Aung San Suu Kyi attracted a large crowd when she visited the centre on Wednesday
Residents and staff at an HIV/Aids centre in Rangoon have been told that they will have to leave, two days after a high-profile visit by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Burmese pro-democracy leader drew large crowds when she met residents at the clinic on Wednesday.
Late on Thursday, local officials told people at the clinic that their resident permits would not be renewed.
Mr Yazar, the clinic manager, said he believed the two were linked.
“I think they were shocked to see the crowd when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited the centre,” he told BBC Burmese.
“So many people came to support her and the patients. This could be the main reason they are worried about.”
The clinic, in eastern Rangoon, is run by a high-profile member of the youth wing of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.
The 80 patients – some of whom come from outside Rangoon – require government-issued monthly residence permits to stay at the clinic.
They were told late on Thursday that these would not be renewed and they would have to move out.
“Even I have nowhere to live apart from this centre,” Mr Yazar said.
“And the patients have nowhere to go. They used to stay at the monasteries before the 2007 September monks’ protests, but since the protests the government does not allow patients to stay at the monasteries.”
He said staff and patients had no option but to stay put.
Htin Aung, a patient at the clinic, said he needed access to treatment.
“I don’t think we can move. In our home towns, I see all the patients die. Here we have a systematic treatment and we have medicines,” he said.
About 500 people gathered at the clinic on Wednesday to see Ms Suu Kyi, who was released from years of house arrest on Saturday.
She called for better funding for anti-retroviral drugs to help HIV/Aids patients. A UNAIDS report in 2007 estimated that 240,000 Burmese people were living with HIV/Aids.
Burma’s military rulers have not placed any restrictions on Ms Suu Kyi’s movements but, says BBC Burmese editor Tin Htar Swe, they may well try to make things uncomfortable for her.
The generals dislike her high profile and would not be pleased that she had raised the issue of HIV/Aids, Tin Htar Swe says.
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Local music services help schools provide subsidised music lessons
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School music lessons could be hit as local councils make savings and school budgets are redrawn, it is feared
One in five music services, which support schools, expect councils will completely axe their grants and half fear cuts of up to 50%, a survey suggests.
The Federation of Music Services warned that some services which help provide subsidised lessons could collapse.
The government said all pupils should be able to learn an instrument or sing.
It has commissioned a review of music provision in schools, being carried out by Classic FM head Darren Henley, but this is not due to report until the end of next year.
However, local authorities in England which face cuts of about a third, get their funding allocations in early December.
“ This is a music lesson that should not be repeated”
Virginia Haworth-Galt Federation of Music Services
It is clear from the federation’s survey of 158 music services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, that many are already planning cuts with some preparing to axe the funding completely.
Local authorities provide just one strand of funding for school music services, with the rest coming from central government grants and parental contributions.
But the expected cuts come as schools face a huge shake-up of their budgets with a number of schemes dedicated to supporting music either being axed or channelled into a general schools budget for redistribution.
The £82.5m Music Standards Fund grant – the biggest central grant – is being channelled into the central schools budget in a funding shake-up, the Department for Education has confirmed.
It would then be up to head teachers to decide how much to allocate to music tuition.
Federation of Music Services (FMS) chief executive Virginia Haworth-Galt said: “We recognise the pressure many local authorities are under but would urge them to them to hold back their plans until we know the results of the Henley Review.
“Music and our children’s education are too important to be jettisoned like this particularly when we know that 91% of the public back music education in schools.”
“Music lessons will become the sole preserve of the middle classes”
Michael Rose OBE Conductor
She added that the FMS would be very disappointed if the music grant went directly into schools’ budgets without any ring-fencing for music education.
“This situation occurred in the early 1990s with disastrous results; music went into a steep decline as the monies were spent elsewhere in schools. This is a music lesson that should not be repeated,” she added.
Conductor of the Bedforshire Youth Orchestra Michael Rose says music services in his area, Central Bedfordshire, are set to have budgets and teaching staff cut to zero.
