Russell Crowe posted a photo of a meeting between John Nash and himself during the production of "A Beautiful Mind". (CNN Philippines) — As word of the passing of John Nash and his wife Alicia spread, members of the production of A Beautiful Mind showed their respect and condolences via Twitter. Film producer Brian Grazer expressed his admiration for the impact Nash has had, while Academy Award winning director Ron Howard tweeted he was privileged to showcase their lives. Russell Crowe, the actor who played Nash in the film A Beautiful Mind, was in disbelief of the couple's tragic death.

BAGHDAD — It was around 9 p.m. when police Col. Hamid Shandoukh peered across the dark waters of the Euphrates River and spotted the skiffs carrying Islamic State fighters toward his front line in the city of Ramadi.
The commander mustered his forces — a mixture of tribal fighters and local policemen — to defend their position on the river snaking through the city.
But it soon became clear that this was no ordinary assault. As the security forces trained their guns on the river in front of them, they came under attack from behind.
“It was a case of complete chaos,” Shandoukh said. “We thought the areas behind us were secured.” But the Islamic State had activated sleeper cells in the city.
The attack in the Albualwan neighborhood on May 14 marked the beginning of the end for pro-government forces in Ramadi, a strategic city that had held out during nearly 18 months of assaults by the Islamic State. The insurgents launched a sophisticated, multipronged attack over four days, using as many as 30 car bombs.

But new accounts from fighters in the city indicate that the fall of Ramadi owed as much to the weakness of Iraq’s forces and holes in U.S. strategy as to the Islamic State’s strength.
Soldiers described confusion and a lack of coordination between branches of the security forces as chains of command broke down.
Even Iraq’s Golden Division — a U.S.-trained special-forces unit considered the most capable in the country — suddenly deserted its positions, security officials said.
Planes from the U.S.-led coalition bombed the edges of Ramadi, but there simply weren’t enough airstrikes, Iraqi military officials said.

[After the fall of Ramadi, the Obama administration weighs its options]

Tribal fighters complained that as the city came under attack, they were still scraping together money to buy ammunition on the black market, despite the fact that train-and-equip programs for local Sunni tribal forces were a cornerstone of the U.S. strategy to confront the extremist group.
The Islamic State fighters shocked Iraqi security forces with their coordinated assault. After taking over Albualwan on Thursday night, the militants seized the nearby Jamia area. Other attacks were launched from the al Soufiya and al Hoz neighborhoods. Some members of the sleeper cells were dressed in police uniforms, confusing the pro-government fighters.

Displaced Sunni people, who fled the violence in the city of Ramadi, arrive at the outskirts of Baghdad, May 19. (Stringer/Iraq/Reuters)

The extremists made steady gains against fighters who were war-weary and lacking supplies. Army units were stretched thin.
By Friday afternoon, the Islamic State had hoisted its black flag over the city’s government compound and surrounded the city’s military headquarters.

[How Republicans hope to turn the Islamic State into a problem for Democrats]

The militants detonated 17 vehicle bombs that day, according to Ramadi’s governor, Sohaib Alrawi. Bombers sped toward their targets in dump trucks and bulldozers armored with thick steel plating, which protected them from gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades.
During the ferocious attacks Friday and Saturday morning, planes from the U.S. coalition carried out just four strikes in the area, according to media releases, with seven more over the following 24 hours.
“There were only weak, shy airstrikes on the edges of the city,” said Sabah Karhout, the head of Anbar’s provincial council.
President Obama in an interview published last week attributed the loss of Ramadi to shortcomings in training and developing Iraq security forces.
Pentagon officials have said that Iraqi forces withdrew from Ramadi in part because they mistakenly assumed that the U.S.-led coalition could not launch airstrikes during a sandstorm. “The weather did not impact our ability to conduct airstrikes,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Thursday. Residents and fighters in the city said the weather was largely clear after the initial attack on Thursday, which occurred during a light dust storm. That dust, however, may have allowed the Islamic State fighters to position themselves before the assault, undetected by aerial surveillance.
Reluctant to be drawn into a combat role, the Obama administration has held back from deploying spotters on the ground to relay real-time information to nearby attack aircraft, limiting the capabilities of strikes.

