Deminer Documents Wildlife in Mine-Strewn Areas

A lizard stands on a landmine in Pailin province.
(Shathel Fahs/MAG)

By Denise Hruby | February 17, 2014
Shathel Fahs had been demining Cambodia’s forests and rice paddies for a year with NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and seen many wildlife, from birds to lizards and deers.
But that day in 2010, while Mr. Fahs was briefing his team in Pailin province, his roughly one dozen deminers got scared.

“They were screaming ‘there’s a tiger coming up behind you,’” Mr. Fahs said.
“Later we found out that it was a fishing cat, which looks like a leopard, but much smaller and very, very aggressive,” Mr. Fahs, a technical field manager based in Battambang province, said.
Since the endangered fishing cat was just one species of Cambodia’s wildlife Mr. Fahs spotted, the idea to start photographing animals in minefields was born.
“There are a lot of animals in the minefields, and the idea was to start this collection of different wildlife,” he said.
Over the past three years, Mr. Fahs has photographed lizards, geckos, eagles, snakes, tarantulas and deer.
“There is no evidence of animals triggering mines, but any animal can set off an anti-personnel mine because they get more sensitive with age,” he said.
Since 1979, mines have killed more than 19,600 people and left more than 44,600 maimed and injured.
While the government’s demining arm the Cambodian Mine Action Center has cleared the majority of mines and UXOs, NGOs like MAG make significant contributions.
Between July 2012 and June 2013, MAG cleared 2,248,572 square meters of land in priority areas, removed and destroyed 3,400 landmines and more than 8,000 unexploded ordnance.

© 2014, The Cambodia Daily. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in print, electronically, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without written permission.

Veteran journalist missing in Siem Reap

Missing journalist Dave Walker in Phnom Penh last year.
RICHARD S. EHRLICH

Police in Siem Reap province are looking for veteran Canadian journalist and screenwriter Dave Walker, 58, who went missing from his guesthouse under mysterious circumstances on the afternoon of February 14, police and colleagues said yesterday.
Siem Reap provincial Immigration Police officer Yut Sinin said that Walker had left his room at the Green Village Angkor guesthouse on the afternoon of the 14th, leaving behind his phone, laptop, passport and belongings – and little indication of where he might have gone.
“We are worried about his safety now. Previously, he would usually leave Siem Reap for Thailand for about three or four days, but this time we found that his passport, phone and clothes are still in his guesthouse,” said Sinin, adding that he had posted a notice seeking information on a Siem Reap expat Facebook group.
“The Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh [which handles consular affairs for Canadians] just contacted us [on Tuesday] morning about him going missing, but we will try our best to find him,” Sinin said.
A representative working on Canadian consular affairs at the embassy confirmed yesterday that they had received a missing persons report, and were investigating the matter.
Sonny Chhuon, with whom Walker co-founded the film production company Animist Farm Films, said that staff told him Walker ducked out of his room at about 2pm on February 14 to allow a housekeeper to clean it, carrying just a bottle of water.
“Dave told them, ‘Go ahead, clean the room; I’ll be back in a while,’ then we never saw him again,” Chhoun said, noting that Walker didn’t drink alcohol and had a well-established daily routine.
Chhoun, who typically saw Walker on a daily basis, said he had checked with police, local clinics and restaurants that Walker frequented, but no one had seen him since he left the hotel.
“I just want to say, I don’t think he went anywhere by himself. I think something is wrong. I don’t think he would just leave, with his phone on the charger, and go somewhere,” Chhoun added. “This is very unnatural for Dave. I know him very well.”
By: Phnom Peng Post

UN warns of ‘grave humanitarian crisis’ in Somalia as more than 850,000 face starvation

While international aid comes under threat, agency says ‘
we need to keep our attention on Somalia’

The UN’s director of humanitarian operations has told the world we “need to keep our attention on Somalia”, after new figures showed that more than 850,000 people in the country are in desperate need of food.

