Malala inspires Pakistani students

The courage of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai has renewed Pakistani students' determination to learn despite the poor state of the country's education system, undermined by poverty and under attack from militants.

The 15-year-old is recovering in a British hospital after the millitants shot her in the head in a cold-blooded murder attempt for daring to promote the right of girls to go to school.

The October 9 attack came in Malala's hometown Mingora in Swat, part of Pakistan's restive northwestern province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where insurgents bitterly opposed to a secular curriculum -- and girls' education in particular -- have destroyed hundreds of schools in recent years.

Militants have destroyed four schools in the last week alone, according to officials -- two on Wednesday in Mohmand tribal district and two more in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The provincial government says more than 700,000 students have been affected, though casualties are low as most school attacks happen at night when students are at home.

Naseem Baigam, a teacher at the government-run Islamia Collegiate girls' high school in Peshawar, the main city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told AFP the destruction of schools and the attack on Malala had frightened parents.

But students at the school said they were inspired by Malala, who rose to prominence with a blog for the BBC chronicling life under the Taliban. "It is disappointing that Taliban are destroying schools," Saba Riaz, a final year student, told AFP.

"Such attacks are disturbing but Malala has given us courage to fight for the cause of education."

Her friend Razia Khan agreed: "Girls will never be scared by such attacks. In any case we will continue our studies, even if they are destroying schools or attacking girls like Malala."

But it is not only militancy that schools in Pakistan have to contend with. The nuclear-armed nation's spending on education is tiny -- less than 2.5 percent of GDP, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF. Only nine countries in the world spend less on education.

Pakistan's official literacy rate is 58 percent, with less than half of women able to read and write, yet in 2011-12 the government's spending on defence was more than 10 times greater than education.

The country of 180 million people languishes near the bottom of the world literacy list, 159th out of 184 countries categorised by the UN Development Programme.

A recent UNESCO report said at least 5.1 million Pakistani children are out of school -- 63 percent of whom are girls.

Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM), a government survey, found gender disparity in education across the country, but most severe in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces. In Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa just six percent of students are girls, and in Baluchistan's Dera Bugti the figure falls to one percent.

- AFP

Ontario student leaders urge peers to 'stick it' to fast food with boycott

TORONTO - Student leaders in Ontario say it's time their peers took a stand against the food they face in cafeterias and in the fast food restaurants that often ring schools.

Tired of poor quality food options, they are rolling out a campaign calling on students to boycott fast food for the month of November.

The effort, called "Stick it to fast food" is launching under a provocative banner. Its logo, already emblazoned on T-shirts kids can order, looks both like a fork with a single standing tine — and a hand with the middle finger raised.

"In our school boards all the time we hear that cafeterias aren't good enough, students aren't healthy enough. Obesity rates are high. All these statistics. (But) when it comes to doing something, even the adults don't know what to do," says Hirad Zafari, a Grade 12 student at Toronto's Don Mills Collegiate and president of the Ontario Student Trustees Association.

"So we thought: Why not, as the students who are elected to look out for the best interests of the students, do something to make it better?"

Zafari is a leader of the Stick It campaign, which launches today in Toronto.

www.calgaryherald.com

No winners for Armstrong's Tour de France era

The seven Tour de France titles stripped from Lance Armstrong will not be awarded to any riders, and the disgraced American and his teammates should return their prize money, cycling’s governing body ruled Friday.

Acknowledging “a cloud of suspicion would remain hanging over this dark period,” the UCI said the list of Tour winners will remain blank for the years from 1999 to 2005.

“This might appear harsh for those who rode clean (but) they would understand there was little honor to be gained in reallocating places,” the UCI said after a board meeting in Geneva.

The UCI said Armstrong and “all other affected riders” in the case should return their prize money. That amounts to almost $4 million in Tour money from Armstrong.

The cycling body also ordered an independent outside investigation to examine allegations about the UCI’s own conduct and relations with Armstrong raised by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that detailed systematic cheating by the Texan and his teammates.

