Dec 29, 2015- Let’s Build Schools, a campaign initiated by Nepali Congress leader Gagan Thapa, has built 215 temporary schools in 17 districts over seven months since the devastating April 25 earthquake.
The campaign, which was started in May, has constructed 21 pre-fab buildings while the rest are Temporary Learning Centres. Thapa said the campaign was initiated on the premise that children and education should be prioritised not only in normal situations but also at any difficult times. Over 3,000 volunteers from over 30 organisations lent their support for the cause, he added. According to the Ministry of Education, 8,000 schools and over 40,000 classrooms were destroyed by the April 25 quake. The fourth phase of the campaign was launched on Monday at the quake ravaged Central Higher Secondary School for the Deaf in Naxal. Speaking at the programme held to felicitate volunteers, former President Ram Baran Yadav thanked the participants in the rebuilding of the quake ravaged schools. “Students had been out of school for long because of the earthquake. Now, their education is badly affected due to political crises,” said Yadav. Thapa said they had initially planned 100 schools, “but with the help of local community, passionate social workers and volunteers we are able to built double the number of schools”.
Aid flows in for quake survivors
Save the Children has started distributing urgent winter supports in cash and kind to around 15,000 households in Sindhupalchok, Dhading, Gorkha and Dolakha districts. In a statement on Monday, the organisation said the households will be provided with warm clothes and cash voucher worth Rs 13,000. “To the earthquake survivors battling the cold and living in freezing temperatures, secure and warm shelter is the topmost priority,” said Jagat Bahadur Khadka, Save the Children Nepal Acting Country Director. As temperatures continue to dip, children are left most susceptible to illnesses resulting from the cold. (PR)
Dec 28, 2015- Nepal succumbed to the might of India in a 4-1 defeat that saw them crash out of the Saff Championship group stage here at the Trivandrum International Stadium on Sunday.
Needing an outright victory, Nepal had a dream start in the game when Bimal Gharti Magar struck in the third minute ending Nepal’s 11-match goal drought. But India hit back with two goals from Chhangte Lallianzuala and one each from Rowlin Burges and Sunil Chhetri. Winless Nepal finished at the bottom of the three-team Group ‘A’ standings, while India qualified as pool winners with six points from two matches. Sri Lanka, who had stunned Nepal 1-0 before losing to India 2-0, followed the hosts as runners-up with three points. Afghanistan and Maldives have qualified from Group ‘B’. Nepal coach Patrick Aussems was not ready to admit they were outplayed, particularly in the second half, by what the scorelines suggested. “This (crashing out) will definitely sting Nepali football but there are no grievances for today’s match. We lost a lot with the defeat in our first game (against Sri Lanka),” said Aussems. India were left stunned when Nawayug Shrestha received a long ball from midfield and penetrated the India defense before his shot hit the post. The rebound fell right in front of Gharti Magar who made no mistake converting with a deft touch. It was Nepal’s first goal in 27 months after Jumanu Rai had scored against India in the 2013 Saff Championship group stage game. The early goal woke up India from their slumber and began taking control. Borges struck an equaliser launching a missile from a crowded Nepali penalty area with defenders unable to judge the direction of the ball. The equaliser was enough for the hosts to exert more pressure and, except for a couple of long range efforts in the second half, Nepal were nowhere near to India. Aussems said his side has no other option than to go for attack. “I was quite aware of the danger but we had no other option than to take risk in the game,” said Nepal’s Belgian coach. Chhetri put India ahead in the 68th minute taking full advantage of a defensive lapse with Jitendra Karki failing to properly mark the Indian skipper, who nudged a cross from Hali Charan Narzary to score with an ease. Lallianzuala then produced two beautiful goals to kill the match. Lallianzuala had his shot cleared by Aditya Chaudhary from the goalline but the forward produced a stunning goal with some display of dribbling skills before powering past Nepali custodian Kiran Chemjong at the top corner. He made it 4-1 in the 90th minute with a glancing header. India coach Stephan Constantine said it was tough match for his side. “Nepal always play a better game against India. They did it today and will repeat in the future as well. It was not easy for us although the final scores suggest otherwise,” said Constantine. Aussems wanted to look towards the future now. “This is a new team and we cannot expect anything big so early from the them. Our boys have earned a lot of experience from this tournament, this is an achievement for us. If we look after this team properly, we will get a strong team in future. I am proud of the performance my boys have given here,” said Aussems.
Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha activists stage a demonstration in Janakpur on Monday.Post Photo
Dec 29, 2015- At least 35 persons, including security personnel, were injured in clashes between activists of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) and police at various places of Janakpur in Dhanusha district, on Monday.
The whole Janakpur area remained tense throughout the day as knots of protesters gathered at different parts of Janakpur and staged demonstrations. Clashes ensued between police and protesters after the latter hurled Molotov cocktails and stones at Janaki Police Post on the premises of the Janaki Temple. Superintendent of Police (SP) Ramdatta Joshi said at least 14 policemen were injured in the clashes between security personnel and SLMM protesters. “Five of them are seriously injured,” said SP Joshi, adding that none of the protesters was arrested though. Police had to charge batons and lob tear gas canisters to take the situation under control. According to Sanjaya Kumar Singh, Dhanusha district chairman of Sadbhawana Party, at least 21 SLMM protesters were injured, some of them seriously. Schools and marketplaces in Janakpur remained shut the whole day on Monday. Besides in Dhanusha, SLMM activists continued their protests in Mahottari and Saptari districts as well. Expressing solidarity with the Madhes-based parties, a youth group associated with the Madhesi Morcha staged a drama titled “Madhes Kranti”. Meanwhile, Sadbhawana Party Chairman Rajendra Mahato, who was injured in a clash with police and admitted to Golden Hospital in Biratnagar on Saturday, was shifted to BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan on Monday. According to doctors, Mahato is out of danger. In Nepalgunj, though the Morcha has continued its protests, the intensity has significantly gone down, largely due to a dispute between two constituents of the SLMM. After Sadbhawana Party leaders accused the Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party of failing to bring supporters to the no-man’s-land, the Morcha protest is somewhat fizzling out. Witnesses said Morcha leaders were engaged in heated discussions after only a handful of protesters gathered at Nepalgunj-Rupaidiha border point.
Scientists have sequenced the first ancient human genomes from Ireland, shedding light on the genesis of Celtic populations.
The genome is the instruction booklet for building a human, comprising three billion paired DNA "letters".
The work shows that early Irish farmers were similar to southern Europeans.
Genetic patterns then changed dramatically in the Bronze Age - as newcomers from the eastern periphery of Europe settled in the Atlantic region.
Details of the work, by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists from Queen's University Belfast are published in the journal PNAS.
Team members sequenced the genomes of a 5,200-year-old female farmer from the Neolithic period and three 4,000-year-old males from the Bronze Age.
Opinion has been divided on whether the great transitions in the British Isles, from a hunting lifestyle to one based on agriculture and later from stone to metal use, were due to local adoption of new ways by indigenous people or attributable to large-scale population movements.
The ancient Irish genomes show unequivocal evidence for mass migration in both cases.
Wave of change
DNA analysis of the Neolithic woman from Ballynahatty, near Belfast, reveals that she was most similar to modern people from Spain and Sardinia. But her ancestors ultimately came to Europe from the Middle East, where agriculture was invented.
The males from Rathlin Island, who lived not long after metallurgy was introduced, showed a different pattern to the Neolithic woman. A third of their ancestry came from ancient sources in the Pontic Steppe - a region now spread across Russia and Ukraine.
"There was a great wave of genome change that swept into [Bronze Age] Europe from above the Black Sea... we now know it washed all the way to the shores of its most westerly island," said geneticist Dan Bradley, from Trinity College Dublin, who led the study.
Image copyrightDaniel Bradley, Trinity College DublinImage captionExcavated near Belfast in 1855, the Ballynahatty woman lay in a Neolithic tomb chamber for 5,000 years
Prof Bradley added: "This degree of genetic change invites the possibility of other associated changes, perhaps even the introduction of language ancestral to western Celtic tongues."
In contrast to the Neolithic woman, the Rathlin group showed a close genetic affinity with the modern Irish, Scottish and Welsh.
"Our finding is that there is some haplotypic [a set of linked DNA variants] continuity between our 4,000 year old genomes and the present Celtic populations, which is not shown strongly by the English," Prof Bradley told BBC News.