Torn apart by decades of armed conflict and suffering cyclical droughts, Somalia now has around a tenth of its 10 million population regarded as living in acute crisis conditions.
The UN’s John Ging, who has just returned from a three-day visit to the country, said a further two million of the Somali people were considered to be “food insecure”.
With other crises drawing attention away from Somalia’s plight and domestic pressures on international aid budgets, the UN said its appeal for a $933 million humanitarian fund had so far only received $36 million – a fact Mr Ging described as “very ominous”.
He told a news conference yesterday that by any standards the starvation figures for Somalia are “very, very large”.
“They tell us a simple message which is that the situation in Somalia for Somalis on the humanitarian side is very grave. It's also very fragile,” he said.
Mr Ging said the exact number identified as needed urgent humanitarian assistance was 857,000, according to a report from the UN World Food Programme's Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit.
While this was a “modest improvement” from the 870,000 reported in the previous month, that progress looks unlikely to continue in the context of falling aid.
The food security unit said about 75 per cent of the 857,000 Somalis who urgently need food are displaced from their homes, largely as a result of fighting, insecurity and lack of food.
Somalia has long been a rudderless nation plagued by cyclical drought and famine and decades of armed conflict.
Mr Ging said others are in rural areas that are very hard to access.
“In 2011, we had a global tragedy where 260,000 people died of famine in Somalia,” he said.
“We are working very hard to help the people recover in circumstances which are extremely difficult - the climate is very harsh and the security situation equally so.”
Three years ago, the UN appeal for Somalia achieved 86 per cent of its funding target – but last year it hit just 50 per cent, he said.
“Somalis have suffered endlessly for almost 25 years. We cannot be distracted now from our task to stay with them, to help to consolidate these fragile gains ... and this requires funding,” Mr Ging said.
“We need to keep our attention on Somalia. It's incredibly fragile and we don't want a repeat of what happened in 2011.”
Additional reporting by AP

Two members of Pussy Riot 'detained in Sochi' are released

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, members of the protest group Pussy Riot, have been released after being detained near the site of the Winter Olympics in downtown Sochi.

Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova  ran out of a police station in their trademark balaclavas following several hours of questioning in Sochi, the host city of the Winter Olympics.
Police said they were questioned in connection with a theft at the hotel where they were staying. No charges were filed.
Tolokonnikova said the detention was the latest in a series of harassments against the group since Sunday. She said they had been detained for several hours on the previous two days.

"We members of Pussy Riot have been here since late Sunday and we were constantly detained since then," Tolokonnikova said after her release. "We are constantly surrounded by people, not you journalists, but people who are shadowing us, following our every move and looking for any excuse to detain us."
Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova were in Sochi with other members of Pussy Riot to record a musical film called "Putin will teach you to love the motherland", Ms Tolokonnikova's husband said on Twitter.
The women were being held at a police station in Adler, he said.
"We have been arrested ... and are accused of robbery," Ms Tolokonnikova said on her Twitter account, adding that police had used force during the arrest.
"At the time of our detention, we weren't engaged in any protests, we were walking around Sochi. WE WERE WALKING." Ms Alyokhina also posted a tweet appearing to show them being held in the back of a police van that said "from inside the paddy waggon".
Ms Tolokonnikova said she and Ms Alyokhina had also been detained for seven hours on Sunday and for 10 hours on Monday, though their presence in Sochi had not been advertised. "Now we are riding around in a police van accused of theft," she wrote.

Amnesty International had described the turn of events as "outrageous" and called for their imemdiate release. In a statement, its Europe and Central Asia Director John Dalhuisen said:

“In Putin’s Russia, the authorities have turned the Olympic rings - a worldwide symbol of hope and striving for the best of the human spirit - into handcuffs to shackle freedom of expression.

“This is outrageous. There are reports of arrests of activists in Sochi and the Olympic Games area almost daily. The International Olympic Committee must roundly condemn these and all arrests of activists near Sochi.

“People are being targeted merely for peacefully speaking their minds. The Russian authorities must end this downward spiral of human rights violations around the Olympic Village.”
In 2012, Ms Tolokonnikova, alongside fellow band members Ms Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing a protest song highly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral.

They were released from prison following an amnesty from the government in December last year, having served 18 months of their two-year sentences.