UCI has been accused of accepting $125,000 from Armstrong to cover up suspicious doping tests.

Riders and officials involved in doping programs will also be targeted by the inquiry commission.

- AP

Spain makes headway in financial reform: IMF

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Spain has made important progress in reforming its financial sector, and still need to beef up its reform efforts, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday.

"All deadlines established in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), (which is) agreed between the Spanish and European authorities, have been met. It will be important to maintain the momentum as challenging steps lie ahead," the Washington-based global lender said in a preliminary report which assessed the nation's financial reform.

Financial market conditions have improved since the announcement of the European Central Bank's Outright Monetary Transactions program, though they remained fragile, said the IMF.

The institution also said that the country's economy and banks faced headwinds.

An IMF staff team visited Madrid from Oct. 15 to Oct. 26 for the first independent monitoring mission of the financial sector as Europe is giving a financially helping hand to Spain's bank recapitalization, the IMF added.

The European Union has agreed a 100-billion-euro (about 128 billion U.S. dollars) bailout program for Spain's banks this summer.

World's highest national park opens in China's Tibet

LHASA, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- The world's highest national park at altitude opened on Friday in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

The Qomolangma National Park, located at the border of China and Nepal, covers six counties of the region's Xigaze Prefecture with a total area of 78,000 square kilometers.

It includes five mountain peaks with altitudes of more than 8,000 meters, such as Mount Qomolangma. More than 10 others are over 7,000 meters, according to Sun Yongping, deputy chief of the region's tourism bureau.

Ecological valleys and culture-themed zones, hot springs and snow-coated forests are also within the park.

"The national park will be focused on the protection of the ecology and biodiversity and prevention from illegal resource exploitation or land use," Sun said.


The parks are part of Tibetan efforts to turn the region into "an important world destination," which is also a target of central government.

Tibet is situated on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, an area predominantly populated by ethnic Tibetans and prevailed by Buddhist culture. Apart from scenic sports, tourist destinations include Tibetan Buddhism heritage sites such as Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and Zhaxi Lhunbo Monastery.

Nearly 300,000 people in the region are employed in the tourism sector with fixed assets exceeding 25 billion yuan, according to government figures.

The number of tourists traveling to Tibet has been growing by an average of 30 percent annually in the past five years. Last year, more than 8.69 million people visited Tibet, bringing in tourism revenue of 9.7 billion yuan. Authorities aim to see 15 million tourists annually by 2015.

Asylum seeker family claimed more than $6 million and created fake identities for up to 100 children

A FAMILY of fraudsters stole more than $6 million from taxpayers in a 20-year scam, with one claiming fake identities for up to 100 children.

The woman with up to 100 children also claimed to suffer from HIV and require costly drugs - but in reality sent them back to Uganda to be sold for huge profits, the Daily Mail reported.

A court in Croydon, London, heard that supplying the drugs for so many years cost the taxpayer more than $3.1 million (£2m).

A further $240,000 (£154,000) went on education for the "family", with $58,000 (£37,500) for a single higher education course.

Fraud relating to accommodation costs and sub-letting of flats cost $1 million (£650,000), and the family's myriad benefits totalled $1.4 million (£900,000).

During their six-week trial, a jury heard how the group "conspired together to create, use and exploit" false identities in order to carry out the staggering fraud.

An investigator told the Daily Mail: "The trouble is, they had so many identities that it may never be known exactly how much they took out of the benefits system and this country over such a long period of time."

Prosecutor Paul Raudnitz said: "The tentacles of this fraud went far and wide for many, many years. Each defendant at different times joined the conspiracy."

He said "key player" Ruth Nabuguzi, 49, "employed multiple identities ... so many that the true number of identities may never ever be known".

Nabuguzi, originally from Uganda, made claims for HIV/AIDS drugs costing $3.6 million (£2,3m). She also received £500,000 in housing benefit from Newham Council in east London, Croydon Crown Court heard.

