Monday, February 18, 2008

The Eastern Conference defeated their Western Conference counterparts at the 2008 National Basketball Association All-Star Game held at New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana on Sunday. The final score was 134-128.

The East took an early 11 point lead in the first 5 minutes, due to an injured Kobe Bryant only playing 2 minutes before sitting on the bench for the rest of the game. “There’s one player we really, really missed, and that was Kobe,” said West coach Byron Scott. The West later reduced the lead to 2 points, but at halftime, the East led 74-65.

The West trailed by 13 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but rallied behind New Orleans point guard Chris Paul, who had seven assists in the final period. With 2:48 remaining, Brandon Roy scored a layup on an assist from Paul, giving the West a 122-119 lead, their biggest lead of the game.

The East then answered back with two three-pointers from Ray Allen, before Chris Paul tied the game with a three-pointer of his own. However, the East would then take the lead and the game with layups from Dwyane Wade and Allen, as well as a driving dunk from LeBron James. A Brandon Roy three-pointer put the game within three points with 8.7 seconds left, but 3 free throws from Ray Allen sealed the win for the East.

“The fourth quarter was crazy,” said Chris Paul. “We were down 13. We picked up the intensity. We took the lead a few times but Ray Allen was unbelievable the way he shot the ball. And that last dunk by LeBron, we had two people on him but that still wasn’t enough.”

With 27 points, 8 rebounds, and 9 assists, James was named the All-Star Game’s Most Valuable Player for the second time in his career. Some television commentators also considered Ray Allen a likely choice for the award, with 14 of his 28 points coming in the final 3 minutes of the game. “I think Ray Allen had a heck of a shooting night,” James said after being presented the award.

Sunday, May 21, 2006Iran has rejected European Union incentives to give up its uranium enrichment program. Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said that any plan has to acknowledge Iran’s legal rights under international law, including Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

It is believed that Britain, France, and Germany, all member states of the EU, are developing incentives for Iran to give up its enrichment programming in an attempt to defuse mutual fears and perceptions of threats by US, Israeli, and Iranian governments. The incentives are believed to include a raft of security, trade and technology benefits.

The proposal by the three EU members encourages other nations to support the construction of light water power generation reactors, to set up a nuclear fuel bank and the relaxation of United States trade restrictions to allow Iran to purchase commercial planes built in the US. These incentives are conditional upon Iran renouncing its rights under Article IV of the NPT, i.e. stopping its Uranium enrichment program, and cooperating with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in ways additional to its present cooperation, which at present includes continuous monitoring of many key Iranian nuclear facilities by the IAEA.

If Iran doesn’t comply, Britain, France and Germany will support economic sanctions against Iran, the refusal to issue visas to Iranian officials and a freeze on the assets belonging to individuals and corporations with ties to the Iranian regime.

Mr Asefi said he would not comment on the proposal at this stage. He said it would be “hasty to comment on a raw proposal that has been brought up in the media, and still neither officially nor unofficially given to us.”

Mr Asefi said that any plan would have to recognise Iran’s rights to be considered. “The basis of our work is that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s rights must be recognised in any plan,” he said.

“We cannot retreat. The proposal should provide ways to secure our rights,” he said. “We will not stop enrichment.”

Mr. Asefi warned Europe against economic sanctions saying that they would harm Europe. “We have broad trade and economic ties with European and non-European countries. These ties can be damaged and this damage will harm European countries even more.” he said.

Friday, June 19, 2009

According to a survey conducted by Teachers TV, almost half of teachers believe that safety measures in UK schools are over the top and curb children’s learning.

The survey, which consisted of 585 school staff, found that 44.3% believe safety regulations currently in place at schools negatively affect learning. About the same percentage, however, believed that the rules were not overtly restrictive.

Those who were questioned were also asked to provide examples of the most restrictive health measures in their school. Among them were: banning running in playground, cancelling physical education classes when the grass was wet, and making students wear goggles when putting up posters.

Other examples included banning consumption of sweets due to choking hazard and not allowing children to play with toilet tube rolls.

“Almost half the education workforce feels that health and safety regulations negatively affect students’ education and their personal development, along with the education workforce,” said the chief executive of Teachers TV, Andrew Bethell.

“The more extreme examples are thankfully not the norm, but schools still need to take into consideration the workforce’s concerns when trying to protect pupils,” he said.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

The microblogging service Twitter has changed its software support for censoring posts. With the new updates, Twitter can now withdraw individual posts and accounts in specific countries, as opposed to a global deletion. Twitter announced these changes in a blog post on Thursday, and released a clarification update on Friday.

Twitter says it needed to make the changes to expand on an international level. It said in a blog post entitled Tweets still must flow, “we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.” Twitter says it will use the new feature only “when required to do so in response to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.”