The actions taken against Pussy Riot come a day after an Italian transgender activist and former politician was detained at the Olympics. Vladimir Luxuria was stopped while carrying a rainbow flag that read in Russian: “Gay is OK.” On Sunday, Ms Luxuria said she was held by police and told not to wear clothing with slogans promoting gay rights

The police were not immediately available for comment.

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Two members of Pussy Riot 'arrested in Sochi'

A Russian human rights activist has said Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, members of the protest group Pussy Riot, have been detained near the site of the Winter Olympics in downtown Sochi.

Semyon Simonov said he was with Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova at the time of their arrest. He said the two women have been accused of theft and said several other activists were also detained by police.
Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova were in Sochi with other members of Pussy Riot to record a musical film called "Putin will teach you to love the motherland", Ms Tolokonnikova's husband said on Twitter.
The women were being held at a police station in Adler, he said.
"We have been arrested ... and are accused of robbery," Ms Tolokonnikova said on her Twitter account, adding that police had used force during the arrest.
"At the time of our detention, we weren't engaged in any protests, we were walking around Sochi. WE WERE WALKING." Ms Alyokhina also posted a tweet appearing to show them being held in the back of a police van that said "from inside the paddy waggon".
Ms Tolokonnikova said she and Ms Alyokhina had also been detained for seven hours on Sunday and for 10 hours on Monday, though their presence in Sochi had not been advertised. "Now we are riding around in a police van accused of theft," she wrote.

A lawyer for the group, Alexander Popkov, told The Associated Press that police were refusing to say if the group was suspected of a crime or were witnesses. They were taken to the police station in Adler, a suburb of Sochi that is home to the Olympic Park, because a theft had been reported from the hotel where they were staying, Popkov said. No charges have been filed.

Amnesty International have described the turn of events as "outrageous" and called for their imemdiate release. In a statement, its Europe and Central Asia Director John Dalhuisen said:

“In Putin’s Russia, the authorities have turned the Olympic rings - a worldwide symbol of hope and striving for the best of the human spirit - into handcuffs to shackle freedom of expression.

“This is outrageous. There are reports of arrests of activists in Sochi and the Olympic Games area almost daily. The International Olympic Committee must roundly condemn these and all arrests of activists near Sochi.

“People are being targeted merely for peacefully speaking their minds. The Russian authorities must end this downward spiral of human rights violations around the Olympic Village.”

In 2012, Ms Tolokonnikova, alongside fellow band members Ms Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing a protest song highly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral.

They were released from prison following an amnesty from the government in December last year, having served 18 months of their two-year sentences.

The actions taken against Pussy Riot come a day after an Italian transgender activist and former politician was detained at the Olympics. Vladimir Luxuria was stopped while carrying a rainbow flag that read in Russian: “Gay is OK.” On Sunday, Ms Luxuria said she was held by police and told not to wear clothing with slogans promoting gay rights

The police were not immediately available for comment.

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Syria crisis: Image of 4-year-old boy Marwan crossing into Jordan captures plight of refugees

The United Nations refugee agency has been forced to clarify its position on a series of photos showing people crossing the desert into neighbouring Jordan, after one appeared to show a four-year-old boy making the journey alone.

The little boy, named Marwan, was just one of around 1,000 refugees making the long and difficult journey to escape the war-torn country, and was temporarily separated from the rest of his family during the “chaos and confusion” of the crossing itself.
Marwan was carried across the border by officials with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – and was reunited with his mother around 10 minutes later.
At no point did the UNHCR say the boy made the crossing alone, but the powerful image was seized upon by social media users on Sunday, and become one of the most shared pictures of the day.
Andrew Harper, the agency’s representative in Jordan who took and posted the original image, explained what happened in a series of tweets.
He wrote: “Just to let you know that Marwan was safely reunited with his mother soon after being carried across the Jordan border.