‘There was chaos’

As the fall of Ramadi appeared imminent, the Iraqi government tried to push back the Islamic State fighters from the largely Sunni city, where authorities had refrained from deploying Shiite militiamen who have led the battle elsewhere.
On Saturday evening, a column of 30 federal police armored vehicles arrived in Ramadi. Around noon on Sunday, the convoy attempted to head for the government compound, where some police forces were still stranded. But on reaching the turquoise-domed Al Dawlah al-Kabir mosque in the city center, the vehicles came under heavy attack and turned back, fighters said.
“When the forces who were meant to reinforce us retreated, our morale was completely broken,” said Omar Shehan al-Alawni, a tribal fighter in the area.
Another turning point in the battle was the withdrawal of Iraq’s Golden Division.
Maj. Omar Kamis al-Dahl, a 31-year-old policeman, said he had withdrawn to Street 60, a major thoroughfare where he expected to see special forces fighters from the Golden Division.
“We were surprised to find Daesh instead,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Fadhil Jalil al-Barwari, the head of Iraq’s special forces, had withdrawn from the city with a group of his men that morning, according to a senior security official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.
“When Barwari retreated with that group, there was chaos, everyone else retreated without an order, ” the security official said.
Barwari declined to comment on the Ramadi withdrawal on Friday, but earlier told Iraq’s Sumaria News that it was “tactical.”
With the counterterrorism troops suddenly pulling out, the limited forces left in the city began collapsing, Karhout said.
“There was no central leadership, no leaders coordinating these forces on the ground,” he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered an investigation into the causes of the military failure. Ten of the suicide bombings that occurred during the assault had the power of an “Oklahoma City-type attack,” a senior State Department official told reporters in the District, referring to the truck-bomb explosion in 1995 that killed 168 people. But Iraqi officials said the bombings were no more powerful than they experience on a weekly basis — though there were more of them.
The battle also highlighted the animosity and lack of trust between the army and the local police.
Police complained that soldiers at checkpoints confiscated their weapons in the confusion, saying they weren’t allowed to retreat from the city with them, even though officers said they were moving from one neighborhood to another.
“There is so much distrust,” said Dahl. “They consider anyone from Ramadi as a sympathizer with ISIS. And then in many of their operations, Daesh dress in military clothes, so we don’t trust people we see in army uniform.”
As the city’s defenses collapsed,around 1,000 men were besieged in the military headquarters, the Anbar Operations Center, under heavy mortar and rocket fire from insurgents.
An armored forklift pushed away blast walls on the edge of the base, allowing suicide bombers to penetrate, fighters said. At least four powerful explosions rocked the base, one from an explosives-rigged, steel-covered truck which hurtled inside, detonating and killing scores of people.
“Before the attack we obeyed our commanders’ orders, but after the attack, when it came to retreating, we disagreed” with senior officers, who wanted the forces to wait for reinforcements, said a captain with federal police forces on the base.
“We said, ‘Whether you want to or not, we are going to retreat,’ and eventually they came with us,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity
The security forces broke through the siege but left wounded colleagues behind, fighters said. A total of 286 local policemen died in the battle, the governor said, adding that figures were not available for other branches of the security forces.
Islamic State fighters crowed about their victory on social media, releasing images of the weapons and crateloads of ammunition they had seized. Millions of dollars worth of U.S.-supplied military equipment appeared to be left behind, including dozens of tanks and armored vehicles.
For Dahl and other local fighters it was particularly galling to see photos distributed on social media of stashes of ammunition, when they had struggled to get bullets.
“The sons of Ramadi were fighting for their city,” he said. “All they wanted was ammunition.”

A Beautiful Mind' cast, crew lament John Nash death

Russell Crowe posted a photo of a meeting between John Nash and himself during the production of "A Beautiful Mind".

(CNN Philippines) — As word of the passing of John Nash and his wife Alicia spread, members of the production of A Beautiful Mind showed their respect and condolences via Twitter.
Film producer Brian Grazer expressed his admiration for the impact Nash has had, while Academy Award winning director Ron Howard tweeted he was privileged to showcase their lives.
Russell Crowe, the actor who played Nash in the film A Beautiful Mind, was in disbelief of the couple's tragic death.

