The European Space Agency on Wednesday selected a disabled former athlete to be among its newest astronaut recruits as part of its first recruitment drive in over a decade that aimed to bring diversity to space travel.
Six new astronauts were announced including two women as well as parastronaut John McFall, a British former Paralympic sprinter who will take part in a potentially groundbreaking feasibility study to explore whether physical disability will impair space travel.
To date, no major Western space agency has ever put a “para-astronaut” into space, according to the ESA.
The new recruits were among the more than 22,000 applicants who came forward in the hiring push announced February of last year by Europe’s equivalent to NASA. More women than ever and some 200 people with disabilities applied.
ESA specifically sought out people with physical disabilities, for a first-of-its-kind effort to determine what adaptations would be necessary to space stations to accommodate them.
Across the Atlantic, Houston is taking note. Dan Huot, a spokesman for NASA’s Johnson Space Center, home to the American agency’s astronaut corps, told the AP that “we at NASA are watching ESA’s para-astronaut selection process with great interest.”
The Covenant University has debunked allegations that female students of the school are being sexually harassed and raped by workers of the intuition.
It was reportedly gathered that people had been accusing some workers of sexually harassing and raping female undergraduates of the institution.
The screenshot of another message that was also shared on Twitter alleged that workers of the school were raping students who broke rules of the institution, adding that a student who got pregnant for a worker got expelled.studentship.
However, an official from the Media Office of the institution, described the social media posts as false and the work of a mischievous person.
“It’s not true. It is a very false tweet or whatever it was. The person behind it must be mischievous.”
She added that the tweet was a surprise to her because no student had come forward to complain about anything related to the allegations in the tweet.
The Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti Chapter, Dr Kayode Arogundade, on Wednesday, accused the President Muhammadu Buhari of nursing hidden negative agenda for education.
Arogundade, who also named the ministers of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige and Education, Adamu Adamu, as accomplices, said that Nigerians were waiting for the agenda to hatch, calling on the citizenry to force the Federal Government to do the needful for the education sector and university lecturers to avert another round of action.
The ASUU chairman spoke in Ado Ekiti during a protest by ASUU-EKSU members to express displeasure with the Federal Government’s “no-work-no-pay policy and payment of half salary to university lecturers.”
Among inscriptions on the placards of the protesting ASUU-EKSU members are “Only a criminal will support half salary and IPPIS”, “Teachers teach the nation, but Buhari cheats the nation”, and “ASUU-EKSU says government at all levels should prioritise funding of education”.
Arogundade said, “We are expressing our displeasure concerning the Federal Government’s draconian decision of no-work-no-pay introduced by Ngige and sanctioned by the Federal government. Our interest is that we are not casual workers, nobody is paying us wages, what we are getting is salaries”.
According to him, it is criminal for anybody to think of imposing no-work-no-pay to the extent of paying half salary because people decide to agitate for their rights and demands.
He said, “They don’t want the Nigerian educational system to flourish. The educational system today is suffering at the hands of our leaders. Foreign universities are now feeding fat on us. You can imagine how much parents are looking for each year to sponsor their wards to foreign universities.
“I am of the opinion that Ngige, Adamu and Buhari have an agenda that is not known to Nigerians, we are just waiting patiently to see when they will hatch that agenda. If they don’t have agenda, the three of them cannot sleep and be facing the same direction that leads to nowhere. I know the agenda cannot be in the general interest of Nigerians.
“Just Tuesday, President Buhari signed the new wage for the Judiciary, what is it that the academic staff are asking for? It is a living wage, he has signed for others, but he has refused to sign for academic staff. Then the question is – Is it that there is something that the Judiciary is doing for him that the academic staff are not doing?
“Our understanding is that if they have their children around here, they will not be treating Nigerian universities and lecturers this way. The only thing they are doing is that they want to pitch us against the students in a way that we get disillusioned and the students will be discouraged in the educational system.
“We are appealing to all Nigerians to speak to the Federal Government that they should not wait for us to start another round of action. We are getting used to it, you have not paid us for eight months this year, we are not dead, we are still alive, so government should not push us to a state whereby we become so adamant to the extent that we don’t care whatever happens,” he said.
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, commenced his campus tour on Monday, as a part of his campaign programmmes for the 2023 elections.
In a video posted on his Facebook page, Sowore was at Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology, formally known as Ondo State University of Science and Technology in Okitipupa, Ondo State.
He honoured the invitation as the special guest speaker for the programme tagged “School Na Scam” – ‘The Socio-Economic Realities of the Nigerian Society,’ an educational summit organised by the varsity’s Student Union Government.
