halt the attacks, and appealed for the establishment of an internationally monitored corridor to bring in aid.
Restrictions on reporting in Libya mean such accounts are hard to verify.
But the BBC’s David Loyn in Benghazi says that if Mr Bemoussa is to be believed, conditions in the mountain region have become are as bad as during the worst days of fighting in the coastal town of Misrata last month.
On Thursday, US President Barack Obama said “time is working against Gaddafi” and that he does not have control over his country.
In a major speech to the State Department. Mr Obama said the Libyan opposition has organised a “legitimate and credible interim council”.
“When Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.”
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Mr Obama’s comments were “delusional”.
“He believes the lies that his own government and media spread around the world. It’s not Obama who decides whether Muammar Gaddafi leaves Libya or not. It’s the Libyan people.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A Qantas plane shuts down an engine and returns to Bangkok, the latest incident related to a Roll Royce engine.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Many of the armoured vehicles purchased since 1998 have been for specific operations, the report says British forces will face “significant shortages” of armoured vehicles until 2025 unless extra investment is found, a public spending watchdog has warned.
Hundreds of millions of pounds is spent on equipment that has never been delivered, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
It blamed “over-ambitious requirements and unstable financial planning”.
Defence equipment minister Peter Luff said the government was committed to ensuring troops were properly equipped.
In the report, the NAO said that without significant additional investment by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Army would not have all the armoured vehicles it has identified as “top priorities” for 14 years at the earliest.
It said the procurement process had managed to deliver only a “fraction” of the vehicles it set out to buy.
In the 13 years since the Labour government’s 1998 strategic defence review, the MoD had spent £718m on armoured vehicle programmes which have since been scrapped or have yet to deliver, the NAO said.
In the same period the MoD procured fewer than 200 vehicles, at a cost of £407m, through its standard acquisition programme, it said.
Instead, it had to rely on emergency purchases through a system of “urgent operational requirements” (UORs) to get the vehicles needed to troops on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the NAO said that while the UOR system had worked well – delivering an additional £2.8bn worth of vehicles since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 – it was not a “sustainable substitute” for the standard acquisition process.
Much of the equipment bought through UORs was tailored for specific operations and was unsuitable for wider use, the report said.
“Too many major projects have been cancelled, suspended or delayed”
Amyas Morse Head of the National Audit Office
Often it was delivered without training or back-up support, causing further problems in the long-term, it added.
The NAO said the MoD needed to show “greater pragmatism” when it came to ordering equipment through the standard acquisition process.
“Armoured vehicle projects have suffered from unstable budgets and continual changes to financial plans,” the report said.
“The cycle of unrealistic planning followed by cost overruns has led to a need to find additional short-term savings on a regular basis.”
Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “Too many major projects have been cancelled, suspended or delayed.
“A long-term solution is likely to need significant further investment, realistic plans and stable budgets sustained over time.”
Ross Campbell, Value For Money Director at the NAO, said: “When we come out of Afghanistan and look at the next 10 or 15 years …we have got some pretty big gaps appearing in the ranks.
“A lot of the equipment we have already is getting pretty old now, introduced in the 1960s and 1970s in some cases.
“Without our projects maturing as planned it is going to be a long lead time before we can bring in modern, effective, flexible, armoured fighting vehicles.”
Defence equipment minister Peter Luff said the report highlighted “serious flaws” in the process left by the previous Labour government.
“We are absolutely committed to a funded and realistic defence equipment programme to ensure our Armed Forces are properly equipped and taxpayers get value for money,” he said.
“Given the disastrous state of the department’s finances we inherited, this change will take time.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Olympic Stadium at Stratford will host the showpiece men’s 100 metres final London 2012 organisers have received more than one million requests for tickets for the Olympic men’s 100 metres final.
The session, at the Olympic Stadium on 5 August next year, is one of the most sought after of the London Games.
Some 40,000 seats are available after the stadium capacity was halved through sponsors, VIPs and the media.
Applicants will find out by 24 June whether they have got any of the 6.6 million Olympics tickets available.
Some 1.8 million people applied, with a total of 20 million ticket applications.
Competition to see the 100 metres final – likely to feature Jamaican sprinter and reigning Olympic champion Usain Bolt – was always going to be fierce.
