600 Indian students expelled for cheating on school exams

Associated Press/Press Trust of India, File - CAPTION CORRECTS THE YEAR - FILE

PATNA, India (AP) — About 600 high school students in eastern India have been expelled for cheating on pressure-packed 10th grade examinations this week, education authorities said Friday.

The incident has received widespread attention after Indian television footage showed parents and friends of students scaling the outer walls of school buildings to pass cheat sheets to students inside taking exams.

More than 1.4 million 10th graders are taking the tests at more than 1,200 high schools across the state. They face tremendous pressure because they must pass the exams to continue their education.

Teachers and state education department officials supervising the examination caught hundreds of students who had smuggled in text books or scraps of paper for cheating.

"It's virtually impossible to conduct fair examinations without the cooperation of parents," said P.K. Shahi, Bihar's education minister. He said it was not possible to monitor the 6 million parents and others who accompany the students to the examination centers.
State authorities posted police at all schools where examinations were being held, "but we can't use force to drive away the parents," he said.

Nearly two dozen parents were detained after they were caught helping their children, but were released after several hours.

On Friday, the high court in the state capital, Patna, ordered the Bihar police chief to ensure that examinations are conducted in a fair manner.

State education authorities have canceled examinations held at four centers after they received reports of large-scale cheating.

Bihar School Examination Board Secretary Sriniwas Tiwari said students caught cheating could be barred from taking the exam for up to three years, ordered to pay a fine or even sent to jail.

Cheating seems to be particularly widespread in Bihar, although there have been no reports of anyone being sent to jail for the offense.

Source: Yahoo! News Singapore

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ISIS is reportedly recruiting Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong

Photo: Oriental Daily

Recruiters for ISIS, an Islamic extremist rebel group, have reportedly being targeting Hong Kong’s Indonesian helpers.

A maid agency told Oriental Daily that many Indonesian domestic workers received what appeared to be recruitment leaflets for ISIS on Sunday.

The pamphlet encouraged domestic workers to join ISIS, which said it would send them to “do things” in Xinjiang province, but did not specify what they would be doing exactly.

Perhaps in a bid to appear relatable to domestic workers, the leaflet features a black and white photo of a dozen women wearing niqabs and holding a large ISIS flag.
“Their way dressing [in the photo] is not the most virtuous, but it is definitely the most covered,” says text in Bahasa Indonesia.

“On March 2, ISIS will be in Hong Kong to distribute pamphlets and recruit members.”

The text in Chinese says "There is no god but Allah” and “Allah is the true lord’s messenger”.

A staff member of an Indonesian domestic worker group believes ISIS began sporadic canvassing activities in Hong Kong two years ago with the help of one or two recruiters, according to Oriental Daily.

But they said that recently, however, a lot more recruiters have been showing up at popular hangout spots for Indonesian domestic workers, causing many to worry.

A lawyer told Oriental Daily that handing out religious pamphlets is not illegal, but if there is evidence that the related organisations are involved in terrorist activities, or intend to plan terrorist activities in Hong Kong, then it is an offence.

A police spokesperson said they have no reason to believe Hong Kong will become the target of a terrorist attack.

Source: Coconuts Hong Kong

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Pregnant woman who answered Craigslist ad for baby clothes has foetus cut from womb

The suspect arrived at hospital with the baby and claimed she had miscarried

A Colorado woman who advertised baby clothes using a Craigslist classified advert brutally beat a pregnant woman and cut her foetus from her womb, police have said.

Police were called to a house in Longmont, 30 miles from Denver, at around 2:45pm. When they arrived, they could hear the victim, 26, screaming for help.

Inside the property, they discovered the victim had been beaten and stabbed in the stomach with a knife, the Longmont Times-Call reported.

“When she [the pregnant woman] got here, she was assaulted and stabbed, and her baby was removed,” Longmont Police Commander Jeff Satur told CNN, adding the two women were strangers.
The victim was rushed to Longmont United Hospital where she underwent surgery.

She is expected to recover. However, her baby did not survive the ordeal.

Police believe the suspect, 34, is mentally ill, as she arrived at the hospital with the baby and claimed to have suffered a miscarriage, Satur said.

Officers arrested her at the hospital on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and child abuse knowingly and recklessly resulting in death.

Satur added that the suspect has two children, and was driven to the hospital by her husband, before he returned to the scene. He has not been arrested and is not a suspect.

Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett told the Longmont Times-Call that laws in Colorado regarding unborn children are “complicated”.

“In most circumstances, if a child was not actually born alive, then homicide charges are not possible. With a case like this, most of the time charges would not need to be filed until sometime next week," he said.