He spoke about his manifesto and questions were asked by the students concerning his vision for Nigeria come 2023.
Sowore also shared pictures from the event on his social media handle on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa has hailed the new parliament building gifted by China as a testimony of the strategic and comprehensive partnership.
He was presenting his state of the nation address at the opening of the fifth session of the ninth parliament – held for the first time in the recently completed multi-million-dollar building.
President Mnangagwa arrived at the new parliament in a Rolls Royce to a gun salute, a fly past and guard of honour.
Much like the British colonial building it replaces, the impressive stone structure perched on a hill is symbolic of deepening ties with China, following strained relations with the West.
Designed, funded and built with a grant worth more than $100m (£83m), the entrance flanked by cone towers mimicking those at the ancient Great Zimbabwe city, is fronted by a massive sheet of water symbolising The Victoria Falls.
Inside, cave paintings by the San – an indigenous people of Southern Africa – adorn the House of Assembly’s ceiling.
The Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and Non-Academic Staff of Educational and Associated Institutions have said they did not receive an invitation for the tertiary education summit which started Tuesday in Abuja.
SSANU president, Ibrahim Mohammed, in an interview with The Punch, he stressed that JAC of SSANU and NASU were major stakeholders in the tertiary institutions, saying it was startling that an invite was not extended to them.
Recall that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, had been mediating the industrial dispute between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
In a report, Gbajabiamila said that the education summit on the state of tertiary education in Nigeria would hold on November 22 and 23.
He revealed that the organisers had asked scholars, tertiary education administrators, and stakeholders to submit papers for presentation.
“The presentations and submissions will inform the policy recommendations of the summit and be published in a journal for policy action and academic reference. So far, public interest both within and outside Nigeria has been impressive.”
“We must ask and answer complex questions about the operating structure of our public tertiary institutions, sustainable funding, education quality, and access,” Gbajabiamila said.
However, Mohammed, maintained that ‘‘There is an education summit and we were not invited and you want to discuss the future of the tertiary institution and SSANU as a majority in the workplace, was not invited. We implement all policies of the government in our institutions and you leave SSANU out of the summit.’’
Meanwhile, he also complained about the none payment of the unions’ salaries for the four months period they were on strike.
The JAC of NASU and SSANU reportedly embarked on a National Industrial Action on 27th March 2022 and called it off on August 22, 2022, however, the SSANU president, revealed that they were not paid at all for the few days they worked in August.
Mohammed explained that the no-work-no-pay policy of the Federal Government by Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige was not applicable to SSANU AND NASU members, adding that they did not abscond from work but went through due process to embark on the strike.
‘‘The FG should release our four months’ salary. The no-work-no-pay policy is applicable when you withdraw your service without notice. The strike is a legal action as enunciated in labour law. If you declare a trade dispute you have given an ultimatum and waited till the expiration of the ultimatum. The employer invited us and we agreed on terms that were documented. They can’t come back to say that they will apply the no-work-no-pay policy on our unions. We followed due process and our money should be released. Government should obey labour laws. They should release our backlog of salaries, our members are working.’’
‘‘SSANU, NASU we are calling on the government to be humane in dealing with us and release our four months’ salary, we are looking forward to receiving our salaries. We are exploring options, the government is denying us our right.’’
He added that none of the agreements which the government signed with them had been fulfilled, saying it extended the ultimatum to January 2023.
A Registered Dietician-Nutritionist, Olusola Malomo, has urged parents not to allow their children, especially those under the age of five years to watch television whenever they are eating food, warning that it causes a distraction.
The dietician stated that watching television while eating is a bad habit that kids should not be allowed to develop, noting that it could lead to poor food intake.
According to him, poor food intake can affect children’s growth and development aside from increasing the risk of malnutrition.
Malomo, who is an Assistant Chief Dietician at the Ajeromi General Hospital, Lagos, disclosed this in an exclusive interview obtained by LN247.
The dietician noted that not only does television cause distraction to children whenever they are having their meal but also makes them eat little.
He explained, “Television and toys are distractions to children. Some children will prefer to play with toys rather than to eat.
“Some will prefer to watch cartoons rather than to eat and feeding needs concentration for them to finish their food.
“These are some of the things we have observed particularly with under-five feeding. Children shouldn’t grow up eating in front of the television, even adults should avoid it. We call it behavioural modification.
“Anytime there is a feeding session, children should know that meal time is meal time and should respect it and eat. They should grow up with that habit.”
