welcome to arc ekpo be's Blog : 2016-12-18

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Afghan Brothers Develop Drone to Clear Land Mines

A picture taken July 4, 2016, shows Afghan refugee Massoud Hassani flying an anti-land-mine drone, called the Mine Kafon Drone, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

LONDON —

As boys growing up on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Mahmud Hassani and his brother Massoud saw firsthand the damage land mines did to anyone unlucky enough to stumble across them.

It was the memory of the destruction caused by land mines left over from the 1980s — when Afghan rebels fought Soviet forces — that inspired the brothers to develop a drone prototype to detect and destroy the explosive devices.

Their invention was featured Wednesday in the NT100, a list by Britain-based charity Nominet Trust of innovations that use technology to tackle major world problems.

This photo taken July 11, 2016, shows visitors taking photos and leaving items at a makeshift memorial outside the Pulse nightclub, the day before the one month anniversary of a mass shooting, in Orlando, Fla.

Two hospitals that treated the victims of a deadly shooting rampage at a Florida nightclub in June say they will not bill the survivors for the cost of their treatment.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the June 12 shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub that left 49 people dead, making it the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

The parent company of Orlando Regional Medical Center, located not far from Pulse nightclub, said Wednesday it will seek reimbursement from the health insurers of 44 victims it treated, but will forgive any other costs not covered under their policies. The company also said it will not charge the families of the nine people who died at Orlando Regional.

The logo of Facebook is pictured on a window at a Facebook Innovation Hub during a media tour in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 24, 2016.

Facebook Inc said on Thursday that it would roll out a number of new tools to prevent fake news stories from spreading on the social media network.

The company will make it easier for users to flag fake articles on their News Feed and will also work with organizations such as fact-checking website Snopes, ABC News and the Associated Press to check the authenticity of stories.

Malawi's government on Thursday announced Africa's first drone air corridor to provide a controlled platform for drones to deliver needed services to communities.

Alfred Mtilatila, director of the Department of Civil Aviation, said the launch of the testing corridor is largely supported by UNICEF-Malawi as a pilot project using unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, for transporting dried blood samples for the early diagnosis of HIV in infants.

"We would like to establish a designated area where we will permit different types of unmanned aerial vehicles so that we will be able to come up with the right type of vehicles which can be used for different purposes," Mtilatila said.

FBI officials leave the Pulse night club, the site of a mass shooting days earlier, in Orlando, Florida, June 15, 2016.

WASHINGTON —

The families of three victims killed this year during the shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub are suing three social media companies for allegedly providing “material support” to the gunman.

The lawsuit, filed by the families of Tevin Crosby, Javier Jorge-Reyes and Juan Ramon Guerrero, alleges that Facebook, Google and Twitter made it too easy for Islamic State jihadists to create social media accounts used to spread their message and raise funds.

Gambian President-elect Adama Barrow sits for an interview with the Associated Press at his residence in Yundum, Gambia, Dec. 3, 2016.

The winner of Gambia's presidential election says efforts by incumbent Yahya Jammeh to toss out the results are illegal.

Adama Barrow told VOA's French-to-Africa service that Jammeh, who has ruled Gambia for 22 years, does not have the authority to cancel the election.

"He does not have those powers and whatever he is doing is illegal and let him accept defeat," Barrow said in the interview Wednesday. "He called me to say that we have the best election in the world and he should stick to that."

BANJUL —

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said he would not step down and condemned mediation by West African regional bloc ECOWAS that aims to get him to leave power after he lost a Dec. 1 election to challenger Adama Barrow.

The comments on state television late Tuesday were a hardening of the veteran president's position after days in which hopes mounted he could be persuaded to hand over power at the end of his mandate on Jan. 18, when Barrow is due to be inaugurated.

Orania,The Whites-only South African own

(CNN)Orania is not prime real estate by any stretch of the imagination.

The settlement west of the Orange River in Northern Cape, South Africa lies on arid and weather-beaten land; baked by the harsh summer sun and frigid through the dry winter. It's farmable, but not easy, requiring strong backs and callused hands.

Rising above the scrub the town's symbol flutters atop a flagpole, a young boy rolling up his sleeves, preparing to knuckle down and transform this landscape. It's a romanticized image for a romanticized notion: a place where Afrikaners can be Afrikaners. Tough, resourceful and making do; descendants of Dutch settlers and proud of it.

Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh will effectively become a "rebel leader" if he fails to leave office at the end of his mandate in January, the nation's government-in-waiting said Sunday.

Halifa Sallah, a spokesman for the opposition coalition that spurred president-elect Adama Barrow to victory over Jammeh in a December 1 poll, said the longtime leader had no constitutional mandate to remain in office beyond January.

"Any president who loses constitutional legitimacy becomes a rebel," Sallah said.

"Anybody who is a military officer or civil servant who refuses to be under another constitutional authority obviously would also become a rebel," he added.

Bana Alabed, the 7-year-old girl who chronicled daily life in war-torn Syria, has evacuated Aleppo with her family.

On Monday morning, pictures and video of the young girl with her mother, Fatemah, at a gathering site set up by international aid groups circulated online.

Ahmad Tarakji, the president of the Syrian American Medical Society, a nonpartisan nonprofit that offers relief to Syrians in need, tweeted a picture of himself holding Bana. He said she was just one of many children who fled Aleppo for the countryside and that his organization was working with the Union of Medical Care & Relief Organizations and others to coordinate a response plan.