The incident highlights the potential dangers of online classified websites, and comes after a man and his wife were killed in Georgia earlier this year while they tried to buy a car through Craigslist.

The seller has since been charged with murder.

Source: The Independent

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Massive solar storm slams Earth

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) - A geomagnetic storm that government scientists rate as severe hit the planet on Tuesday morning.

The storm rated as a G4 on a NOAA scale, which tops out at G5. It's the strongest storm that's happened in the current solar cycle, which lasts about 11 years.

The Space Weather Prediction Center says that the storm is from sun activity that started on March 15. Two magnetic eruptions occurred in quick succession. They combined into one larger eruption before intersecting the Earth's orbit on Tuesday.

The storm arrived earlier (10 a.m. EDT) and was stronger than predicted. The storm could last 24-36 hours.
It warned that there could be possible widespread voltage control problems at power systems and some protective systems could trip out key assets from the grid but that appeared to not be happening.

"We are receiving no reports of abnormality or disconnects on the power grid," NOAA's Tom Burger said at a Tuesday afternoon press briefing.

Spacecraft could also experience surface charging and tracking problems and corrections may be needed for orientation problems.

It warned that satellite navigation systems could be affected for hours and low-frequency radio navigation disrupted.

It also said that the aurora could be seen as far south as California because of the storm. Images on Twitter showed it was visible in the pre-dawn hours in Washington state.

There were other reports of the aurora being seen in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Alaska.

Widespread areas of Northern Europe were expected to see the aurora later Tuesday.

NOAA scientists say that depending on how long it lasts and how intense the storm continued to be, states as far south as from Alabama to northern California on Tuesday night.

A less severe storm hit Earth on January 7. That storm was classified as a G3. NOAA said that it has been about a decade since a G5 storm hit the planet.

Source: myfoxny

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Mother tries to smuggle baby through airport security in backpack

A young mother reportedly attempted to smuggle her baby out of the Philippines in a rucksack.

Authorities at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) found the two-month-old infant concealed in his 25-year-old mother’s bag on Monday evening, according to network ABS-CBN.

The sleeping child was only discovered when the backpack was scanned by the X-ray machine at airport security.

The mother, from Papa New Guinea, was identified as nursing graduate Jenifer Pavolaurea. She claimed she had hidden her son because she did not have the correct documentation for him to leave the country. Vicente L Guerzon Jr, assistant general manager for security and emergency services of the Manila International Airport Authority, told the broadcaster that Pavolaurea had already been questioned for staying in the Philippines after her immigration clearance had run out.

However, she was eventually allowed to continue her journey to Papua New Guinea and no charges were brought.

It is not the first instance of parents attempting to smuggle their relatively-newborns abroad. In 2012 an Egyptian couple put their five-month-old baby in their hand luggage because they did not have the right visa for him to enter the UAE.

He too was discovered when the bag went through a  security check, but was unharmed.

Source: The Indepndent

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Condition of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father, deteriorates

Singapore's former prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew pictured in 2013 at the Standard Chartered Forum in Singapore. Mr. Lee was admitted to Singapore General Hospital's intensive care unit in February. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The health of Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who has been in hospital with pneumonia since February 5, has deteriorated further, the government said Wednesday.

The Prime Minister's office had said Tuesday that Lee, 91, who is on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of Singapore General Hospital, had an infection and was being treated with antibiotics.

"Mr Lee Kuan Yew remains critically ill in the ICU and has deteriorated further," the office said in its latest update.

Later Wednesday, a top government spokesman dismissed as a hoax a report that Singapore's founding father had died. A message about Lee's supposed demise, purporting to be from the current Prime Minister, had circulated online. "We have reported this to the police and they are investigating this hoax. Our website was not hacked, it was a doctored image," Farah Rahim, senior director for the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information said.

Born in 1923, Lee co-founded the city state in 1965 when it declared its independence from Malaysia and was its prime minister for more than three decades.

Lee was succeeded as prime minister by Goh Chok Tong in 1990, before Lee Kuan Yew's son Lee Hsien Loong took power in August 2004.

The elder Lee has been credited with Singapore's remarkable transformation from a colonial trading post to a prosperous financial center.

However, he has also been a divisive figure, attracting criticism for stifling media freedom and for the harsh treatment of political opponents.

Source: CNN

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BREAKING: Gunmen storm Tunisian museum, kill 2 Tunisians, 17 foreign tourists

Tunisian security forces secure the area after gunmen attacked Tunis' famed Bardo Museum on March 18, 2015.

Tunisian security forces secure the area after gunmen attacked Tunis' famed Bardo Museum on March 18, 2015.

