12/24/17

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

Facts have emerged why female students perform badly in mathematics especially in Nigerian schools.
Prof. Stephen Onah, the Director/Chief Executive Officer, National Mathematical Centre (NMC) who disclosed some of these facts said female students lag behind in mathematical sciences due to their perception that the subject is not meant for them.
Onah said that as a result of this perception, they hardly study mathematics in the university.
The NMC boss made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.
According to him, 16 young Nigerian students have been awarded scholarship due to their performance in international Olympiads competition on mathematics to study abroad and no female is among them.
“No female student measured up to the standard for the competition as they always have phobia for mathematics, but the boys always stand out among their contemporaries.
“This calls for concern, because the female students in the country have not been competitive enough in all the Olympiads competitions. They do not make impact and it is only winners that won scholarship”.
He attributed the factors militating against girl-child science education to phobia for mathematics at the secondary school level.
“Also, this issue of having the impression that mathematics is only for those who are brilliant and that it is not for everybody.
“The girl-child in particular feels that mathematical sciences are not meant for them; they can only do biological sciences and medical sciences.
“These are the issues we are being confronted with and these are some of the reasons the NMC has been putting a lot of emphases in creating awareness at the secondary school level,” he said.
Onah noted that the centre through some of its activities such as the mental arithmetic project sensitise the girl-child on the need to have interest in the learning of mathematics.
“In this project, we emphasise more on the girl-child training in mathematics.
“And it is one of the reasons we have UNESCO girl-child training programme we organise at the centre.
“The UNESCO participation programme was specifically for girls. The idea is to identify them, give them more attention and then see how we can groom them up through encouragement.
“So that they will know that they can do it just like the boys and for us to achieve this, we need a lot of encouragement from the state governments,” he said.
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

China has shut down or revoked the licenses of 13,000 websites, it terms ‘illegal’ since 2015 for violating the country’s internet rules, Xinhua reported Sunday.
Wang Shengjun, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), disclosed the information when briefing lawmakers on cyberspace protection Sunday.
Authorities including the Cyberspace Administration of China have called over 2,200 websites operators for talks during the same period, he said.
In addition, operators have closed nearly 10 million internet accounts for violating service protocol, while information on terrorism and pornography has been removed

The news comes as the Communist country continues to strengthen its already tight regulation of the internet, a move which critics say has picked up pace since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
“These moves have a powerful deterrent effect,” Xinhua quoted Wang Shengjun, as saying.
Despite being home to the world’s largest number of internet users, a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria.
This year alone, it has enacted new rules requiring foreign tech companies to store user data inside the country, imposed fresh content restrictions, and made it increasingly difficult to use software tools that allow users to circumvent censors.
Google, Facebook, Twitter and The New York Times are all blocked in China, among countless other foreign websites.
Beijing strictly defends what it calls “cyber sovereignty” and maintains that its various forms of web censorship — collectively known as “The Great Firewall” — are necessary for protecting its national security.
Within China, websites must register with authorities and are responsible for “ensuring the legality of any information” posted on their platforms, according to regulations in force since 2000.
When their content runs afoul of authorities, they can be shutdown or fined.
One way to bypass the strictly controlled domestic internet is by using a virtual private network (VPN) which can allow users to access the unfiltered global internet. But here too authorities have cracked down.
Earlier this week, Wu Xiangyang from the southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for selling a VPN service on Alibaba’s Taobao and other marketplaces.
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

With Christmas just some hours away, tensions are simmering in the city of Bethlehem, Jesus birthplace and the region over President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The controversial December 6 announcement by Trump unleashed demonstrations and clashes, including in the Israeli-occupied Bethlehem, where Christians will mark the birth of Jesus in a midnight mass.
Bethlehem is normally flooded by tourists at this time of year, but has at times appeared almost empty of visitors as nearby clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army keep people away.
Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said “dozens” of groups had pulled out of planned visits after being scared off by the announcement and subsequent violence.
“Of course this created a tension around Jerusalem and this diverted attention from Christmas,” the Catholic church’s top official in Jerusalem said of Trump’s announcement, but stressing that Christmas celebrations would go ahead as planned.
Perhaps as few as 50,000 Palestinian Christians make up just around two percent of the predominantly Muslim population of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Israel’s tourism ministry has said that Christmas preparations have not been affected and that it expects a 20 percent increase in the number of Christian pilgrims this year compared with 2016.
The ministry plans to operate a free shuttle service for the short distance between Jerusalem and Bethlehem for mass.
An Israeli police spokesman said that extra units will be deployed in Jerusalem and at the crossings to Bethlehem to ease the travel and access for the “thousands of tourists and visitors”.
The annual scouts parade in Bethlehem will march through Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity, built over the spot where tradition says Mary gave birth to Jesus and where celebrations will culminate with midnight mass.
Israel seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it, in moves never recognised by the international community.
Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and interpreted Trump’s statement as rejecting their right to a capital in east Jerusalem, although the Americans deny this.
In a statement ahead of Christmas, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Trump’s announcement “encouraged the illegal disconnection between the holy cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, both separated for the first time in over 2,000 years of Christianity”.
Abbas called on “world Christians to listen to the true voices of the indigenous Christians from the Holy Land… that strongly rejected the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital”.
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