Andrew Harper posted a wider image from the UNHCR's Jared Kohler showing Marwan at the back of a large group of refugees before he met officials (Twitter)

“Marwan's story is that he was temporarily separated from his family in the chaos of the mass refugees’ crossing into Jordan.
 “When refugees cross, which happens every day, it is the most vulnerable that UNHCR staff Border Guards look out to help.
“Unfortunately in every mass refugees crossing it is the elderly, sick, pregnant and often children that fall behind the main groups.”
While assisting refugees across the border on Sunday, the UNHCR said it was “honoured” to be accompanied by the education activist and 2013 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai.
Malala, 16, was pictured as she was briefed by agency officials, spoke to those fleeing Syria and helped carrying supplies.

Malala Yousafzai (second from left) talks to a newly-arrived 5-year-old-girl and her family (UNHCR)

 UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told the Mirror: “The Syria conflict has now been going on for three years and at the moment we are dealing with 2.4 million refugees.
“The important statistic is that over one million of these refugees are children.
“Because they miss out on education we are calling them the 'lost generation' of Syria.
“Unfortunately there are lots of Marwans out there.”

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Thai princess uses social media to ‘declare war’: Photos posted by Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol widely interpreted as a sign of her support for anti-government protesters

Flashing the colours of anti-government protesters,
the youngest daughter of King Bhumibol Adulyadej
of Thailand has created a furore

It was a bolt from the red, white and blue. A few weeks ago the youngest daughter of Thailand’s ageing king posted several photographs of herself on social media. One of them showed her with hair braids of red, blue and white; another of her wearing a similarly-striped bracelet. These are the colours of Thailand’s national flag, but they have also come to be associated with the anti-government protesters who have rocked the country as they seek to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Whether or not it was her intention to do so, the posting of the images by Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol was widely interpreted as a sign of her support for the anti-government forces.
“It was seen as a declaration of war,” said a Thai political analyst sympathetic to the government, who asked not to be named. “Her doing that gave a symbol that elements within the palace support this protest 100 per cent.”
The furore has drawn attention to an issue that is rarely discussed in public, but which some say is crucial to understanding what is happening in Thailand.
While the conflict is fuelled by several factors, say those analysts, the declining health of 86-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the behind-the-scenes jostling for position ahead of his succession is a major driver of the turmoil playing out on the streets of Bangkok.
Some consider it nothing less than the fall-out of a dynastic battle in which the children of the king have taken different sides.
“The old elites have never cared about democracy. But when the king dies they want to be sure that they control the parliament,” said Andrew MacGregor Marshall, a journalist and author of an upcoming book on Thailand titled A Kingdom in Crisis.
According to the rules of succession, on the death of the king the throne should pass to Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. But within the palace establishment – the network of privy counsellors, advisors and minor royals – are those who would prefer it instead went to Crown Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Princess Chulabhorn, who posted the images on Instagram, is said to be an ally of the Crown Princess.