Daily Independent (Lagos) 24 May 2015 Nigeria: FG's U.S.$60 Billion Debt - Okonjo-Iweala Refutes Osinbajo's Claims

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has refuted claims by Vice President-elect, Yemi Osinbajo, that the outgoing administration owes $60 billion in local and foreign debts.
Speaking with finance correspondents, Okonjo-Iweala said that the nation's current debt stock stands at $63.7 billion and it encompasses domestic and multilateral loans by all the federal and state governments since 1960.
She said various states of the federation accounted for 20 per cent of the nation's total debt stock.
Of the $63.7 billion debt, the minister said $9.7 billion or 15 per cent is external while $54 billion or 85 per cent represents domestic debt.
She said between 2007 and 2011, a debt of $17.3 billion debt was recorded while between 2012 and 2015, the debt stood at $18.1 billion.
She explained that the leap in the debt profile between 2012 and 2015 was triggered off by the 53 per cent wage increase implemented by the late Umaru Yar'Adua administration in a fell swoop.
This, she said, skyrocketed government's borrowing from N524 billion to over N1 trillion in order to meet the salary increase, adding that the country's domestic debt increased by $18.1 billion mainly because of the 53 per cent increase in the pay of civil and public servants.
The minister stated that at the time of the salary increase, she was still with the World Bank, adding that she had written and warned on the consequences of acquiescing to such a huge increase.
Absolving the Jonathan administration of blame, the minister said the government had indeed taken a careful and meticulous approach to managing the nation's debt, noting that the present administration, for the first time in the nation's history, retired a domestic debt of N75 billion in 2013.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian drug agents say a newly elected senator will appear in court to fight his extradition to the U.S. on 20-year-old drug charges. The case is related to the TV hit "Orange is the New Black." Senator-elect Buruji Kashamu, 56, has declared his innocence. Chicago prosecutors charge he was the kingpin of a heroin trafficking ring in the 1990s. After years of inaction, the U.S. has requested his extradition. The move comes days before senators are to be sworn into the new legislature on Friday. Drug agents surrounded Kashamu's home before dawn on Saturday. The drug agency says he is under house arrest. Kashamu's spokesman says it's an illegal siege and they have no arrest warrant.