He said as music services were non-statutory they were particularly vulnerable in the present climate of cuts.
He said: “If funding is lost in this way music lessons will become the sole preserve of the middle classes.”
He added: “Instrumental teaching in the county’s schools is provided by a central staff of highly qualified instrumental teachers. It has resulted in literally many thousands of children having the experience of learning an instrument.”
Ministers say they want all pupils to be able to learn a musical instrument
Schools minister Nick Gibb said too many children in state schools were denied the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument.
This was why he had launched a major review of how music is taught and enjoyed in schools to help make sure all pupils get an opportunity to learn to play an instrument and to sing.
Its recommendations would determine how future funding could be best used in the future, he added.
“Evidence tells us that learning an instrument can improve young people’s numeracy and literacy skills and their behaviour.
“It is also simply unfair that the pleasure of musical discovery should be the preserve of those whose parents can afford it.”
“As part of that review recommendations will be made to determine how future funding can best be used,” he said.
He added that decisions on central funding for music other than the Music Standards Fund would not be made until after the review had reported.
General secretary of the National Union of Teachers Christine Blower said the cuts to music in schools were even more shocking in light of Michael Gove’s announcement that he would be holding a review into music education in schools, claiming that it was a ‘sad fact ‘ that too few state school children learnt an instrument.
She added: “Music in schools makes a contribution way beyond the straightforward exercise of learning an instrument.
“Children and young people can experience coming together in a creative environment which benefits them in other aspects of their school life”.
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Blackburn Rovers are bought in a £43m deal by the Rao family to become the first Indian-owned Premier League club.
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Hundreds of workers have marched in the Malawi capital, Lilongwe, against a bill which seeks to set the country’s retirement age between 50 and 75.
If passed, it would be compulsory for workers to have a pension fund – a first in the country.
But unions say the fund would not benefit Malawians, who have an average life expectancy of less than 40.
The proposed bill will be brought before a committee in parliament for a decision.
Some 300 hundred workers marched to parliament to hand over a petition demanding changes to the current bill.
The Malawi Congress of Trade Unions (MCTU) wants the number of years of employment at a company used as the measure of when workers can access their pension money instead of age.
“We are saying they should introduce a service in the bill, if someone has been working for a company for 20 years they should be able to access their pension,” the union’s general-secretary Robert Mkwezalamba told the BBC’s Network Africa.
But Labour Minister Yunus Mussa says the pension package is mainly aimed at instilling a culture of saving among Malawians.
“Right now people work for years and they only get a token of appreciation – a radio, a blanket or bicycle. We are saying people should contribute to that so that when they retire they do not suffer.”
Mr Mussa dismissed the union’s claims that no one would benefit from the scheme.
“It will be a law and everybody should comply… those people who do not comply will face heavy penalties.”
“There are people in Malawi older than 50, 70. They are still productive citizens of the country,” he said.
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Jason Manford made his One Show debut in August
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Comedian Jason Manford has quit as co-presenter of The One Show, four months after taking on the role.
In a statement he said: “I have decided after careful consideration to step down from The One Show to concentrate on my family and tour commitments”.
The married star told The Sun newspaper he had been “flirting” with people online, and some had gone “too far”.
“We have got nothing to say except that we accept Jason’s decision,” the BBC said in a statement.
“I can see now that what started out as a bit of messing about and having a laugh on Twitter has been misjudged and I’d like to apologise to anyone that this has offended as that was the last thing I ever intended to do,” Manford said.
The comic has twin daughters with his wife Catherine, who is currently pregnant with his third child.
He told the newspaper that although she was “disappointed” by his behaviour, they had not split up.
In May it was announced Manford would replace Adrian Chiles, who had defected to ITV to present the channel’s new breakfast show Daybreak.
At the time he said he was “thrilled” to be joining the team.
He was later joined by Welsh TV presenter Alex Jones once it was announced that Christine Bleakley was also leaving the flagship show.
Both presenters made their debut together in August and received mixed reviews from critics.