Nabuguzi came to the UK in 1991 and claimed asylum for herself and four children she had left behind in Uganda. Three years later, she used the name Jane Namusisi to apply for asylum again - along with two more children. In 1999 - using the name Pauline Zalwango - she applied once more, this time with three children.

She is believed to have regularly travelled back to Uganda and bought at least three properties in and around the capital Kampala.

Dennis Kyeyune, 29, is thought to be Nabuguzi’s son or nephew. Police found a black holdall at his east London home hidden on a shed roof with a vast array of fake documents, described as a "kitbag for the commission of identity fraud". Other members of the gang include Jordan Sebutemba, 26, thought to be Nabuguzi’s daughter or niece; Albert Kaidi, a former partner of Sebutemba who is believed to be from Rwanda; and Lamulah Sekiziyuvu, 36, a former partner of both Keyuyne and Kaidi.

Kyeyune, Sebutemba, Kaidi and Sekiziyuvu were found guilty of various fraud offences yesterday. They will be sentenced along with Nabuguzi and Betty Tibakawa, 21, Lina Katongola, 29, Mathy Matumba, 50, and Eddie Carlos Semcenda, 30, next week.

Judge Nicholas Ainley said the gang faced "inevitable" prison sentences, adding: "This was a family business and these people knew they were involving themselves in a large scale immigration and benefits fraud. There must also now be questions about their immigration status and right to be in the country."

Mark Simpson, an investigator for the Department for Work and Pensions, said: "This case shows how criminals determined to cheat the benefits system have nowhere to hide when the different branches of the Government come together.

"We can pool our expertise to target and stop this fraud."

-  Daily Mail

Radioactive cesium level in fish off Fukushima not declining

TOKYO — Radioactive cesium levels in most kinds of fish caught off the coast of Fukushima haven’t declined in the year following Japan’s nuclear disaster, a signal that the seafloor or leakage from the damaged reactors must be continuing to contaminate the waters—possibly threatening fisheries for decades, a researcher says.
 
Though the vast majority of fish tested off Japan’s northeast coast remain below recently tightened limits of cesium-134 and cesium-137 in food consumption, Japanese government data shows that 40% of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod, flounder and halibut are above the limit, Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, wrote in an article published Thursday in the journal Science.
 
An earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s vital cooling system, causing three reactor cores to melt and spew radiation onto the surrounding countryside and ocean.
 
“The (radioactivity) numbers aren’t going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off,” Buesseler told The Associated Press in an interview. “There has to be somewhere they’re picking up the cesium.”
 
“Option one is the seafloor is the source of the continued contamination. The other source could be the reactors themselves,” he said.
 
The safety of fish and other foods from around Fukushima remains a concern among ordinary Japanese, among the world’s highest per capita consumers of seafood.

Chilean students protest municipal elections

High school student leader Eloísa González spoke Thursday, calling
students not to vote or to vote null in Sunday's municipal elections. 

Students and other sympathizers took to the streets Thursday in a series of countrywide protests in support of the campaign by the Coordinating Assembly of Secondary Students (ACES) to boycott municipal elections Sunday.

The call to boycott was born out of frustration with the government response to student demands. Some students believe changes they see as necessary can never be made from within the political system.

“Democracy isn’t produced by voting once every four years,” ACES spokesperson Eloísa González told the press leading up to the march. “Transformation in Chile comes about thanks to these student and social movements.”

Within Santiago, ACES was backed by various marches in distinct neighborhoods.

"We have called for decentralized marches with the hope of reflecting the support we have in every neighborhood," González said.

Though Thursday’s marches were announced ahead of time, they were not cleared with city authorities. As a preemptive measure, Chile's national police force, the carabineros, surrounded a handful of schools in downtown Santiago, preventing students from participating in marches by bringing them to police stations for "identity control,” according to ACES. In laws never changed from the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), national police are legally permitted to detain anyone and bring them to police station to verify their identity cards.