Three years after Nigerians grudgingly submitted to the federal government's conditions for removing fuel subsidy, government-controlled prices for petroleum products continue to impede the effective implementation of subsidy reforms. Local refineries in Nigeria are either comatose or perform below refining capacity. The practice of adopting uniform benchmark pump prices and reimbursing marketers for their transportation expenses has infamously stifled productivity, making local refining even more unattractive. Removing these price controls and introducing a free market economy are now absolutely imperative for a successful subsidy reform agenda.
Outrage and widespread resistance greeted the Nigerian government's attempt to remove fuel subsidy from premium motor spirit (popularly known as petrol) on January 1, 2012. The reason behind the then abrupt subsidy cuts was to block leakages that characterised the administration of subsidies, freeing up important revenue for investment in critical sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, and to create jobs. The fuel subsidy removal policy was partially reversed following the violent protests that erupted in the wake of the reforms. Barely three years down the line, there are dramatic shifts in public opinion regarding the propriety of retaining fuel subsidies. Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair re-echoed this sentiment at a recent meeting in Abuja when he urged Nigeria's President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, to eliminate energy subsidies.
So what changed between 2012 and 2015? There are three things to take note of. First, the shift in public opinion could be attributed to increasing information about the colossal levels of corruption riddling the subsidy administration process. Knowledge has also increased about how energy subsidies benefit low-income households a lot less; impose deep cuts on national budgets; discourage investments in renewable energy development; increase atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, while increasing countries' vulnerability to the volatility of energy prices in the international market. Second, it is instructive to note that this "growing knowledge" has not yet fully permeated into policy halls and energy reform processes. A lot more work still needs to be done to convince the Nigerian parliament to embrace total cuts in petroleum products consumption subsidy, and codify this commitment in policy instruments. Third, subsidy reforms will be at the front-burner of the incoming government's policy agenda. What may be different is that while the previous subsidy reforms in 2012 were directly initiated by government, proposals for total subsidy reform under the General Buhari-led government may be externally-triggered. During the 2012 era, the federal government made unsuccessful efforts to get maximum citizen and civil society buy-in for the reforms. But this time around, the obligation to "win both hearts and minds" within and beyond policy circles may shift to the civil society. This role reversal is not going to be an easy task.
As we wait with bated breath for the debates around fuel subsidy reforms to resume in earnest, it bears underlining that there are pros and cons to the anti-petro-subsidy policy. Currently leading the chorus opposing the removal of fuel subsidy is the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), arguing that fuel subsidy could as well be a myth. But if it does exist, then one must recognise that "unbridled corruption" is quite distinct from "subsidy administration." CNPP argues that what needs to be done is to sanitise subsidy expenditures by exterminating corruption, so that both the rich and the poor can enjoy the full benefits of energy consumption subsidies.
This argument has some merits. For instance, an estimated N1.32 trillion was spent on subsidies in the ten months to October 2011, which is about four times the amount spent in the entire 2010 without demonstrable corresponding increase in the volume of fuel importation and supply of petroleum products during both periods. Shocking revelations from both the Aig Imokhouede-led task force that probed the subsidy regime unearthed massive discrepancies in official subsidy calculations and disbursement arrangements. A truly independent forensic audit would clearly show the extent of gaps that exist and the actual size of energy subsidies in Nigeria. This is an important first step towards reforming energy subsidies in Nigeria.
The second drawback is that developing countries contribute a lot less to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations than their developed country counterparts. That many developed countries with high emission records - like US and China - continue to subsidise fossil fuel production further buttresses this point. This means that developing countries bear the brunt of the adverse environmental consequences (traffic congestion, air pollution) of energy subsidies in which they contributed so little to. Arguably therefore, energy subsidies are evidently not a primary course of the negative impact of environmental harm and climate change impacts felt by poor countries.
Thirdly, in a country where the World Bank's 2014 assessment established that over 70% of Nigeria's 170 million people live in extreme poverty, and depend on $1.25 (N200) or even less per day, subsidies help the poor pay lower prices for energy. Given that renewable energy production is still at its infancy stages in Nigeria, there is really no sustainable alternative to petrol fuel. Even in advanced economies, no other energy source has successfully displaced fossil fuels. Because electricity shortages are rife, low prices significantly expand the access of the poor populations to petro-fuel which is generally used as an alternative source of electricity. The extent to which subsidies benefit the poor and vulnerable groups, especially women, is the focus of a new study being undertaken by Spaces for Change.
Not only that, the lack of political will to eliminate subsidies has been the greatest setback to effective subsidy reforms around the globe. Ample evidence shows huge contradictions between the policy and practice of States' energy subsidy policies. Recently, Guardian found out that despite their humongous profits, "the world's biggest and most profitable fossil fuel companies are receiving huge and rising subsidies from US taxpayers." For instance, Exxon Mobil's $41bn profit did not preclude it from benefitting from $119m of state subsidy in Louisiana since 2011. Similarly, despite instituting bold policy and legislative commitments to climate change, US federal subsidies have risen by 45% after President Barack Obama's 2009 call on the G20 to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. So, withdrawing fuel subsidy remains an uphill struggle in both developed and developing economies as consumption and production subsidies are pervasive, with coal accounting for the highest receipts.
In the Nigerian context, fuel subsidies are unsustainable and the cost will keep growing... If unrestrained, fuel subsidies will likely outgrow the national revenue intake, making it difficult for the government to efficiently utilise its revenues to develop critical sectors of the economy.
Regardless of these drawbacks, there is little doubt that fuel subsidies are notoriously inefficient and withdrawing them has many advantages. The aforementioned pro-subsidy removal arguments advanced by the Nigerian government in 2012 remain as valid as ever in 2015. Reechoing those arguments in a recent report, the International Monetary Fund found that "eliminating post-tax energy subsidies in 2015 could raise government revenue by $2.9 trillion (3.6 percent of global GDP), cut global CO2 emissions by more than 20 percent, and cut pre-mature air pollution deaths by more than half."
In the Nigerian context, fuel subsidies are unsustainable and the cost will keep growing. Although vehicle importation and registration figures are not properly tracked, Wall Street Journal reports that the Nigeria unit of the Toyota Motor Corp. estimates that 155,000 used cars of all makes were imported into the country in 2008. Compare that to the number of registered vehicles as of 2011, which the Global Health Observatory Data Repository puts at 12,545,177. Equally, rising with car importation is fuel consumption and, of course, a corresponding increase in fuel subsidies! If unrestrained, fuel subsidies will likely outgrow the national revenue intake, making it difficult for the government to efficiently utilise its revenues to develop critical sectors of the economy.
As Samuel Diminas of Westpaq Oil Inc. rightly observed, fuel subsidy has never been appropriately budgeted for, and is structured in a way that allows corruption to flourish. "Subsidy budgets usually reflect the sums unpaid for from cleared invoices which are carried over from the past year. This approach incentivizes marketers to manipulate subsidy figures especially where they are expected to invoice the federal government 90 days after the fuel has been sold out and consumed in different locations across Nigeria," Mr. Diminas said.
Three years after Nigerians grudgingly submitted to the federal government's conditions for removing fuel subsidy, government-controlled prices for petroleum products continue to impede the effective implementation of subsidy reforms. Local refineries in Nigeria are either comatose or perform below refining capacity. The practice of adopting uniform benchmark pump prices and reimbursing marketers for their transportation expenses has infamously stifled productivity, making local refining even more unattractive. Removing these price controls and introducing a free market economy are now absolutely imperative for a successful subsidy reform agenda. In addition to that, policies which target systemic and process checks are the appropriate means for achieving transparency and accountability goals in the Nigerian energy sector. The good news is that the falling price of oil in the international market presents a unique opportunity for countries like Nigeria to effect the transition to a total non-subsidy regime more painlessly.