A month later Manford publicly criticised his new employers, after the BBC edited out a joke he made during a charity concert.
He complained on Twitter that his gag had been missed out of the Help For Heroes concert that he hosted, that was broadcast on BBC One.
In Manford’s original message via Twitter he had complained about a lack of free speech.
When challenged by fellow Twitter users about remaining impartial, he said: “I’m a presenter in a magazine show, not a news show or a journalistic show, I’m a comedian at an event with an opinion.”
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US television series Glee has announced a live UK tour next summer which will feature performances from stars like Lea Michele and Cory Monteith.
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Melbourne aquarium has welcomed the birth of the first baby Gentoo penguin chick born in the country.
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An excerpt from the video shows the woman getting ‘excited’ about voting
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Spanish politicians have criticised a video by the Young Socialists in Catalonia in which a woman simulates an orgasm while casting her vote.
Both Socialist and opposition politicians have attacked the campaign video.
The equality minister called it “misleading” advertising.
In the video the young woman gets increasingly excited as she votes for the Socialist Party in this month’s regional elections in Catalonia.
It concludes with the phrase, “Voting is a pleasure”, after she puts her voting slip in the ballot box.
The leader of the conservative opposition Popular Party of Catalonia, Alicia Sanchez-Camacho, said the video was an “attack on the dignity of women”.
The health minister, Leire Pajin, who is a Socialist, called on all parties to show respect for women and to act responsibly.
The Socialist equality minister, Bibiana Aido, said of the video: “If it was true, electoral participation would go up greatly, but I think we are dealing with a misleading advert.”
But the Socialist Party of Catalonia ‘s leader, Jose Montilla, who is standing for re-election, said, “If it encourages people to vote, it’s a good thing”.
However, speaking in a TV interview he appeared surprised to learn that it was a video by the youth wing of his own party.
A spokesman for the conservative CiU party, Josep Antoni Duran Lleida, said that the “crude” video would damage participation.
The leader of the Green coalition in Catalonia, Joan Herrera, said it would be “very difficult to reach orgasm voting for any of the candidates, myself included”.
It is not the first controversial video to be brought out by a Catalan party ahead of the 28 November elections.
An anti-racism group, SOS Racismo, says it has complained to the public prosecutor about a video game by the Popular Party, in which Alicia Sanchez-Camacho takes on the guise of film and video game heroine Lara Croft to fight illegal immigrants and pro-independence Catalans.
The game was removed from the party’s website hours after its launch, with the PP saying the developer did not follow instructions properly.
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27 miners are missing after an explosion at a remote coal mine on New Zealand’s South Island.
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Stuxnet seems to have been designed to target uranium enrichment systems
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Detailed analysis of the code in the Stuxnet worm has narrowed the list of suspects who could have created it.
The sophisticated malware is among the first to target the industrial equipment used in power plants and other large scale installations.
New research suggests it was designed to disrupt centrifuges often used to enrich uranium.
Forensic analysis of the worm has revealed more about the team behind it and what it was supposed to do.
The close look at the code inside Stuxnet was carried out by Tom Parker from security firm Securicon who specialises in picking out the digital fingerprints hackers leave behind in malware.
His analysis of Stuxnet shows it is made of several distinct blocks. One part targets industrial control systems, another handles the worm’s methods of spreading itself and another concerns the way its creators planned to communicate with and control it.
The most sophisticated part of Stuxnet targeted the Programmable Logic Controllers used in industrial plants to automate the operation of components such as motors or pumps.
Subverting PLCs required detailed knowledge of one manufacturer’s product line, the programming language written for it and insight into how it could be subverted. That meant, said Mr Parker, the list of suspects was pretty short.
“I do believe the PLC components were written in the West,” he said. “It’s western companies that are investing most heavily in automation of industrial processes whether its putting coke in cans or nuclear enrichment.”
“However, the bits that drop it into a system and the command and control parts are not that advanced at all,” said Mr Parker.
Iran has the highest number of machines infected with Stuxnet
“I’ve compared this less advanced code to other malware and it does not score very highly,” he said.