 One reason for the opposition to the thrice-married Crown Prince is his reputation as a playboy.
In 2009 a video emerged that was apparently taken at a birthday party for his poodle, Foo Foo, and which appeared to show his wife, Princess Srirasmi, wearing nothing but a G-string.
Others apparently simply believe the Crown Princess would be easier to control than the Crown Prince, who is considered a maverick and who may sweep away many of his father’s courtiers.
The prince is also seen to be close to ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is the brother of the current premier and remains a pervasive force in Thai politics from his home in Dubai.
Mr Marshall said if supporters of the Crown Princess can oust the government of Ms Yingluck and appoint another prime minister, they could control the parliament, which needs to approve the royal succession. “It would have to be done quickly,” he said.
The controversy over the succession of King Bhumibol and the anxiety of those surrounding him who fear losing position and privilege, is nothing new.
In a 2009 briefing for then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which was later published by Wikileaks, the US ambassador Eric John said: “It is hard to overestimate the political impact of the uncertainty surrounding the inevitable succession crisis which will be touched off once King Bhumibol passes.”
The battle is not being fought for small change. Forbes magazine has estimated that King Bhumibol oversees assets worth more than £18.2bn. Whoever succeeds him will control a huge network of patronage and influence.
While the tug-of-war over the succession is of crucial significance, the topic is almost never discussed in public. Thailand’s tough censorship laws that prohibit criticism of the monarchy and carry a penalty of up to 15 years, are often used to silence critics.
As a result, discussion of the royal succession issue is confined largely to private conversations or anonymous comments made online. As such, those who study Thailand’s monarchy are required to watch for small but significant signals, in much the way that students of the Kremlin once studied the relative position of leaders on official photographs.
Those who seized on the posting of photographs by Princess Chulabhorn, point out this is not the first time she appeared to show support for those opposed to Mr Thaksin. In late 2008, she and her mother, Queen Sirikit, controversially attended the funeral of an anti-government protester. In 2011, she told a TV chat show that supporters of Mr Thaksin were responsible for the declining health of her father, the king.
“Given the massive stakes involved in the succession, it would not be surprising if there are other contenders,” said Professor Patrick Jory, of the University of Queensland. “I don’t think it was accidental [that Princess Chulabhorn posted the images]. She wanted to show she is on the side of the protesters.”
Efforts to contact Princess Chulabhorn failed. The listed phone numbers of her office do not work and she did not reply to a question on social media.
Another blue-blood who has made public her views is Malinee Chakrabandhu, a descendant of King Rama IV, who ruled Siam in the 19th century. She posted a photograph of herself wearing a T-shirt that read: “I support the Crown Prince.”
In an interview at her tastefully-decorated home where photographs of her with other royals – including Britain’s Prince Charles –adorn the walls, Ms Chakrabandhu denied being a “signed-up” supporter of the government.
But she said she opposed the anti-government protesters and had fallen out with several family members over the issue, including her daughter.
“I back the Crown Prince. Nobody else. He is next in line and we have no right to change that.”
The 66-year-old Ms Malinee, who uses the title Mom Rajawongse, or MR, a signifier of her royal heritage, said: “Most Reds also support the Crown Prince. But most MRs are yellow [anti-government] and that disappoints me very much.”
The current stand-off in Thailand is not only about the succession issue. Among the protesters who have seized control of parts of Bangkok are farmers, particularly from the south, and middle-class citizens who believe Mr Thaksin oversaw widespread corruption. They are angry over an amnesty bill that would have allowed him to return to Thailand.
The leadership of the protesters has claimed there is no-one pushing them to act or funding them. “We are not claiming we have the support of the royals. This has nothing to do with the monarchy,” said Akanat Promphan, a spokesman for the protesters.
But others on either side of the dispute believe members of the royal family have shown their hand, something that was inconceivable in Thailand just a few years ago.
Supon Fumuljaroen, a senior leader of the Red Shirt movement that largely supports Mr Thaksin and his sister, said he believed the protests involved several issues.
“The king is very old now,” he said. “The privy counsellors, the elite, the aristocracy: they are all used to the benefits of His Majesty’s power and they feel the person they want to succeed may not.”
And many of those gathered on the streets in Bangkok – driven to protest by whatever reason – also saw the posting of the Princess’ photographs as her signalling her support to their attempt to oust the government.
One protester, Kanda Ruengmaswan – a woman who was last week part of the protest at the capital’s Pathumwan intersection – said: “The princess cannot give a speech but she wrote that to send a symbol.”

Vitamin C can help to fight cancer, US research suggests

Large doses of vitamin C may boost chemotherapy’s ability to kill cancer cells, US researchers have found.

Intravenous vitamin C could be a potentially safe, effective and low-cost treatment for ovarian and other cancers, said scientists at the University of Kansas.
Reporting in Science Translational Medicine, they outlined the results of tests carried out in the lab, on mice and on patients with advanced ovarian cancer, and called for “larger clinical trials”.
In a study of 27 patients newly diagnosed with stage 3 or 4 ovarian cancer, researchers found that patients who were injected with a high dose of vitamin C, along with their chemotherapy, experienced fewer negative side effects from their treatment.
They also found that vitamin C can help to kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
Vitamin C was used as an early, unorthodox cancer therapy.
In the 1970s, chemist Linus Pauling extolled the benefits of using vitamin C to treat cancer.
However, clinical trials of vitamin C administered orally were ineffective and the research was abandoned.
In the intervening years it has been discovered that the body quickly excretes vitamin C that is taken by mouth.
But when it is injected, vitamin C is able to inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
Co-researcher Dr Jeanne Drisko told BBC News that there was growing interest in the use of vitamin C by oncologists.
"Patients are looking for safe and low-cost choices in their management of cancer," said.
"Intravenous vitamin C has that potential based on our basic science research and early clinical data."
However, pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to run further clinical trials as vitamins cannot be patented.
"Because vitamin C has no patent potential, its development will not be supported by pharmaceutical companies," lead researcher Qi Chen told BBC News.
"We believe that the time has arrived for research agencies to vigorously support thoughtful and meticulous clinical trials with intravenous vitamin C."