Nigerian senator-elect to fight US extradition, drug charges

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian drug agents say a newly elected senator will appear in court to fight his extradition to the U.S. on 20-year-old drug charges. The case is related to the TV hit "Orange is the New Black."
Senator-elect Buruji Kashamu, 56, has declared his innocence. Chicago prosecutors charge he was the kingpin of a heroin trafficking ring in the 1990s.
After years of inaction, the U.S. has requested his extradition. The move comes days before senators are to be sworn into the new legislature on Friday.
Drug agents surrounded Kashamu's home before dawn on Saturday. The drug agency says he is under house arrest. Kashamu's spokesman says it's an illegal siege and they have no arrest warrant.

Dangote’s $480m Ethiopian Cement plant set for commissioning

Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Mr Haile Mariam Desalegne, is expected to perform the opening ceremony at an event that will be graced by top members of the Nigeria business community.A statement from the Dangote Group indicated that the government and the people of Ethiopia are excited about the timely completion of the project and the economic prospects of having such a huge company in that area of the country.
The invitation letter sent by the Dangote Cement showed that Nigerian guests would be flown to Ethiopia next week Wednesday, June 3 to witness the event on Thursday, June 4 and would be brought back to Nigeria on Friday, June 5.
The Dangote Cement plant, said to be the single largest investment by an African, will be the fifth in the series of the offshore plants of the company that have rolled out cement within the last one year in the African continent, coming after Senegal, Cameroon, South Africa and Zambia. Nine other countries are on the card as the cement plants are in various stages of construction.
The company is investing $5 billion to build an African cement empire with factories and plants in 14 African countries. Recently, its $300 million Greenfield cement plant in Senegal rolled products into the market in that country while the Senegalese government promises all assistance required for the Dangote Cement to perform maximally as its entry into Senegal has stir up economic activities.
Nigeria’s Ambassador to Senegal and Mauritania, said, “I am very proud of what Dangote is doing by promoting intra-African investments, promoting regional development, industrialisation and cohesion among African nations with his investments.

Hundreds of tech companies line up to oppose TPP trade agreement

Los Angeles residents share the reservations of more than 250 tech companies which oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/AP 

