George Clooney ends UN peace role

George Clooney has visited Sudan and South Sudan on several occasions

Actor George Clooney has ended his role as a United Nations "Messenger of Peace" after six years.

The Hollywood star used the position to help raise awareness of conflicts in countries like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Hollywood star "feels it is time to retire his official role".

Clooney has campaigned about the Darfur crisis and violence in South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011.

Two million people have been displaced by the conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, since a civil war began in 2003. Meanwhile, South Sudan descended into violence in December - just over two years after it became the world's newest nation.

As well as his UN role, Clooney joined fellow actors including Matt Damon and Brad Pitt to form the charity Not On Our Watch, which aims to "bring global attention to international crises and give voice to their victims".

He also has close ties with campaign group the Enough Project and helped found the Satellite Sentinel Project, which uses spy satellites to track human rights abuses and atrocities in Sudan.

The UN says its Messengers of Peace are high-profile people who raise awareness of the organisation's work around the world.

"The competing demands on their time from their professional and advocacy lives sometimes make it difficult for high-profile individuals to carry out a formal United Nations role," Mr Dujarric said.

The spokesman added that Clooney's move would allow him the independence to pursue "other personal advocacy projects and activities".

Other UN Messengers of Peace include actors Michael Douglas and Charlize Theron, musicians Lang Lang and Stevie Wonder, and author Paulo Coelho.

South Sudan sides 'recruit 9,000 children to fight'

Fighting broke out in December and has driven some one million people from their homes

More than 9,000 child soldiers have been fighting in South Sudan's brutal civil war, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay has said.

Both the army and rebel forces had recruited the children, she said.

Ms Pillay said South Sudan faced the threat of a famine, but there was an "apparent lack of concern" on the part of its leaders.

She was speaking at the end of a visit to South Sudan, where the conflict has displaced about a million people.

Fighting broke out in December between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy, Riek Machar.

Mr Kiir accused Mr Machar of plotting a coup.

'Personal failure'

He denied the charged, but then mobilised a rebel force to fight the government.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned of the possibility of revenge killings in South Sudan.

The two sides negotiated a truce in January and have resumed talks in Ethiopia, but fighting has continued.

Ms Pillay said that apart from recruiting child soldiers, both government and rebel forces have carried out "indiscriminate attacks" which killed civilians, including children.

She met both Mr Kiir and Mr Machar during her visit, and is now due to fly to Ethiopia.

"I was appalled by the apparent lack of concern about the risk of famine displayed by both leaders," she said, AFP news agency reports.

Navi Pillay (C) met government and rebel leaders

Both the government forces and the rebels have been accused of committing war crimes

"The prospect of widespread hunger and malnutrition being inflicted on hundreds of thousands of their people, because of their personal failure to resolve their differences peacefully, did not appear to concern them very much."

Ms Pillay's visit came amid growing foreign intervention in efforts to end the conflict in South Sudan, the world's newest state.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is due in Ethiopia later on Wednesday, to put pressure on the two sides to negotiate a peace deal.

On Friday, South Sudan's government released four politicians accused of plotting a coup, meeting a key rebel demand.

The UN Security Council has threatened sanctions against those responsible for the continuing violence.

It has condemned the the mass killings of hundreds of civilians in the town of Bentiu, capital of the oil-rich Unity State, earlier this month.

Both sides have been implicated in atrocities and war crimes, and fighting has intensified with the rebels saying they are closing in on northern oil fields and several key towns.

Malawi: Divided Opposition Likely to Hand President Banda Another Term

ANALYSIS

On May 20th this year, the southern African nation of Malawi will go to the polls to elect a president, members of parliament and local government representatives. The forthcoming elections will be the tightest since the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1994 as 12 presidential candidates line up to battle over about seven million votes.

The incumbent President Joyce Banda is pitted against three strong challengers. Most high profile is Peter Mutharika, brother of the late President Bingu wa Mutharika and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) - the party Banda herself represented during the 2009 election as a running mate to Bingu. She was booted out of the party two years down the line and formed her People's Party after it was apparent Bingu wanted his brother to succeed him.

Bingu died on April 5th, 2012 while in office and was replaced by Banda in line with the country's constitution, which stipulates that a vice president assumes office when a president fails to finish his or her term by way of incapacitation or death.

Banda's second stiff challenger is Atupele Muluzi, son of former president Bakili Muluzi from the United Democratic Front. While some have argued that the 35-year old is not sufficiently experienced to run government, he has the political appeal to attract votes, especially among the country's abundant youth.