Online learning is 'the blackboard of the future'

Children in nurseries will soon be learning through Moocs (Massive Open Online Courses) as the internet revolution changes the face of learning, according to the man who first pioneered their use in higher education. Today's two- and three-year-olds have been born with keyboards "pinned to their fingers", Dr Anant Agarwal, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, insists. As a result, it makes sense to utilise the skills they had acquired and give them a basic start to literacy and numeracy through computer games in the kindergarten or nursery schools.

"Two- and three-year-olds love video games and they're able to play with iPads – all they have to do is wipe their fingers over the keyboard," he said. "That's happening already in the home and it would be really fun for them to use those skills in the kindergarten," Dr Agarwal, told a seminar organised by the Education Foundation, an education think-tank, during a whistlestop UK tour.
His visit includes talks with MPs, the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, and universities minister David Willetts on how Moocs can transform education.
He was speaking amid growing scepticism over the impact that Moocs could have on higher education. In an article in Times Higher Education, Diana Laurilland, of London University's Institute of Education, argued that unsupervised learning online was not the answer. "Free online courses that require no qualifications or fee are a wonderful idea, but not viable," she said. Take-up of the idea in the UK had been slower than expected, academics have also argued.
However, Dr Agarwal, said a "blended" approach – combining first-time higher education students and providing additional resource material for those already at university will turn them into a success story. He has pioneered Moocs – setting up a programme through an MIT/Harvard-based company edX, of which he is president. It has now been snapped up by 1.8 million learners worldwide and offers courses which can end with the learner gaining a certificate validated by an Ivy League university in the US (MIT or Harvard) to boost career prospects.
Education, he claims, had been slow to embrace new technology. "Transportation has changed completely from the 1600s – from ox carts and carriages to rocket ships... [but] education has not changed really since the introduction of the text book. Even that – and the introduction of the blackboard in 1862 – had been controversial, as folk worried about the monks being put out of business.... The blackboard was criticised because it meant teachers had to turn their back on a class, thus threatening classroom discipline."
Education's time has come, though, and it will be unrecognisable within 10 years, he predicts – not at the expense of lecturers' jobs, but simply by changing the way students on degree courses learn as well as by attracting a new online audience.
Dr Agarwal said research shows the average student's attention span is six minutes and, when faced with a lengthy lecture, that goes down to only two minutes. Yet the average lecture in a UK university can last from 50 minutes to two hours.
Use of Moocs had significantly cut the number of letters sent out by universities to students in danger of falling behind, it is claimed. One university had reduced the number of such warnings to students from 50 to only two over a two-year period after the introduction of Moocs. Another saw a 41 per cent failure rate cut to nine per cent.
"Our main aim is to increase access to learning," said Dr Agarwal. He acknowledged Moocs were "slow to get on in the UK", but added: "My message would be to try them out and, if you don't like them, flush them down the Thames."
The Open University has led the way, he said. Some of his audience spoke of the reluctance of teachers and lecturers to embrace them and feared that OU students would now be better equipped to make use of them than others.
Dr Agarwal's visit coincides with the OU's second course on its new social learning platform FutureLearn, which will enable students to study the moons of our solar system. "The course provides answers for those who want to know more about moons and may perhaps spark further learning of planetary science and astronomy," said Dr David Rathery, who is leading the programme.
Dr Agarwal concludes: "If teachers don't embrace it [Moocs], there is no hope of going anywhere... this is the world that today's children are being brought up in. The UK has some of the greatest universities in the world and I am interested in inviting them to join this experiment. The whole movement is less than two years old, and for those universities who have started on it, these are very, very early days."
 