More than 250 tech companies have signed a letter demanding greater transparency from Congress and decrying the broad regulatory language in leaked parts of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill.
The TPP would create an environment hostile to journalists and whistleblowers, said policy directors for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, co-authors of the letter. “TPP’s trade secrets provisions could make it a crime for people to reveal corporate wrongdoing ‘through a computer system’,” says the letter. “The language is dangerously vague, and enables signatory countries to enact rules that would ban reporting on timely, critical issues affecting the public.”
Among the signatories are activist, sci-fi author and Guardian tech columnist Cory Doctorow. “Democracies make their laws in public, not in smoke-filled rooms,” Doctorow wrote. “If TPP’s backers truly believed that they were doing the people’s work, they’d have invited the people into the room. The fact that they went to extreme, unprecedented measures to stop anyone from finding out what was going on – even going so far as to threaten Congress with jail if they spoke about it – tells you that this is something being done *to* Americans, not *for* Americans.”
Also on the list were prominent members of the open source community, including David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework, image hosting company Imgur and domain name manager Namecheap.
There was a notable absence from the letter of big, international tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. Apple and AT&T are part of the president’s International Trade Advisory Committee (which advises the Oval Office on matters relating to industry) and their representatives have presumably been able to read sections of the bill that would apply to their industry.
The letter’s signatories also criticized the fast-track bill – known as the Trade Promotion Authority – which is being discussed in Congress this week. If passed, the TPA would give Obama a yes or no vote on the trade pact without the ability for legislators to amend it. The fast-track bill needs to be passed to even give the TPP a shot at approval.
TPP has sparked a growing row within the Democrat party. Senator Elizabeth Warren renewed her attack on the pact this week, issuing a scathing report on past trade deals.
Of particular concern to the tech community is an “Investment Chapter” of the TPP drafted in 2010 and leaked by Wikileaks. The letter’s signatories argue the provisions would allow corporations to use an international legal system to override national sovereignty: “The TPP Investment Chapter contains text that would enable corporations to sue nations over democratic rules that allegedly harm expected future profits. Companies can use this process to undermine US rules like fair use, net neutrality, and others designed to protect the free, open internet and users’ rights to free expression online.”
The section has likely been revised in the last five years, but whether the provisions have changed has not, and can not, be disclosed.
“The future of the internet is simply too important to be decided behind closed doors,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future. “The Fast Track/Trade Promotion Authority process actively silences the voices of internet users, startups, and small tech companies while giving the biggest players even more power to set policy that benefits a few select companies while undermining the health of the entire web.”

Flying over Dubai — and other places — with jetpacks

Jetman Yves Rossy has been taking his delta-winged jetpack out for brief jaunts at exotic locations around the globe for years. Each time, he learns a little more, and makes his flying machine a little more powerful. If you haven’t been paying attention, take a look at his most recent performance in this 4K video. Teaming up with his friend Vince Reffet, the pair carve the skies over the dramatic landscape of Dubai, and show the world just how far the jetmen have come:

This video should remove any doubt that the jetpack is here, and here to stay. The future of personal flight is not piston-popping two-strokes driving whirling ducted fans like the Martin jetpack, nor the peroxide powered steam puffs of the Bell’s 20-second rocket belt. The future is as we always knew it would be: turbine-powered, and prone like Superman, with wings to work the air.
Flying with a partner shows just how agile these machines really are. Yes, they still need help to get up in the air, and no, they still don’t land on their own without a parachute — but Rossy should get to all of that. For now, he is pushing the performance envelope just to see what they can do. That has actually meant making the wings a bit smaller in each new iteration of the jetpack so that they are more aerodynamic, and faster.
To actually take-off and land like a bird, bigger and more variable wings will probably be needed. To use your own legs as the landing gear (and therefore use slower approach speeds), the wings would probably need be to a little lighter, and even bigger still. For anyone that might be looking into the finer points of these issues, we offer one observation: the reason that Rossy has been the sole practitioner of his sport, is simply that until now, no one else has been technically, physically, and mentally capable of doing what he does.
There was one other guy, Visa Parviainen, who by any measure certainly came close. Technically he was probably the first one to actually do it, but his flight was fairly short and underpowered compared to Rossy’s. Visa used a soft wingsuit instead, and strapped two miniturbines to his boots. His classic, though largely under-appreciated video, is pure genius. If you have never see it, we have it for you below.

The tiny turbines that make this flight possible have seen drastic performance improvements in recent times. When prices come down, it is likely that the next jetpack story may come from a dedicated DIY daredevil that got tired of his or her wingsuit. New technology to 3D metal print nearly every component used in these turbines has been developed both at Australia’s Monash University and at General Electric (although it is unlikely that high speed bearings can be manufactured this way, at least without extensive post-machining).


We should mention that machining turbine blades the old-fashioned way is about the hardest thing anyone would want to do in the fabricating business, at least starting from scratch. When someone comes up with a way to 3D print carbon fiber, or some similar material on larger scales, we might even print the wings too.
We may sound a little optimistic here with these jetpack dreams, but dreams seem be dying fast. We had previously warned that although the Aeromobile flying car looked like a great design, in flight it appeared unstable. Unfortunately we learned the other day that the Aeromobile has met disaster before meeting success. Hopefully the jetman and others like him can avoid that fate.
 

