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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