Muluzi launched his 'Agenda for Change' campaign three years ago during a political conference held in the commercial capital, Blantyre. The Agenda seems to be resonating well with younger people as evidenced from the mammoth crowds that turn up to his rallies. Two of the country's large political parties - Mutharika's DPP and Banda's PP have responded by choosing younger people as running mates.

Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), a party which ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years, is another formidable opponent. Chakwera however is steering a new team that is not associated with atrocities MCP inflicted on Malawians.

These three are going to give Banda a run for her money in the forthcoming elections.

While she has the advantage of incumbency, Banda is struggling to allay a huge corruption scandal that saw Malawi lose about 13 billion kwacha ($32.5 million) in just six months from April through September 2013, according to an audit report from UK-based firm Baker Tilly Limited.

The scandal, dubbed 'Cashgate' by the local (and international) press has dented the image of Joyce Banda and her administration. Donors closed aid taps almost sending the government to its knees, unable to procure essential social commodities like medicine. Up to $150 million in aid has been withheld by donors who are demanding Banda to do more to reign in the massive fraud that, according to government records, claims about a third of the country's annual national budget.

Donors feel Banda needs to do more to arrest institutionalised corruption in government while civil society organizations are angry that the current administration has allowed such huge sums of money to be siphoned off under its watch.

Executive Director of 'Malawi Watch', Billy Banda, told this reporter in Blantyre: "Huge sums of money have been swindled under the watch of President Banda. There is no way you can divorce her from rampant corruption in government. What Malawi needs is an independent commission of inquiry so that the nation knows the truth of what happened".

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it will await results of the May elections over whether to start disbursing funds to the southern African nation - effectively a vote of no confidence in the current administration.

IMF Chief of Mission for Malawi, Tsidi Tsikata, told reporters in April that the IMF mission will return to Malawi in June, a month after the elections, to discuss recommendations under the Extended Credit Facility Programme, which the country signed in 2012 after Banda assumed office.

President Banda concedes there is rampant corruption in government and has vowed to arrest this vice. Over 70 people, including top government officials, have since been arrested and are currently in court answering fraud charges but despite these arrests, Banda has continued to struggle to ease donor and public anger over corruption.

While elsewhere a corruption scandal of this magnitude would have been enough to cost the President her job, in Malawi this may not be the case. President Banda remains likely to achieve victory in the polls due to a fragmented opposition. If the opposition in Malawi was a united force, the 2014 elections would be theirs to lose.

About seven million Malawians registered to vote on May 20th. Three of the strongest challengers in the elections, Banda herself, Mutharika and Muluzi come from the southern region of the country which has the largest number of votes. In a country where voting is often along regional lines, prospects are that votes in this region will be split among these three contestants.

If Mutharika and Muluzi were to join hands and approach the elections as one front, the game would almost certainly be up for Banda. But Muluzi and Mutharika have failed to strike an electoral alliance - each wants to be president of this impoverished nation where about a third of the people live below a dollar a day.

The central region is regarded as the stronghold of Malawi Congress Party. However, for Lazarus Chakwera (who comes from the region) to rule the country, he needs votes from both the south and north of the country. His failure to unite with either the UDF of Muluzi or DPP of Mutharika means he will struggle to get sufficient votes from the south.

The northern voters remain unpredictable. Whoever makes inroads in this region is likely to win - this currently favours the President whose husband comes from the region.

Malawi follows a simple majority electoral policy. Whoever amasses more votes than the rest wins. In 2004 Mutharika won the elections with less than 30 percent of the total votes. The 2014 election may just be a repeat of what happened in 2004, thanks to greed and hunger for power that characterises Malawi's politics.

DR Congo stampede: Deaths in Kikwit at Emeneya tribute

King Kester Emeneya died in February following heart problems

Several people have been crushed to death in a stampede at a tribute festival for Congolese singer King Kester Emeneya, officials say.

He died in Paris earlier this year aged 57 and large crowds had gathered in his home town of Kikwit in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the concert.

The local authorities did not say how many had died.

Thousands attended Emeneya's funeral near Kinshasa in March, after his death the previous month from heart problems.

The AFP news agency says Emeneya was an innovative musician who introduced electronic instruments such as the synthesiser to Congolese music.

The festival, which was due to continue until Sunday, has now been cancelled.

South Sudan drops treason case against four 'plotters'

Pagan Amum was once a staunch ally of the president

South Sudan is withdrawing the case against four top politicians accused of treason that triggered the civil war, the justice minister has said.