González expressed her outrage with the day’s events via her Twitter account.

"(Carabineros) are detaining high school students to prevent the march!" she tweeted, calling on her followers to retweet the message. "This is not democracy!"

“The youth have to take matters into their own hands. The government has its ears covered,” said Luis García, a university employee. “The only way to be listened to is by marching and protesting. I’m not in favor of violence, but people have to go into the streets and make themselves heard.”

With protests undermined by police in downtown Santiago, ACES spokesperson Javiera Román expressed poignant frustration.

"Carabineros are experts at dividing us and diminishing our power," Román told The Santiago Times.

Carabineros could not be reached for immediate comment.

- The Santiago Times

Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini

Experience the afterlife in this lyrical, paranormal debut novel that will send your heart soaring.When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she knows she must have messed up, big-time. She doesn’t remember how she landed in the afterlife again, but she knows this is her last chance to get things right.

Elliot just wants to move on, but first she will be forced to face her past and delve into the painful memories she’d rather keep buried. Memories of people she’s hurt, people she’s betrayed…and people she’s killed.

As she pieces together the secrets and mistakes of her past, Elliot must find a way to earn the forgiveness of the person she’s hurt most, and reveal the truth about herself to the two boys she loves…even if it means losing them both forever.

Trauma (TV series)

Trauma is a television series which originally ran on NBC from September 28, 2009 to April 28, 2010 and focused on a group of paramedics in San Francisco, California.

A month after its premiere NBC announced it would not order any further episodes, but would broadcast the 13 episodes ordered. On November 19, 2009, NBC reversed its decision, announcing it had ordered three additional episodes of the series, bringing the order to 16 episodes; the order was extended to 20 episodes on January 20, 2010, as part of a package of episode orders that followed the demise of The Jay Leno Show. Trauma returned on March 8, 2010, with the season finale scheduled for May 10, 2010. In early April 2010, NBC reduced the episode order down to 18 and announced an April 26, 2010 finale. On May 14, 2010, the show was cancelled by NBC.

Production: The pilot episode featured a multi-vehicle accident and resulting giant fireball, which were filmed in March 2009 on Interstate 280 in the Mission Bay neighborhood just south of downtown San Francisco.

All episodes included an ambulance base station, San Francisco Fire Department Station 4 (there is no actual station 4 in SFFD), which was a converted warehouse on Treasure Island. The warehouse still stands, and still has "Angel Rescue" and SFFD logos on it. The ambulances used in production were manufactured in 2008 by MedTec Ambulance Corporation. They were trucked back to Los Angeles shortly after the show was cancelled. The two main production ambulances, 2008 Medtec Type III ambulances were sold shortly after, to Franklin Park Fire Department and Hamilton County Ambulance. The four other Type II ambulances were returned to their private leasing company.

The show has used places like Alameda Point for filming. One of the destroyed jets can be seen in Google Imagery.

Maison Martin Margiela For H&M New York Launch: Julianne Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker And Kanye West

Last week Grazia magazine was first to exclusively reveal the entirety of H&M’s latest haute fashion collaboration: a collection with the most mysterious label on planet fashion, Maison Martin Margiela. Like all major projects the high street giant undertakes, there’s always a pre-store launch party and plenty of extras like the brilliant Sam Taylor Johnson-lensed campaign and behind-the-scenes video footage. These guys know how to create major buzz. Remember last month’s Anna Dello Russo launch? A smoky jazzy Paris cabaret bar complete with lookalike dancers, a blingtastic entrance on a suspended swing and music from Azealia Banks kept the elite crowd dancing until the wee hours…. and made everyone in attendance and beyond want to snap up some of her statement making jewels.