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Missing ‘Amy Hamilton’ poster circulating on social media revealed as racist right-wing propaganda hoax

A poster appealing for help finding “missing” six-year-old girl Amy Hamilton has been shared thousands of times on social media – despite being a racist hoax by a right-wing propaganda group.
The fake appeal uses a painting taken from a Flickr account to represent the fictional little girl, and underneath it includes the message: “It is believed Amy has been kidnapped by an Asian grooming gang.”
The poster is the work of the right-wing group Britons against Left-Wing Extremism (Bale), and was first spread as if it were genuine by the organisation’s blog and social media accounts branded the Daily Bale.
Last year the Croydon Advertiser revealed that there was no Amy Hamilton, and that Daily Bale editor Steven Sodholmy believed he was “raising awareness… about the harsh reality of Asian grooming gangs”.
Yet that has not stopped the “missing” poster resurfacing, and this week it has been shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook.
One social media user who tweeted the image later wrote: “Turns out that pic was a hoax! I had no idea when I posted it!” He added that it was nonetheless “refreshing to see so many people care enough about someone they never met”.
Posting on at the weekend, Facebook user Chris Jopp said: “A friend shared this and I had to tell her it was a hoax.” Another, Lisa Charman, said: “Yep, I just got this hoax today in my newsfeed.”
When the fake appeal was first being shared, Daily Bale contributor Joshua Bonehill tweeted: “An amazing 5000 people shared our Amy Hamilton, Missing poster on Facebook. Lets (sic) hope they catch the Asians responsible for taking her.”
Mr Sodholmy said: “The poster and the 20,000 that shared it on Facebook were informed about the harsh reality of Asian grooming gangs that have been operating in the Croydon area of London now for some time.”
But Croydon police told the Advertiser: “These types of hoax appeals are, at best, extremely unhelpful and distasteful and can potentially divert public attention away from genuine appeals.
“We rely on the support of the public and media to help us when we release appeals to find our most vulnerable missing people.
“The support we get for these appeals is fantastic, but these hoaxes can really damage the effectiveness of genuine appeals.”

British man’s £100,000 Chagall painting to be burnt as fake in France

When art lover Martin Lang submitted a treasured painting by Russian-born artist Marc Chagall to a BBC show about fakes and forgeries, he confidently hoped it would be confirmed as a genuine piece.
He wasn’t so lucky: Nude 1909-10, bought in 1992 for £100,000, is now set to be thrown into a furnace after being branded a fake by the Chagall Committee in Paris.
BBC1's art programme Fake Or Fortune, hosted by Fiona Bruce and set to be aired this evening, began the investigation by carrying out a complex paint analysis on the work.
Unfortunately for Mr Lang and his family, the results showed that the blue and green pigments were too modern for the 1909-10 date, having not been developed until the 1930s.
In a second blow, later editions of a Soviet art book by an art expert and friend of Chagall - which Mr Lang had cited as a confirmation of the painting’s authenticity - were found to no longer feature the work.
The only thing left to do was send the painting to the Chagall Committee in Paris, which is headed by the artist’s two granddaughters and charged with  protecting the reputation of the artists.
They ruled it was fake and have now said they plan to have it destroyed under French law.
The work of Chagall, regarded as a pioneer of modernism, can sell for millions of pounds. He died in 1985.
Mr Lang, 63, a property developer from Leeds, has asked the committee to mark the painting as a forgery and then return it or give him a guarantee he will be reimbursed if it is later ruled as genuine, but is still waiting for a response.
"I had no idea that anyone would take such a draconian view," he said. "They say they want to counter forgery but I think this will have the opposite effect of deterring honest people like myself from coming forward."
"A decision like this forces the owner of any painting to play a kind of Russian roulette with their precious artwork," Ms Bruce added.
"The only way for Martin to authenticate his painting was with the Chagall Committee, he had no other choice. But it was never made clear to him that if they didn't like the look of his painting that they would burn it. How can anyone ever approach this committee with a painting again if this is how they react?"

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