Members of the Tunisian security services take up a position after gunmen reportedly took hostages near the country's parliament, outside the National Bardo Museum, Tunis, March 18, 2015.

Tourists and visitors from the Bardo museum are evacuated in Tunis, March 18, 2015.

Members of the Tunisian security services outside the National Bardo Museum, March 18, 2015.

A Tunisian security force helicopter flies over the site of an attack carried out by two gunmen at Bardo national Museum on March 18, 2015 in Tunis.

(Reuters) - Gunmen in military uniforms stormed Tunisia's national museum, killing 17 foreign tourists and two Tunisians on Wednesday in one of the worst militant attacks in a country that has largely escaped the region's "Arab Spring" turmoil.

Visitors from Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain were among the dead in the noon assault on the Bardo museum near parliament in central Tunis, Prime Minister Habib Essid said.

Security forces stormed the former palace around two hours later, killed two militants and freed other tourists held hostage inside, a government spokesman said. One policeman was killed in the police operation.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Islamic State militants, who have become particularly active in neighboring Libya, were behind the attack. "The EU is determined to mobilize all the tools it has to fully support Tunisia in the fight against terrorism," she added.

Prime Minister Essid declared in a national address:

"All Tunisians should be united after this attack which was aimed at destroying the Tunisian economy."

Television footage showed dozens of people, including elderly foreigners and one man carrying a child, running for shelter in the compound, covered by security forces aiming rifles into the air.

The attack on such a high-profile target is a blow for the small North African country that relies heavily on European tourism and has largely avoided major militant violence since its 2011 uprising to oust autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisia's uprising inspired "Arab Spring" revolts in neighboring Libya and in Egypt, Syria and Yemen. But its adoption of a new constitution and staging of largely peaceful elections had won widespread praise and stood in stark contrast to the chaos that has plagued those countries.

Authorities did not immediately identify the gunmen.

But several Islamist militant groups have emerged in Tunisia since the uprising and authorities estimate about 3,000 Tunisians have also joined fighters in Iraq and Syria -- raising fears they could return and mount attacks at home.

"Two terrorists disguised in military clothes got into the parliament building, then the museum where they attacked tourists. Nineteen people were killed including 17 foreign tourists. Twenty-two tourists are wounded," the prime minister said.

ARAB SPRING REVOLTS

"Two militants opened fire on the tourists as they were getting off the buses before fleeing into the museum," one Bardo employee told Reuters at the scene.

An official at the Italian foreign ministry in Rome said two Italians had been wounded in the attack.

About another 100 Italians were in the area and had been taken to safety by Tunisian police, authorities added.

The museum is known for its collection of ancient Tunisian artifacts and mosaics and other treasures from classical Rome and Greece. There were no immediate reports the attackers had copied Islamic State militants in Iraq by targeting exhibits seen by hardliners as idolatrous.

Islamic State affiliates are gaining a foothold in neighboring Libya where two rival governments are battling for control. A senior Tunisian militant was killed while fighting for Islamic State in the Libyan city of Sirte over the past week, authorities said.

Wednesday's assault was the worst attack involving foreigners in Tunisia since an al Qaeda suicide bombing on a synagogue killed 21 people on the tourist island of Djerba in 2002.

Source: Reuters

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Australian boxer Smith dies following fight with Filipino

Despite his bruises, Brayd Smith (C) showed no signs of distress until well after his ten-round fight with John Vincent Moralde (L). Photo from Team Moralde

MANILA, Philippines - Braydon Smith, the Australian boxer who collapsed shortly after losing a ten-round boxing match to Filipino fighter John Vincent Moralde, has died after being taken off life support on Monday, March 16.

Family spokesman James O'Shea confirmed the news two days after the ill-fated bout, which occurred at the Rumours International in the 23-year-old Smith’s hometown of Toowoomba, Australia.

Smith, whose final record rests at 12-1 (10 knockouts), was thoroughly outfought in the bout, though observers say there was no point in the bout when it appeared to be a desperate situation that needed to be halted.

John Vincent Moralde wears a shirt from Braydon Smith's Gym upon his return to the Philippines. Photo by Ryan Songalia

"He really wanted to change the image of boxing," said O'Shea. “A lot of times in this country the sport gets a bad rap."

Smith took photos with his opponent and mingled with fans in the crowd afterwards but collapsed in his dressing room approximately 90 minutes after the fight. His father is trainer Brendon Smith, who guided Michael Katsidis to a lightweight championship. Brendon Smith also promoted the event.

He was initially taken to the local Toowoomba Hospital before being airlifted to Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital, where his family held bedside vigil before the decision was made.