So what was MMM’s shindig like last night? Well, dancing until the wee hours is apparently a standard expectation of party-going fash folk (who knew?), but this particular event was a more artsy one. Set within nine floors of a derelict building in New York’s financial district, a mixed bunch including Julianne Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kanye West, Selma Blair and Chace Crawford - all clad in the collection - mingled amongst dance performances and art installations. “It’s incredible, so exciting to celebrate one of my favourite designers. They are mysterious and compelling and I’ve been a great fan of Margiela for many years,” enthused Sarah Jessica Parker (who we’ve often spotted in Margiela’s hoof-like boots), “H&M, well, look at the lines of men and women lined up! It’s a great opportunity for people to have access to designers. It makes luxury available to everyone. It’s very democratic and I’m all for it.” Oh SJP, we're so alike!

The collection will be launching online and in select stores from 15 November.

Sustainable tourism central to the future of Africa’s parks

Tourism is one of the most effective ways to preserve Africa’s national parks and protected areas while creating jobs and income for local communities. This was one of the main conclusions of the First Pan-African Conference on Sustainable Tourism in African National Parks, organized by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the government of Tanzania.

“Nature is one of Africa’s greatest assets,” said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, opening the conference, “Many of the 50 million international tourists visiting Africa each year are driven by the continent’s unparalleled wildlife and natural scenery. These tourists spend in the local economy, sustain jobs, and provide an incentive for conservation, making tourism a powerful engine for sustainable development.”

The importance of sustainable tourism development for national parks and the people living in and around them was echoed in the Arusha Declaration, adopted by attending tourism ministers, tourism private sector representatives, and conservation officials.

Signatories to the declaration underlined the importance of good governance in managing park tourism, calling for collaborative action among the relevant stakeholders, particularly between public authorities and the private sector. The declaration further stressed “the need to directly involve local communities in the management of parks and protected areas to ensure they gain concrete benefits in terms of employment and income generation.”

Knowledge exchange between African countries should be prioritized, agreed signatories, given the potential for countries with more limited experience in park tourism to benefit from best practices elsewhere in Africa.

Emma Roberts' On Fashion Dreams And Her Aunt Julia: We Review Her Top 10 Looks

It was a feast of celebrity eye candy at the Narciso Rodriguez for Kohl’s launch. Emma Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts, is an especial fan of the designer, and wore a very cute pink and orange colour-block number from the collection, paired with pointed-toe pumps (we told you she was a fan!).

Emma fares from an impressive background, but she is budding as a stylish starlet in her own right. It therefore makes sense that she is drawn to Narciso's designs, stating that they are 'really girly and at the same time chic,' a style that she wears so well.

Perhaps this 'girly but chic' attitude could transfer to her own potential collections, as she admitted to Fashionista that she eventually wants to collaborate on designer collections, particularly with one very famous house: 'I love fashion, I love designing. I’d love to do something with Opening Ceremony, like Chloe Sevigny did...That’s the kind of thing I want to do, something maybe a little more quirky.'

We love the sound of it already! And because Emma always looks tip-top, we would assume she gets invaluable advice from her very stylish and Oscar-winning auntie. Alas, no: 'Not really. I always love the way she looks and that’s inspiring,' she said. 'I remember I was with her when she picked out her [Valentino] Oscar dress and I was like "that’s so beautiful," but I actually had called it a skunk dress.' Well, at least she knows what she likes!

To see Emma at her best, take a look at the gallery and view her top 10 red carpet looks...

Headline Oct27,2012/

''FROM THE 'CRANIUM': 

A MOCK CHESSBOARD!''

He likes football and things that are left over. He likes making constructivist paintings using circles and spheres, dividing them into quarters and painting them in primary colours.

He likes funny shapes that could be based on leaves, or bits of bones, or bits of the body. He likes pots, boxes, packaging kites, urban decay and architectural plans. He makes tables with beautiful display of collections of stray objects. He has made some wonderful collages using banknotes and old aeroplane tickets. He has messed around with sports photographs.