"It is clear that the Anglo-Saxons (and other influences) have diluted this affinity."
Image copyrightBarrie HartwellImage captionA reconstruction of the Ballynahatty Neolithic skull
Today, Ireland has the world's highest frequencies of genetic variants that code for lactase persistence - the ability to drink milk into adulthood - and certain genetic diseases, including one of excessive iron retention called haemochromatosis.
One of the Rathlin men carried the common Irish haemochromatosis mutation, showing that it was established by the Bronze Age. Intriguingly, the Ballynahatty woman carried a different variant which is also associated with an increased risk of the disorder.
Both mutations may have originally spread because they gave carriers some advantage, such as tolerance of an iron-poor diet.
The same Bronze Age male carried a mutation that would have allowed him to drink raw milk in adulthood, while the Ballynahatty woman lacked this variant. This is consistent with data from elsewhere in Europe showing a relatively late spread of milk tolerance genes.
Prof Bradley explained that the Rathlin individuals were not identical to modern populations, adding that further work was required to understand how regional diversity came about in Celtic groups.
"Our snapshot of the past occurs early, around the time of establishment of these regional populations, before much of the divergence takes place," he explained.
"I think that the data do show that the Bronze Age was a major event in establishment of the insular Celtic genomes but we cannot rule out subsequent (presumably less important) population events contributing until we sample later genomes also."
Media captionThe BBC's Nick Serpell looks back on the life of Lemmy
Motorhead frontman Lemmy has died aged 70, two days after learning he had cancer, the British band has announced.
Lemmy formed the rock group in 1975 and recorded 22 albums, including Ace of Spades, as he became one of music's most recognisable voices and faces.
The band said on its Facebook page: "Our mighty, noble friend Lemmy has passed away after a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer."
Lemmy was born Ian Fraser Kilmister in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1945.
He acquired the nickname Lemmy while at school, although he claimed to have had no idea where it came from.
'Wonderful man'
As Lemmy of Motorhead, he became known for his fast and furious bass guitar playing and gravelly voice.
The band added: "We cannot begin to express our shock and sadness, there aren't words."
They urged fans to play Lemmy's music loud and "have a drink or few", saying: "Celebrate the life this lovely, wonderful man celebrated so vibrantly himself.
Ex-Motorhead guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke, who played with the group between 1976 and 1982, said on Facebook: "I am devastated. We did so much together, the three of us.
"The world seems a really empty place right now. I am having trouble finding the words ... He will live on in our hearts. R.I.P Lemmy!"
Lemmy was credited with introducing punk sounds into the heavy metal genre - and having a wild offstage reputation.
Hendrix roadie
He first became involved in the Manchester music scene, before going to London.
There he had a stint as a roadie with Jimi Hendrix and briefly played in progressive rock band Opal Butterfly.
In 1972 he joined space-rock band Hawkwind on bass but left after being busted for drug possession on a tour of Canada in 1975.
Lemmy went on to form Motorhead - the name is US slang for someone who takes speed - and recorded 22 studio albums with the band between 1977 and 2015.
'Hypnotic voice'
The band achieved critical acclaim with the 1980 Ace of Spades album, which reached number four in the UK chart.
They recently released Bad Magic and were set to play dates in the UK and Europe over the next few months as part of a world tour.
John Robb, a musician and editor of the Louder Than War website, told the BBC: "Lemmy's voice and the sound of the bass guitar was exactly the same.
"It was a fantastic bluff gruffness which is so attractive, so hypnotic.
"It's a really great sound... It's a mistake to say it's just a noise because he wrote really good songs."
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari won elections in March partly on a promise to crush the militant Islamist group Boko Haram - and gave his military chiefs until the end of the year to beat the insurgents. Ahead of the deadline, the BBC's Martin Patience joined the army on patrol in the combat zone:
With the end-of-year deadline fast approaching, the Nigerian army was keen to show that progress was being made on the ground.
We left the city of Maiduguri - the birth place of the militants in a convoy - heading towards some of the most dangerous territory on earth.
Army jeeps mounted with heavy machine guns were at both the back and front of the convoy.