The new tools will give Twitter the ability to withdraw posts and entire accounts in selected countries. Once the posts have been withdrawn, they are replaced with a message saying: “This Tweet/account has been withheld in: Country.” and then links to a support page.

The social network has been used in the past as an outlet for political expression. During the Arab Spring, protesters in various countries used Twitter to mobilize support and report information to the outside world.

Some users have proposed boycotting Twitter. The organization Reporters without Borders sent an open letter to Twitter’s chairman, Jack Dorsey, saying “We urge you to reverse this decision, which restricts freedom of expression and runs counter to the movements opposed to censorship that have been linked to the Arab Spring, in which Twitter served as a sounding board… Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization.”

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Dell Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will partner up with the Microsoft-Nortel Innovative communications alliance (ICA) team to sell Unified Communications and VoIP products.

The announcement on Tuesday the 16th of October 2007 includes Dell selling VoIP, data and wireless networking products from Nortel and the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and other unified communications products.

The partnership with both manufacturers should allow Dell to provide a pre-integrated solution.

In March 2007, competitors IBM and Cisco announced they would join in the competition for developing unified communications applications and the development of open technologies around the unified communications and collaboration (UC2) client platform an application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by IBM as a subset of Lotus Sametime.

“We want to make it simple for our customers to deploy unified communications so their end users can get access to all their messages in one place – whether its e-mail, phone or mobile device. This will pave the way for more business-ready productivity tools,” said vice president of solutions, Dell Product Group, Rick Becker.

• Customers have four options:
  • Core Office Communication Server 2007 – provides instant messaging and on-premise Microsoft Live Meeting.
  • Office Communication Server: Telephony – enables call routing tracking and management, VoIP gateway and public branch exchange (PBX) integration.
  • Audio and Video Conferencing – allows point-to-point conference, video conference and VoIP audio conference.
  • Exchange Unified Messaging – provides voicemail, e-mail and fax in Microsoft Outlook, and anywhere access of Microsoft Outlook Inbox and Calendar.

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Sunday, December 2, 2007

The 20th annual World AIDS Day was December 1, 2007. The theme selected by the World AIDS Campaign is “Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise” as it will be through 2010. The day was marked by thousands of events around the world.

“It is now time for bold leadership at all levels in order to turn the tide of HIV,” said Felicita Hikuam, Global Programmes Manager, World AIDS Campaign. An estimated 33.2 million people around the world—one in every 200—are living with HIV, and approximately 6,800 people are infected with HIV and 5,700 people die of AIDS-related illnesses every day.

“The trend is encouraging but still for every person receiving treatment four others are newly infected,” said Nelson Mandela, speaking at a concert in Johannesburg, South Africa. “If we are to stop the Aids epidemic from expanding, we need to break the cycle of new HIV infections. All of us working together with government, communities and civil society can make the difference that is needed,” he continued.

As many as 50,000 people attended the concert in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was telecast around the world. It was organized by Nelson Mandela’s 46664 AIDS campaign and featured performances by artists such as Peter Gabriel, Ludacris, Razorlight, the Goo Goo Dolls and Annie Lennox.

At a fundraiser in the town of Midrand, in the province Gauteng, near Johannesburg on Friday, singer Annie Lennox had strong words for the South African government’s AIDS policies.

“AIDS, as Madiba [Mandela] has said, is a human rights issue and should be treated as such in order to avoid this genocide that is affecting millions and millions of people around the world,” said Lennox in a speech. Lennox has previously been critical of the South African government’s position on suggesting some AIDS medications were toxic. “It is unacceptable that treatment has not been made available to those who need it most,” said Lennox.

The rock band Queen, which lost its lead singer Freddie Mercury to AIDS, released a new song entitled, Say It’s Not True, to coincide with World Aids Day. It has been made available as a free download from the band’s website. “By making the song available for free, we hope to help Nelson Mandela with his campaign to get across the message that no-one is safe from infection,” said Queen drummer Roger Taylor. “We have to be aware, we have to protect ourselves and those we love.”

In China, people distributed AIDS prevention brochures in the streets and promoted safe sex in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. In Changsha, official warning signs were put on hotel bedstands. The government announced on Friday an allocation of CNY860 million for AIDS prevention and control. According to official reports, there are estimated to be 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China.

Also in China, the Miss World 2007 was in Sanya on World AIDS Day. The pageant presented a special tribute to the fight against AIDS, with a televised speech from former South African President Nelson Mandela, along with traditional dancers from South Africa who joined the contestants in a special song.

Friday, United States President George W. Bush urged the United States Congress to double the 2003 Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to US$30 billion over the next five years. “Above all, we rededicate ourselves to a great purpose: We will turn the tide against HIV/AIDS—once and for all,” he said.

“I’m pleased to announce that Laura and I will travel to sub-Sahara Africa early next year,” Bush said. Sub-Saharan Africa suffered nearly three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths during 2006 and is home to two-thirds of those living with HIV/AIDS.