The Davao City, Philippines native Moralde, 20, arrived in Manila on Sunday evening before traveling to General Santos City on Monday morning.

“We offer our prayers to Brayd’s fiancé and the whole family,” said Jim Claude Manangquil, Moralde’s promoter. “It’s a tragic time for everyone involved but I pray that God watches over them.

Smith was in his final year of studies for his Bachelor of Law degree at University of Southern Queensland.

Source: Rappler

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WATCH: Cam-equipped bird flies off Dubai skyscraper, sets world record

Darshan the Eagle has set a new world record in a breathtaking mini-camera video that shows highest recorded bird flight from the tallest building in the world – Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – in an effort to bring awareness to eagle conservation.

The camera strapped on Darshan shows off the entire flight from a bird’s eye view, capturing stunning Dubai’s architectural landscape.



The bird of prey began its flight from the top of the 829.8-meter (2,722-foot) Burj Khalifa. After circling around, Darshan suddenly began to free-fall all the way to the ground, eventually landing on his trainer’s arm.

People watching the flight cheered, as they filmed the record-breaking event. “Darshan is a male Imperial Eagle with a wingspan of two metres,” the bird’s trainer and founder of Freedom Conservation, Jazques-Olivier Travers, told Gulf News. “He is a very powerful bird, which is necessary as he is donning a 300g camera on his back.”



The event was organized to promote the awareness on the plight of the endangered birds of prey, listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Endangered Species. Freedom Conservation’s aims to protect and reintroduce the endangered birds into their natural habitat.

Previously, Darshan has performed flights from the Eiffel Tower in Paris and St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

The problem of birds conservation is particularly acute in the Gulf states due to the tradition of the hunting season, when royal families from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE go after the rare species.

While the practice usually relies on foreign smugglers, some royals have even been caught smuggling endangered birds from countries such as Russia first-hand. This trend is believed to be contributing to the sharp decline in the falcon population.

Source: RT

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Here is VAIO's first smartphone

No longer a part of Sony, VAIO likes the look of that smartphone market, and has decided to go up against its former parent company's Xperia series with its own creation -- one that looks very familiar to our smartphone-seasoned eyes. It's called the VAIO Phone, and it's launching in Japan in collaboration with one of the country's smaller carriers, b-mobile, on March 20th.
Remember this isn't the giant Sony we're dealing with any more: VAIO is now leaner and well, a whole lot smaller. However, it seems they put their best brains on the flagship laptop series because there's really not much to scream and shout about its first smartphone. There's five-inch display, Android 5.0, 13-megapixel camera and enough power behind the purposely unassuming shell: two gigs of RAM and 1.2GHz processor. And it all looks, well, just... okay:



There's a very flat, glossy back, curved plastic sides and it's generally very unassuming. VAIO is calling it "simple and stylish" but we interpret that as "nondescript", at least going from our early play with it. Fortunately (probably due to the smaller phone carrier involved) there's no app-based bloat, something that still lingers in Japan on its mobile phones. There's really not much more to say however: it's a smartphone. It looks like a lot of smartphones that came before it. There's no crazy camera tech, eye-bleeding screen (it's only 720p, pixel fans) or object-reading magic. But it will be priced to sell -- just shy of 33 bucks (4,000 yen) per month will get you VAIO's first smartphone as well as unlimited data. Japan residents can also pick up the phone for about $420, or 51,000 yen. Not such an easy sell.

Source: Engadget

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Sources: Unbeaten world champ Rigondeaux sparring with Pacquiao

Getting a world-class sparring partner who has a similar style to Floyd Mayweather is beyond difficult to find, but Manny Pacquiao may have found just the perfect guy for the job.

Sources told GMA News Online that unbeaten world super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux has been tapped to spar with Pacquiao in preparation for his long-awaited showdown against Mayweather on May 2.

One source said that Pacquiao and Rigondeaux have already started to spar with each other at the famed Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles this past week. Pacquiao was said to not have worn a headgear during the sparring session while Guillermo was equipped with full boxing gears.
A pugilist who possesses excellent speed, power, footwork and boxing skills, the 34-year-old Cuban is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a three-time amateur boxing World Cup gold medalist.

He has a perfect record of 15-0 with 10 knockouts and holds a dominant victory over Nonito Donaire in 2013.

Perhaps more importantly, Rigondeaux possesses the quick reflexes and defensive style that could help Pacquiao get an idea of how it would be to face Mayweather inside the ring.

Rigondeaux had previously trained under Roach, drawing high praise from the Hall of Fame trainer.

GMA News Online got in touch with Rigondeaux's manager Gary Hyde to confirm the report but he respectfully declined to comment on the matter.

Source: GMA News

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