Smokers who quit smoking and live on a diet high in tomatoes and fruits, particularly apples, have better chances of restoring their lung functions impaired by smoking, a new study finds.
The study, published in the December issue of the European Respiratory Journal, said former smokers who eat more tomatoes and fresh fruits on a regular basis saw a slower natural decline in lung function over a 10-year period.
The study was conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
According to it, adults who on average ate more than two tomatoes or more than three portions of fresh fruits and vegetables a day had a slower decline in lung function, compared to those who ate less than one tomato or less than one portion of fruits, respectively, on a daily basis.
Lung function starts to decline at around age 30 and poor lung function is linked to higher risks of death from all diseases, including chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, heart disease and lung cancer.
“A diet rich in fruits can slow down the lung’s natural aging process even if you have never smoked,” said Vanessa Garcia-Larsen, the study’s lead author, who is also an assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health.
Garcia-Larsen and her team examined diet and lung function of more than 650 adults from Germany, Norway and Britain in 2002 and performed lung function tests on the same group of participants 10 years later.
The researchers found a more striking diet-lung-function among former smokers, who had around 80 ml slower decline over the 10-year period because their diets were highly rich in tomatoes and fruits.
Such a result suggests that the nutrients in their diets are beneficial to repairing the lung damage done by smoking.
“Eating more fruits on a regular basis can help attenuate the decline as people age, and might even help repair damage caused by smoking,” Garcia-Larsen said.(Xinhua/LR News)
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

The Borno Police Command has raided black spots as proactive measures to ensure peaceful Christmas and New Year celebrations.
The police also reminded motorists and tricycle operators that the curfew in parts of the state was still in force.
The command advised that vehicular movement during curfew hours was prohibited.
Mr Victor Isuku, the Police Public Relations Officer of the command, made the disclosure in a statement issued in Maiduguri on Sunday.
“In its resolve to create enabling environment for a peaceful Christmas and New year celebrations, Borno state police command has commenced intensive patrols and Show of Force, in collaboration with other security agencies to enhance visibility policing, as well as raids of criminal hideouts/black spots across the state.
“Motorists and commercial tricycle operators are warned to adhere to traffic rules and regulations and eschew all forms of recklessness including drug abuse while behind the wheels.
“The curfew is still in force, as such vehicular movement during curfew hours is prohibited,” he said.
Isuku added that the ban on knockout and fireworks were still in force, warning that the command would not condone acts capable of instilling fear in the people or disrupt peaceful celebration during the festive season.
The statement quoted the state’s Commissioner of Police, Mr Damian Chukwu, as calling on parents to take care of their wards to avert incidents of missing persons.
The command also urged residents of Borno to be security conscious and to report suspicious persons, movements or objects to security agencies.
Meanwhile, the North-East Regional Initiative (NERI) has distributed tools and equipment to 200 widows and dependents of soldiers killed in the war against Boko Haram insurgents in the region.
NERI’s representative, Mr Suleiman Dauda, who spoke at the distribution exercise, said that the 200 widows and dependents were given machinery on agriculture, tailoring, knitting and fashion design.
Dauda listed the items distributed to the beneficiaries to include knitting, sewing and grinding machines, deep freezers for soft drinks and electric generating sets.
He explained that the gesture was to build their resilience and provide means of livelihoods to widows, to enable them set up businesses and become self- reliant.
“The prevailing peace and stability enjoyed in the state could not have been achieved without the sacrifices of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
“NERI is proud of the selfless service rendered by the fallen heroes and, in appreciation, we provided agriculture, infrastructure and development support services to families of the fallen heroes,” he said.
He lauded the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association, the Borno Women Development Initiative and the Borno Agency for Mass Literacy for their support to the programme.
Also speaking, Maj. – Gen. Ibrahim Yusuf, the acting General Commanding Officer, Seven Division, urged the beneficiaries to ensure effective utilisation of the equipment and engage in productive activities.
Yusuf, who was represented by Col. Kingsley Samuel, commended NERI for the gesture, noting that it would go a long way to provide succour to the widows. LR News
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.
US. President, Donald Trump