Dedicated hi-tech criminals would not have used such crude methods of distribution and control, he said, suggesting that it was put together by a nation rather than organised crime.
What this implies, he said, is that whichever country put Stuxnet together commissioned the creation of the PLC part from a Western nation then added their own distribution and control code to it.
The analysis suggests that a team of 6-10 people were behind Stuxnet and were involved with it for some time. Whoever wrote it would also need information about and access to industrial plants in Iran if that was the actual target, said Mr Parker.
More information has also emerged about how Stuxnet disrupts the industrial control systems it managed to compromise.
Research by security firm Symantec has shown that the likely target were frequency controllers that many PLCs are hooked up to in order to regulate a motor.
In particular, said Symantec, Stuxnet targeted those operating at frequencies between 807 and 1210Hz.
“There’s a limited amount of equipment operating at that speed,” said Orla Cox, security operations manager at Symantec. “It knew exactly what it was going after.”
“Those operating at 600hz or above are regulated for export by the US because they can be used to control centrifuges for uranium enrichment,” she said.
If Stuxnet did manage to infect a PLC connected to a centrifuge it would seriously disrupt its working, said Ms Cox.
What is not clear, said Ms Cox, is whether Stuxnet hit its target. If it did not, she said, then the fact that the command and control system has been taken over by security firms has ended any chance of it being used again.
“Our expectation is that the attack is done at this point,” she said. “We’ve not seen any more variants out there and I don’t suspect we will.”
Mr Parker said that whoever did write it failed in one respect because Stuxnet has not stayed live for as long as its creators hoped.
The control system set up needed to have been in place for years to have a seriously disruptive effect on its intended targets, he said.
“Someone has serious egg on their face because they are never going to be able to use this investment ever again,” he said.
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Riverside battle as elephant and baby fight off crocodile advances
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Mr Bernanke has found himself surprisingly isolated after widespread criticism of quantitative easing
US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has criticised countries like China that run large trade surpluses.
“Currency undervaluation by surplus countries is inhibiting needed international adjustment,” he said in a speech to the European Central Bank
He said that by buying dollars, these countries were hurting the US recovery and the global economy with it.
He also defended the Fed’s policy of “quantitative easing”, which has been criticised by China and Germany.
China, Germany and others have attacked the Federal Reserve in recent weeks for its decision to purchase another $600bn of US government debt in a bid to stimulate the US economy.
They say that the policy will unfairly devalue the dollar in currency markets, and that this could lead to inflation and asset bubbles elsewhere in the world.
The Chinese also argued the Fed had failed to take account of its responsibility for protecting the value of the dollar as a global reserve currency.
In his speech, Mr Bernanke defended the policy as the right response to falling inflation and high unemployment in the US.
He also said it was a natural extension of monetary policy, given that interest rates were near zero and could not be cut further.
But Mr Bernanke went further than this, hitting back against his critics.
He said that their policy of accumulating dollar reserves in order to weaken their currencies and help maintain a trade surplus would hurt the recovery in industrial economies, and this in turn could harm the entire global economy.
“For large, systemically important countries with persistent current account surpluses, the pursuit of export-led growth cannot ultimately succeed if the implications of that strategy for global growth and stability are not taken into account,” he said.
He spoke of a two-speed recovery, in which developing economies like China and India had rapidly bounced back, while industrialised countries like the US, Europe and Japan were growing much more slowly and suffered from high unemployment.
“Because a strong expansion in the emerging market economies will ultimately depend on a recovery in the more advanced economies, this pattern of two-speed growth might very well be resolved in favour of slow growth,” he said.
He also said the currency interventions by countries like China had other iniquitous effects.
He said it was unfair on other countries that allowed their currencies to appreciate, as they would be forced to bear the brunt of the economic adjustment.
Countries such as Brazil and South Africa have already complained that they have been put in exactly this position by the “currency war” between the US and China.
Mr Bernanke also warned that by refusing to let their currencies appreciate, countries like China would be forced to take other measures to stop risky inflows of speculative money, and to cool rising inflation.