Family meal time
According to him, adequate nutrition goes beyond the provision of food, stressing that it has to do with the qualitative adequacy of the food in terms of quality, quantity, and availability of that food that is eaten in the body.
“The recommendation is to let the feeding time be feeding time and let every distraction be off so that after their meal, they can come back to watch the television.
“When feeding children, any distraction should be kept away from them. Television, toys, and anything that can distract their attention from feeding should be kept away from them because more children will have a preference for these toys and television over their meals at that particular point.
“And that will reduce the quantity or quality of food that will be available to them for that meal. They may eat less or may not even be interested in the food and this can lead to malnutrition”, he said.
According to the World Health Organisation, the first two years of a child’s life are particularly important, as optimal nutrition during this period lowers morbidity and mortality, reduces the risk of chronic disease, and fosters better development overall.
Malomo also told our correspondent that the environment where children are fed was equally important including the colour of the plates and spoons used to feed them.
Speaking further on this, the dietician said colourful plates stimulate babies to eat.
He stated, “Children are used to colours and bright colours attract and excite them.
“For a child that is not taking interest in food, even that plate alone as an item like a toy could make the child eat.
“Plates with bright colours should be used to feed children and they should also have more than one plate.
“Children under-five should have a variety of colourful plates even spoons in their nutrition. They have a way of stimulating them to be eager to eat.”
Advising parents to feed their children responsively the dietician said, “When the food is prepared, the quantity that gets to the child at the end of the day, matters most.
“Often, some children may be picky eaters, for example, they don’t want to eat. In this case, care and nurture come into play. We call it responsive feeding.”
The WHO’s guiding principles for appropriate complementary feeding also recommended that mothers should feed their under-five babies responsively.
“Infant and young child feeding is a key area to improve child survival and promote healthy growth and development. Practice responsive feeding (for example, feed infants directly and assist older children).
“Feed slowly and patiently, encourage them to eat but do not force them, talk to the child and maintain eye contact); practice good hygiene and proper food handling,” the WHO recommended.
The number of confirmed cases of monkeypox in the country has increased to 604, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
This is even as the suspected cases stand at 1,549 from January 1 to October 30, 2022.
The situation report for week 43 obtained by LN247 showed that the disease has spread to 31 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
It also noted that the total number of deaths from the disease so far in 2022, is seven.
Monkeypox is a rare viral zoonotic infectious disease (i.e. an infection transmitted from animals to humans) that occurs sporadically, primarily in remote villages of Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests. It is caused by the monkeypox virus which belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae.
The report read in part “Ninety (90) new suspected cases reported in Epi week 43, 2022 (24th to 30th October 2022) from sixteen (16) states and FCT – Plateau (20), Lagos (14), Bayelsa (9), Imo (8), Abia (7), FCT (5), Kaduna (5), Anambra (4), Ondo (4), Delta (3), Adamawa (2), Benue (2), Osun (2), Ogun (2), Edo (1), Niger (1) and Jigawa (1).
“Of these suspected cases, nineteen (19) new confirmed cases have been recorded in Epi week 43 from eight (8) states and FCT – Lagos (6), Bayelsa (3), Delta (2), Imo (2), Kaduna (2), Abia (1), FCT (1), Ogun (1) and Plateau (1).
“From 1st January to 30th October 2022, Nigeria has recorded 1549 suspected cases with 604 confirmed cases (397 male, 207 female) from thirty-one (31) states and FCT – Lagos (154), Abia (46), Bayelsa (36), Imo (33), Rivers (31), Ondo (30), Ogun (28), Delta (26), Edo (21), Anambra (21), FCT (19), Adamawa (16), Nasarawa (14), Plateau (13), Kaduna (12), Akwa Ibom (11), Benue (10), Oyo (10), Ebonyi (9), Cross River (9), Kwara (8), Borno (8), Katsina (8), Taraba (7), Gombe (6), Kano (5), Kogi (4), Osun (4), Kebbi (2), Niger (1), Bauchi (1) and Enugu (1).
“Seven (7) associated deaths were recorded from 7 states in 2022 – Delta (1), Lagos (1), Ondo (1) and Akwa Ibom (1), Kogi (1), Taraba (1) and Imo (1). CFR 1.2%.