Such was the level of demand in the recent ballot for tickets that the Olympic Stadium in east London could have been sold out at least 20 times over.
BBC sports editor David Bond says those who have applied for Olympics tickets will be watching their bank accounts for a clue to what tickets they have been allocated.
But with other big events likely to be just as over subscribed as the 100 metres final, millions of people could be left disappointed.
Olympics organisers are looking to make £500m from ticket sales as part of bid to raise £2bn through private means.
Lord Coe, chairman of the organising committee Locog, said: “It is really important as 25% of everything that you see out there in terms of the organisation of these Games is our ability to nail our revenues from tickets.”
Lord Coe has also defended the method for selling Olympics tickets which sees payments taken from people’s accounts before they know which tickets they have been given.
He said: “It was very clear from us, very early on that we would be taking the money out and we would then let people know what they got.
Sport, news and more 2012 informationBBC London 2012
“It is easier to do that all at the same time rather than in dribs and drabs. This was always the way.”
The price of Olympics tickets ranges from £20 to £725 for the showpiece 100 metres final, and reaches £2,012 for the opening ceremony on 27 July.
On Wednesday, the first 74 locations on the 2012 Olympics torch relay route were revealed.
Starting at Land’s End, it will see the Olympic torch travel 8,000 miles (12,800 km) covering every nation and region in the UK including island visits.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Japan agrees to sign up to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction to better handle custody disputes that have split families across borders.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
China more than 90% of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals China has expanded export quotas for rare earth metals, further tightening its grip on the minerals used in a number of high-tech electronics.
From Friday, iron alloys containing more than 10% of rare earths will fall under the export quota, the commerce ministry said in a statement.
Rare earths are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table.
World manufacturers rely heavily on China for these minerals.
China had already cut exports by about 35% in the first half of 2011.
This has pushed up the price of rare earth metals, used in everything from Ipods and TVs to cars.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Barack Obama: “Let’s get started on a conversation about territory, and about security”
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected comments from US President Obama that a future Palestinian state must be based on the 1967 borders.
In a major speech to the State Department, Mr Obama said “mutually agreed swaps” would help create “a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel”.
But Mr Netanyahu said those borders, which existed before the 1967 Middle East war, were “indefensible”.
Mr Netanyahu is preparing to meet Mr Obama for talks at the White House.
An estimated 300,000 Israelis live in settlements built in the West Bank, which lies outside those borders.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
In Thursday’s speech on the future of US policy in the Middle East, Mr Obama said the basis of the peace negotiations was to create “a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel”.
“The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine,” he said.
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states.”
In a statement, Mr Netanyahu’s office said he appreciated Mr Obama’s “commitment to peace” but that for peace to endure, “the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state”.
In many ways the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, should be a man content with his lot. He is on a high-profile visit to Washington where he will be met with a firm handshake and warm words from President Barack Obama.
In a historic address to a joint-session of Congress next week, he can expect to be repeatedly applauded as he describes how his government tirelessly searches for peace.
And at the annual conference of Aipac – the American pro-Israel lobby – he will be feted as a hero and beacon of light in an otherwise hostile region.
But at home, in a dramatically changing Middle East, the Israeli leader appears increasingly out-manoeuvred and out of step with the attempts of others to resolve the frustrating and long-standing stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The statement called on Mr Obama to reaffirm commitments he made to Israel in 2004.
“Among other things, those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines which are both indefensible and which would leave major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria beyond those lines,” it said.
“Those commitments also ensure Israel’s well-being as a Jewish state by making clear that Palestinian refugees will settle in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel.”
The BBC’s Wyre Davies in Jerusalem says that while Mr Netanyahu will be warmly welcomed in the US, he is coming under increasing international pressure to ease his objections to a Palestinian state following the unity deal signed between rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah earlier this month.
If the unity project holds, says our correspondent, Mr Netanyahu could find himself foundering while other countries embrace fresh Palestinian initiatives.
Israel’s claim to being the only democratic state in the region has also been undermined by the dramatic developments of the Arab Spring anti-government uprisings, our correspondent adds.
The push for democracy began with the overthrowing of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was later toppled in Egypt, with demonstrators in Libya currently working to overthrow dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
Similar uprisings are also taking hold in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.