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House Press Secretary has denied the story by New York Times claiming President Donald Trump said Nigerians live in huts and that Haitians have AIDS.
Sanders gave the rebuttal on Saturday in a most vehement manner, saying:
‘General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Nielsen and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims.
‘It’s both sad and telling The New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous “sources” anyway,’ she said.
The Times cited six officials who were either there or who were briefed on the meeting in its report.
The report was published on Saturday and cited anonymous sources who told The Times reporters’ they were either there or had been told about the remarks by others who were there.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House Chief of Staff General John. Kelly (who was at that time the secretary of homeland security), and domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller were all there.
They said that on the day in question, Trump stormed into the Oval Office clutching ‘sheets of papers’ which revealed how many immigrants had been allowed into the US since he took office.
He was angry that so many had, they said, and made derogatory remarks about the nations on the list.
Of the 40,000 Nigerian immigrants who had been granted entry, he is alleged to have said they would ‘never go back to their huts in Africa’ now that they had seen the United States.
According to NYT, one person claimed to have heard Trump make the remark about Haitians and a second who was not there said they were told about the same remark afterwards.
Those same two sources were the only ones who said they remembered the racist ‘huts’ remark.
Four others who were there said they did not remember Trump using that language.
The article goes on to describe how some of Trump’s most controversial policies and decisions were conceived during the campaign.
Among them was his travel ban against Muslim majority nations which caused hysteria and shock in January when it was briefly imposed then amended.
The unnamed officials said some White House staffers were just as taken by surprise as the rest of the country and that they had to Google which countries were affected.
Miller, the sources said, held a meeting the day after it went into effect to tell them to ‘tune out the whining’.
*Reported by Mail Online
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

Although the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris said the embargo on roadblocks is in force, he has ordered  the immediate commencement of ‘stop and search operations’ nationwide.
Nigerians may surely find this order conflicting with the earlier one, but Idris said the operations are designed to prevent crimes and criminality throughout the yuletide and new year festivals.
The operations, he ordered in a directive issued on Saturday, will be carried out by all State Police Commands across the country at flash points, black spots and vulnerable points on major roads and highways across the country.
READ MORE: Traditional Ruler Sentenced To Jail For Fraud
The Police boss had also earlier  directed  the implementation of an elaborate security arrangement to beef-up security throughout the nation to ensure a hitch-free Christmas and New Year celebration.
The new order came with some guides in its implementation.
“In order to ensure free flow of traffic and ease movement of travellers, the stop and search point will not be located at areas susceptible to traffic gridlock or vehicular hold-ups. The Police teams on traffic control and observation patrols have been deployed to such points and sections to manage traffic and carryout Police observation duties.
“IGP further directs that all Commissioners of Police must supervise the Police personnel deployed to these stop and search points to make sure that they are not turned to roadblock, as the total ban on all forms of road blocks is still in force.
`’Members of the public should promptly report any roadblock seen mounted anywhere in the country to the IGP X-Squad through the following: 0902 690 0729, 08078662130, 08174041000 – CALLS  0903 227 8905 – SMS 0903 562 1377 – whatsApp. Email: integrityxsquad@gmail.com
“The Police Federal Highway Patrol Teams, Safer Highway and Divisional Patrol Teams and other Police Special Squads deployed for the Stop-and-Search operations are under strict instructions to be polite, civil but firm in ensuring security and safety of travellers and other road users on all the highways and major roads across the nation.”
Idris urged  Nigerians especially travellers and other road users to cooperate with police personnel  deployed in their localities as they carry out their duties of ensuring security and safety of lives and property all Nigerians.
Continue reading

at
Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.
US. President, Donald Trump

The New York Times reported today that  United States’ President Donald Trump described Nigerians as people living in huts and that they would not want to return to them, if allowed to visit America.
But White House has denied it as another fake news from the respected newspaper.
NYT  published accounts of some administration officials who were present at a meeting about the administration’s immigration policy in June.
According to the New York Times, Mr Trump fumed to his national security team at the meeting that the number of immigrants arriving was undermining his campaign pledge to erect strong borders.
He was then said to have read out a list of how many immigrants from different countries had received visas so far in 2017.
According to the New York Times he said 15,000 had come from Haiti before adding that they “all have AIDS”.
He then reportedly said 40,000 had come from Nigeria and would never “go back to their huts” once they had seen America. The New York Times said the comments had been reported by two unnamed officials.
Mr. Trump had pushed controversial immigration policies since becoming American president in January.
Amongst his first policies was to ban visits from some selected Muslim nations .
Although some administration officials acknowledged that the meeting took place, they denied that the president used “AIDS” and “huts” at the meeting.
According to the Telegraph of London, the  White House denied to the New York Times that Mr Trump used the words “AIDS” or “huts” in reference to immigrants, calling the suggestions “lies based on anonymous sources”.
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, and Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, were all in the meeting and denied Mr Trump used the reported words.
She said: “General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims.
“And it’s both sad and telling the New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous ‘sources’ anyway” Sanders said
Continue reading
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)