On the same day of his speech, China announced a half-point rise in the percentage of cash its banks must hold in reserve – a measure designed to slow down a recent jump in inflation to 4.4%.
China has also taken measures in recent months to tighten up capital controls – designed to stop people speculating on the value of the Chinese currency.
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Four million children are wearing the wrong-size shoes, according to new research. Why?
It’s a common part of childhood, the trip to the shoe shop and your feet being measured. But according to new research conducted by Glasgow Caledonian University, there are still four million children in shoes that don’t fit them.
Parents who squeeze their child’s feet into the wrong-sized shoes could be condemning them to a lifetime of problems. From blisters, pressure sores and ingrowing toe nails in the short-term, to feet deformities like hammer toe and knee and posture problems in the long-term. The list goes on.
People need to take as much care of their children’s feet as they do with their teeth, say podiatry professionals. If that’s the case, why are so many children in shoes that don’t fit?
Neglect, budget constraints, convenience and fashion are all to blame, says Dr Gordon Watt, lecturer in podiatry at Glasgow Caledonian University.
The answerPeople don’t realise the problems ill-fitting shoes can causePeople opt for cheaper shoesFashion trends often aren’t good for feet
“People think of feet as smelly,” he says. “They often just forget about them, when they should actually take much more of an interest.”
Children’s feet tend to grow rapidly in the first four years of their life, but it can take up to 18 years for the foot’s bones, muscles and ligaments to harden into adult form. So teenage feet need to be looked after as well as those of smaller children.
According to the research, one in 10 parents say their children have continued to wear shoes that are too small for them. Half admit to only buying new shoes when their children complain their feet are hurting.
Podiatry experts say many people neglect their children’s feet because they simply don’t understand the problems an ill-fitting pair of shoes can cause. Only 40% of parents interviewed as part of the research took into account whether the shoes on their offspring’s feet were well fitting and supportive.
False economy
Another issue is money. Two fifths of parents admitted to buying shoes that were too big so their children could grow into them over time, saving money. When it came to actually purchasing footwear, a quarter of parents said they based their decision on the cost.
The rise of cheaper shoes, sold without expert advice and proper fitting in stores and supermarkets, has also had an impact. Not only do they cost less, but they are often more convenient to buy than taking a child to a proper shoe shop for a fitting.
Fashion is often bad for feet
But it’s a false economy in more ways than one, says Bob Hardy, a leading expert on shoe fitting and fellow of the Society of Shoe Fitters.
“Not only are the health of their child’s feet at risk, cheaper shoes often fall apart and people end up going back two or three times for a new pair. They end up paying the same as they would have for well-made, properly-fitted shoes.
“Also, these shoe often don’t come in half sizes or different widths, both of which are important if you want a shoe to fit properly.”
Fashion trends also sway one in ten parents. This is a particular problem among older children and teenagers.
“Often fashionable shoes offer very little support,” says Dr Watt.
Specialist training
“Take the current trend for ballet pumps among girls. They offer no support and are very flat. If you have an active child running around in them it could lead to Achilles [tendon] problems in the future.”
There are checks that parents can do at home to make sure their child’s shoe fits properly, says Mr Hardy.
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
A part of BBC News Magazine, Who, What, Why? aims to answer questions behind the headlines
There should be no more than a 14mm gap between the big toe and end of a shoe in a new pair. Anything less than 8mm and it’s time to visit the shoe shop and get another pair. When it comes to width, the shoe should be supporting the foot, not squeezing it.
It is worth going to a shoe shop because proper shoe fitters will have undergone specialist training, either through their employer or with the Society of Shoe Fitters.
What parents should also remember is there are variations in shoe sizing due to factors like the place they are made, says Mr Hardy. German shoes, for example, are wider than Italian.
Because of this a child’s foot should be measured every time they get new shoes and parents should not rely on the size printed inside the shoe, he says.
Finally, make sure both feet are measured, as one can be larger than the other.
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