Consumer Group Worries Over Safety of Google's Self-Driving Cars

Media pressure this week led Google to reveal that its self-driving cars, which are being tested on select city streets in California, have been involved in 11 accidents. All were minor accidents that occurred over the past six years, according to Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car program.

The disclosure followed an Associated Press report that Google vehicles were involved in three collisions since September, when reporting all accidents involving self-driving cars became mandatory.
Ten of the accidents occurred when other drivers hit the Google cars, Urmson said. Seven were rear-enders, two were side-swipes, and one was caused by someone rolling through a stop sign.
The one accident caused by a Google car occurred when an engineer was driving the vehicle manually and rear-ended another vehicle.
Self-driving cars "don't overdrive their capability and can't get distracted, so it's nearly impossible for them to cause an accident," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
"If they see the car in front behaving badly, they would likely slow down, pulling to the side of the road while sending out a law enforcement alert -- possibly attaching a film of the other car's behavior," he told TechNewsWorld. "They would also alert other self-driving cars in the area of the hazard."

Time to Show and Tell

Consumer Watchdog earlier this month demanded that Google release full details of an accident involving one of its self-driving cars, and called on it to commit to making all future accident reports public.
Consumer Watchdog on Tuesday held a press event on problems with self-driving cars.

Those problems, according to the group, include bad weather interfering with the vehicles' sensors; the vehicles' inability to recognize hand signals; and an inability to recognize road conditions such as large potholes, open manholes or newly installed traffic lights.

Is It Safe?

Google's 23 self-driving vehicles have driven 1.7 million miles -- nearly 1 million of those miles autonomously -- and average about 10,000 self-driven miles a week, mostly on city streets, Urmson pointed out.
That's not as good as it sounds, contended John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project. Eleven accidents in 1.7 million miles works out to 0.65 accidents per 100,000 miles -- about twice the 0.3 property damage accidents per 100,000 miles driven in 2013 reported by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Google has come under fire for not being more forthcoming with details, but "like every other company testing autonomous vehicles on California roads, [Google] shares information on accidents with the DMV as required by regulations," company spokesperson Katelin Jabbari told TechNewsWorld.
There are, by the way, six other companies testing self-driving cars, and a total of 48 autonomous cars are licensed for testing in California, AP reported.
"Google has an opportunity to set an overall industry standard of behavior for data sharing," said Roger Lanctot, associate director, global automotive practice, at Strategy Analytics.
"Just as Android is open, the Google car ought to be open," he told TechNewsWorld. "Otherwise we will not know to what extent we are making, or have made, any progress."

Making the Roads Safe

The best way to prevent accidents is for automakers to make all cars connected, and "we are working on that," Lanctot said. Existing wireless technologies can link up vehicles just fine -- creating, in effect, an Internet of Things for vehicles.
Nonetheless, there always will be unforeseen circumstances, such as people dashing across streets, or careless drivers making sudden turns, or an oncoming vehicle on the other side flying over the road divider and crashing, and it's difficult, if not impossible to program for them.
"We don't teach the car to drive by creating a checklist of 1 million different scenarios it needs to handle and then check each item off," Google's Jabbari said. "Rather, you teach the car by giving it fundamental capabilities to respond correctly to different categories of scenarios as they emerge."

Aisha Buhari Seeks Legislation Against Child Marriage In Nigeria

Hajia Aisha Buhari, the wife of Nigeria’s President-elect, is seeking the legislation against child marriage in Nigeria.

Mrs Buhari disclosed this while speaking at the Global Women Conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, shortly after her presentation on the dangers women and girl child face every day.

According to reports by Channels TV, Mrs Buhari pressed for a legislation that would protect women and the girl child as discussions at the conference bordered around women empowerment and social inclusion.

According to her, the key to solving most of the problems women face is global legislation. She further put a call to government and international organisations to upsurge the participation of women in the decision making process.

Other Nigerian delegates at the event were Hannatu Ngilari, Hajo Sani and Mariyya Zayyan.

It should be noted that northern Nigeria has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world. The Child Rights Act, pa$$ed in 2003, raised the minimum age of marriage to 18 for girls which is yet to implemented in all 36 states of Nigeria.

According to UNFPA, in Nigeria, ’20 percent of girls were married by age 15, and 40 percent were married by age 18.22 Child marriage is extremely prevalent in some regions; in the Northwest region, 48 percent of girls were married by age 15, and 78 percent were married by age 18.23.