While some of his pieces, including drawings, are delicate;other pieces are iconic. His ''ping pong'' table of 1998 has water lilies and and water in the middle of it, as well as two ping pong bats at each end and some some ping pong balls. His chessboard has only knights. He has put the skeleton of huge whale decorated with graphite into the library in Mexico city.


His best known piece is probably ''Black Kites'' 1997, done with graphite squares on a human skull. He left the teeth alone, but worked -it took six months- right into the eye sockets, making a sort of meticulous  mock chessboard out of what is, after all, a ready-made mass produced object the Cranium.
He took a Citroen car in  in 1993 and halved it in size and then put it back together again.He has made ''Yielding Stone''  1992, a plasticine his own weight, which picks up the shape and texture of anything it rolls over.

He has taken great photographs of objects placed on top of each other, including cans of cat food on top of the watermelon. And his masterpiece is a little tree growing out of a 'Public Toilet'  -which is hilarious!! And a bubble resting on a upturned foot -which is wonderfully tender.


Orozco is important and worthwhile because he has taken a number of dead-ends and dead beginings in art, such as constructivism, conceptualism, arte povera, installation, minimalism, performance art, foun objects and computer generated art and worked his genius and magic on them. Orozco thinks with beautiful originality, by a fierce act of will and imagination, that they come alive as images.


Good Night and God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

Samsung Is Faulted Over Apple's Patents

Samsung Electronics of South Korea, the world’s top maker of smartphones, infringed on Apple’s patents to make its smartphones and tablets, a federal trade panel judge ruled on Wednesday.

Apple filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission in mid-2011, accusing Samsung of infringing on its patents in making the Captivate, Transform and Fascinate smartphones, and the Galaxy Tablet.

In a preliminary decision from the commission, Judge Thomas Pender said Samsung had infringed on four Apple patents but had not violated two others listed in the complaint. One of the seven listed initially was dropped.

The full International Trade Commission will decide in February whether to uphold or reject the judge’s decision.

Samsung was found to have infringed on an Apple patent that helps the touch screen interpret whether the user wants, for example, to scroll up and down or switch between applications. Samsung was also found to have infringed on a patent that allows the device to show an image on a screen with a second, translucent image over it.

Apple is waging war on several fronts against Google, whose Android software powers many of Samsung’s devices. The battles between Apple and Samsung have occurred in about 10 countries as the companies for market share in the booming mobile industry.

Apple won a sweeping legal victory over Samsung in August when a jury in a federal court in California found that Samsung had copied critical features of the popular iPhone and iPad and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages. Samsung has appealed.

Apple has asked the federal court and the trade commission to permanently ban Samsung products that infringe on Apple patents. Neither the judge nor the commission has ruled.

A Dutch court ruled Wednesday that Samsung had not infringed on Apple patents by using certain multitouch techniques on some Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablet computers.

University of Phoenix to Shutter 115 Locations

The University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit university, is closing 115 of its brick-and-mortar locations, including 25 main campuses and 90 smaller satellite learning centers. The closings will affect some 13,000 students, about 4 percent of its student body of 328,000.

It is also laying off about 800 employees out of a staff of 17,000, according to Mark Brenner, senior vice president for communications at the Apollo Group, which owns the university.

After the closings, which are to be completed next year, the University of Phoenix will be left with a nationwide network of 112 locations and a physical presence in 36 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Apollo stock closed Wednesday at $21.40, down $6.09, a 22 percent decline.

Enrollments at the University of Phoenix and in the for-profit sector over all have been declining in the last two years, partly because of growing competition from other online providers, including nonprofit and public universities, and a steady drum-roll of negative publicity about the sector’s recruiting abuses, low graduation rates and high default rates. 

 Students affected by the University of Phoenix closings will have the option of transferring to the university’s online classes — about three-quarters of its students are online — or moving to a nearby site. Students are now being notified of the changes, and a hot line has been set up for their assistance.