Until a few months ago, travelling along the 25km (15-mile) road from Maiduguri to the town of Konduga would almost certainly invite attack.
Now, it seemed relatively secure. But as one soldier told me: "It may look safe but that doesn't actually mean it is safe."
We weaved along the paved road avoiding potholes that were in fact craters created by improvised explosive devices.
Image captionBoko Haram has displaced more than two million people
I saw ghost village after ghost village where mud-brick houses had been set on fire, their tin roofs pulled off, and many of the buildings were ridden with bullets.
This is classic Boko Haram scorched - earth tactics.
The insurgents raid villages - mostly at night or just before dawn - and then kill, rape, kidnap and loot before withdrawing.
After half an hour of driving, we pulled into the small military base in Konduga.
As we arrived a handful of soldiers were posing for a quick group photograph - one of them was kneeling on the ground with his rifle pointing into the distance.
Ali Mohammed, a fisherman near Konduga military base
"You can't guarantee safety here, but you get used to it, there's nothing else we can do"
I met Brigadier General Mohammed Aliyu, a jovial man.
In the 1980s, he was training as a doctor. But inspired by Gen Buhari - who briefly was a military ruler in Nigeria during the period - he quit medical school and signed up to the military.
Thirty years later, his enthusiasm and respect for the now democratically elected leader was still palpable.
Gen Aliyu, like many officers, believes President Buhari is intent on rebuilding the army, which was previously brought low by corruption and by what many saw as poor leadership.
'Casualties downplayed'
The campaign group Amnesty International accused the military of carrying out atrocities in a report this year.
Following a short classified military briefing, the army took us to what should have been a bustling market, just a few hundred metres from the base.
Apart from a handful of people, it was deserted.
Dozens of shops had been burnt and looted; a mosque had been shot up and on the main road lay the mangled metal carcass of a van that had been laden with explosives in a Boko Haram suicide attack.
The attack was foiled by soldiers who managed to shoot dead the bomber before he rammed their checkpoint.
There were a few signs of reconstruction: Piles of cinder blocks were sitting beside the road; Some of the government buildings were getting new roofs.
But the town was a long way from being inhabitable once again.
Image captionThe military have retaken most of the territory controlled by the militants
The military then took us on a further 20-minute drive along the road to the village of Kawuri.
We saw more devastation and wreckage. And, it too, was deserted.
Until this year, the village had been under Boko Haram control. It had been the scene of a massacre in 2014 in which dozens were killed.
"God is Great" was scrawled in graffiti on some of the buildings. This is a common Islamic saying but in this part of the world it has been co-opted by Boko Haram as a tagline.
Forest stronghold
The soldiers then picked up a metal traffic sign lying on the side of the road.
It read: "Sambisa Forest."
This is one of the areas where the militant group retreated after being pushed out of towns it once controlled.
We were just a few kilometres from their stronghold. The forest is where the army are currently carrying out most of their operations to try and clear out the insurgents.
Image captionSome soldiers have previously complained of lack of weapons to fight the insurgents
But access is difficult and ambushes are frequent.
For Boko Haram it is a fall-back position.
Despite being on the defensive they can still launch attacks. Increasingly, the group is using suicide bombers to blow up checkpoints and markets in nearby cities.
Until Boko Haram are cleared out of the forest - and from other remote areas - it is very difficult to see how this insurgency will end.
Back on the base, Gen Aliyu acknowledged the challenges of the campaign. He has studied the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. I asked him how he would define victory.
"When Boko Haram are significantly degraded and normal commercial and administrative activities are taking place," he said.
How far away are you from that? I asked.
"Not too far. Where you are standing now used to be the battle front," he replied.
'Living in constant fear'
But that did not mean where I was standing was necessarily safe.
Image captionMost residents are terrified by the violence
Not far from the base, the army took us to meet a group of fishermen bringing in their latest catch down by the river.
One of the fishermen, Ali Mohammed, told me he lived in constant fear of being attacked.
"You can't guarantee safety here, but you get used to it, there's nothing else we can do," he said.
It is clear though that the Nigerian army has made gains but that does not mean the insurgency is over.
The nature of this conflict is changing, particularly with the use of suicide bombers.
Wars do not subscribe to deadlines and in this part of Nigeria, Boko Haram remains a deadly threat