“Overall, since the re-emergence of monkeypox in September 2017, 2061 suspected cases have been reported from 36 states and FCT in the country with 830 (40.3%) confirmed (550 male, 280 female) from 32 states and FCT – Lagos (184), Rivers (83), Bayelsa (76), Delta (55), Abia (49), Imo (41), Edo (31), Ondo (30), Ogun (29), FCT (25), Cross River (23), Anambra (23), Akwa Ibom (18), Adamawa (16), Oyo (16), Nasarawa (16), Plateau (16), Benue (12), Kaduna (12), Ebonyi (10), Kwara (8), Borno (8), Katsina (8), Taraba (7), Gombe (6), Kano (5), Enugu (5), Kogi (4), Osun (4), Ekiti (2), Niger (2), Kebbi (2) and Bauchi (1).
“Fifteen (15) deaths have been recorded since September 2017 (CFR= 1.8%) in eleven states – Lagos (3), Edo (2), Imo (2), Cross River (1), FCT (1), Rivers (1), Ondo (1) Delta (1), Akwa Ibom (1), Taraba (1) and Kogi (1).”
Meanwhile, the NCDC has warned against self-medication in treating monkeypox.
“Visit a healthcare facility close to you for accurate diagnosis and treatment when you observe any symptoms associated with monkeypox,” it said.
Talietumu, and also known as Kolo Nui, is an archaeological site located on the island of Wallis, in Wallis and Futuna in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean.
Situated about 9 km (6 mi) southwest of the capital of Mata-Utu and northeast of Halalo in the Mu’a district on the island of Wallis, it was a fortified Tongan settlement and the whole fortress is surrounded by a strong defensive walls built of basalt with several entrances.
They were restored in the 1990s by French archaeologists Daniel Frimigacci, Jean-Pierre Siorat and Maurice Hardy, which completed their work in 1997.
It is believed that the fort has been built around 1450, during the expansion of the Tu’i Tonga Empire, and it was the last holdout of the Tongans on Uvea until they were defeated.
The Tu’i Tonagan Empire’s end was in 1535 with the assassination of King Takalaua while he was swimming in the lagoon Mu’a, the ancient capital of Tonga.
Today in ruins, it is an alluring place which makes it a popular tourist destination.
This Natural Museum of American History handout image received 29 October 2007 shows a Hillotype of a print depicting a girl and sheep- where natural colors are apparent on this plate- no chemical elements uniform were detected.The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH), the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), and the Getty Foundation have teamed up to examine a.156 year-old mystery that remains, to this day, one of the most controversial questions in photography - and their research has revealed some rather surprising results. One of the earliest forms of photography, the daguerreotype, is named after French artist and chemist Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, who invented the process in 1839. Daguerreotype photography spread rapidly across the United States and just 11 years later, the Rev. Levi Hill of Westkill, NY, claimed for the first time to have invented a way to produce naturally colored daguerreotypes, or Hillotypes, as they became known. When Hill refused to release the details of his process until a patent was filed, the profession denounced him as a fraud. In 156 years, no definitive evidence has been presented to suggest that Hill was or was not an imposter, until now. Using state-of-the-art technology, the 62 Hillotypes acquired by the Smithsonian in 1933 from Hill's son-in-law, John Boggs Garrison, finally gave up their secrets. Examination of a number of the Hillotypes by GCI scientists and curators from the SmithsonianÔøΩÔøΩÔøΩs photography collection have confirmed that Hill was indeed a genius - he did discover a method to create several natural colors in his photographs. AFP PHOTO/NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY/SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM/HO/ RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE /NO SALES =GETTY OUT= (Photo credit should read HO/AFP/Getty Images)
1248 Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city capitulates
1644 “Areopagitica”, a pamphlet by John Milton decrying censorship, is published
1869 The clipper Cutty Sark is launched In Dumbarton, Scotland, one of the last clippers ever built and the only one still surviving
2018 US Federal Climate report finds climate change will reduce economy by 10% by 2100 with $141 billion cost from heat-related deaths, $118 billion from sea level rise
2019 Sumatran rhino officially declared extinct in Malaysia after last known specimen, 25-year-old Iman, dies of cancer in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo
Historical Events Today
Today In Film & Tv
1923 Cecil B. DeMille’s first version of “The Ten Commandments” premieres in the USA
Today In Sport
1892 Pierre de Coubertin launches plan for modern Olympic Games at the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques AGM
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1863 Patent granted for a process of making color photographs
1942 Chinese steward Poon Lim begins 133 days adrift after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by german U-boat and he is the sole survivor
Famous Weddings
1929 Academy Award-winning Shirley Booth marries comic actor Ed Gardner
1940 Film director David Lean (32) weds actress Kay Walsh (29)
1940 RAF pilot Guy Gibson (22) weds show dancer and actress Eve Moore in Penarth’s Anglican Church
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