In Roosevelt Island, Birth of a Technical Center

A canopy of solar cells, a nearly classroom-free academic center, cafes open to the public and even a hotel. The new campus of the Cornell University graduate school for technology is expected to transform Roosevelt Island from a sleepy bedroom community into a high-technology hothouse, and indeed, the plans to be formally unveiled for the campus on Monday.
The campus, at the southern end of Roosevelt Island, is to be built in two phases. The first phase, the bulk of which consists of a low-slung academic hub and a taller residential building just south of the Queensboro Bridge, has a projected opening in 2017. Phase Two will comprise several more buildings, aligned along a central walk down the island’s spine. The campus will include several “co-location” buildings, a hallmark of the graduate school, where industry professionals from companies like Facebook and Google can work in concert with graduate students.
And it will not be complete until 2037, according to Cornell officials, a timeline that foretells more than two decades of heavy construction on a spit of land that is 800 feet across at its widest point. 
If successful, the university hopes to break ground in 2014 on the first phase, which is designed to accommodate more than 1,400 students and faculty and staff members; it would include an executive education center and a privately operated hotel, which would be open to the public. Although Cornell officials said the plans could change, they envision a final campus that holds more than 5,000 people.
The building, according to the architects and university officials, will be a “net zero” building, producing as much energy as it consumes. A canopy of photovoltaic cells for solar power undulates over the top, and plans are being considered to have wells harvesting geothermal energy and to work with companies currently experimenting with submerging turbines in the East River to gather energy from the current.

Study Says Gender Gap in Pay Starts Early

The pay gap between educated women and men begins as soon as they start their careers, a new study shows. The study, released on Wednesday by the American Association of University Women, found that in 2009, women who had graduated college a year earlier and worked full time were paid 82 percent as much as their male counterparts, a slight improvement from the 80 percent a similar study found in 2001. The pay gap has often been attributed to women entering lower-paying professions, but the study found that a difference persisted even after controlling for that factor.

Joint protest by DU teachers, students tomorrow

Teachers, students and the non- teaching staff of Delhi University will come together for a joint protest tomorrow to highlight their disapproval with the way the "anti-democratic" ways in which the institution was being administered.

The joint protest comes even as some students launched a petition campaign to draw the Vice Chancellor's attention to their views and concerns about the varsity.

The Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) is continuing its relay hunger strike to press for its demands, but students and 'karamcharis' will also join the protest demonstration tomorrow.


A statement at a joint press conference of DUTA, Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) and Delhi University Colleges Karamchari Union (DUCKU) lamented the fact that the Vice Chancellor has chosen to "consistently attack the three organs and suppress protests by deploying authoritarian measures which smack of a fundamental disregard of the sense of collectivity which comprises the university".
The members of the three groups will gather outside the VC's office tomorrow to again press for their demand to be heard and for a dialogue to be started on a number of issues including on the way reforms are being introduced in the varsity.

"His agenda, derived from the government's neoliberal policy initiatives, consists of a complete overhaul of the structure and content of academic programmes leading to commercialisation and commodification of higher education," it said.

The DUTA has been objecting for over a year to a series of reform measures being introduced by the Vice Chancellor, saying they were being done in a "hurried and half-baked" manner which will not auger well for the University.

A group of students, meanwhile, have initiated a signature campaign addressed to Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh, to draw his concerns over a series of issues.

The petition speaks strongly against some reform proposals including asking students to write their names and other details on answer sheets during examination, doing away with re-tests and revaluation and also highlights the problems being faced by students in a semester mode.

"We feel the concept of learning has suffered lately, there is no longer depth in whatever we are studying as the semesterisation has not been done properly. We have highlighted these issues and others in our petition," said Jessica, a second year Mathematics student of St Stephen's college.

"We have already amassed over a thousand signatures and we will participate in the demonstration tomorrow as we believe that we should stand up and come if we are facing problems," she said.

-  business-standard.com