The four, who include a former leader of the governing SPLM party, denied plotting a coup and also denied any links to the ongoing fighting.

Their release had been a key demand of the rebels.

Some one million people have been forced from their homes since fighting broke out in December 2013.

Justice Minister Paulino Wanawilla said that the case was being dropped in the interest of peace and reconciliation. He said that the four would probably be released by Friday.

Separately on Thursday, the UN Security Council threatened sanctions against those responsible for continued deadly violence in South Sudan.

In a strongly worded statement, council members expressed "horror and anger" over the mass killings of hundreds of civilians in the town of Bentiu, capital of the oil-rich Unity State, last week.

'Significant step'

The charges against the four politicians carried the maximum sentence of death and related to an alleged coup attempt on 15 December.

South Sudan analyst James Copnall says this is a very significant step, because the trial was seen as a stumbling block to the peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

In addition to former Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) secretary general Pagan Amum, ex-National Security Minister Oyai Deng Ajak was cleared, as were former Defence Minister Majak D'Agoot and former ambassador to the US Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth.

In addition to the treason charge, they were accused of inciting the army and fuelling an insurgency in South Sudan, the world's newest state which became independent in 2011.

Earlier on Thursday, South Sudan President Salva Kiir sacked the head of the army following recent rebel advances. No reason was given for the dismissal of Gen James Hoth Mai.

Conflict first broke out in the capital, Juba, between troops loyal to Mr Kiir and those allied with his sacked deputy, Riek Machar.

It later spread to other parts of South Sudan, with numerous reports of ethnic killings.

Many residents of Bentiu have fled the oil town since the rebels took over

The UN says civilians were attacked in a church, hospital and an abandoned World Food Programme office

Eleven ex-officials were arrested in December, but seven of them were later released.

The two sides signed a ceasefire agreement on 23 January, but sporadic fighting has continued.

The latest move comes amid worsening violence in South Sudan, with both sides implicated in atrocities and war crimes.

Last week, the United Nations accused the rebels of massacring hundreds of civilians who sought refuge in a church, mosque and hospital, after capturing Bentiu.

The rebels, however, blame the retreating government forces for the killings.

The UN Security Council expressed on Thursday its "readiness to consider appropriate measures against those responsible", which could mean sanctions.

It also said it was gravely concerned by the growing humanitarian crisis in a UN camp in Bentiu, where more than 23,000 people are seeking shelter.

Correspondents say the Bentiu killings are among the most shocking since the conflict began.

Africa: The Case for a Global Fund for Science Education

ANALYSIS

Science, technology, engineering and maths training needs a boost, say Fanuel Muindi and Moytrayee Guha.

In today's global economy, a workforce trained in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) is recognised as a primary driver of growth.

Around the world, STEM education initiatives vary in scope, size, type, target populations and funding sources. What's missing is a unified global mechanism for STEM education.

Creating a Global STEM Fund would help support and implement effective and innovative STEM programmes in developing countries. [1]

The NGO Cosmos Education, the STEM Innovation Camp in South Africa, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and the Bunengi STEM Africa are but a few examples of organisations and programmes that could benefit.

The new fund would aim to improve the accessibility and quality of STEM education, particularly in the developing world, where the number of STEM programmes is likely to increase in future years. To be successful, they will need support - and that means not just funding, but also knowledge about best practices.

Is a fund needed?

Why create a STEM fund and what activities should it support?

Despite recent progress, many parts of the developing world still face shortages of highly trained scientists and engineers. According to the UNESCO science report 2010, African countries had an average of 164 researchers per million people in 2007, more than six times lower than the world average of 1,081 researchers per million. [2]

Poor funding limits universities' ability to set up and maintain well-equipped laboratories; offer high enough salaries to attract science lecturers; and sponsor a greater number of low-income students interested in science and engineering subjects.

The fund we propose would unify existing national and international funding. And it would need initial investment from governments, firms, NGOs and academic institutions.

Private sector backing will be critical - for financial and infrastructure support, the fund would need to work with organisations such as the Global Business Coalition for Education.

Quality and accessibility

But increasing the number of trained scientists and engineers isn't purely a matter of money. In Africa, for example, the general sentiment is that the problems are systemic and include poor accessibility and quality of science education. [3] The UNESCO report also paints a similar picture for many developing countries in Latin America and the Arab world.

The lack of good quality, centralised data on existing STEM programmes worldwide is also problematic. The data that do exist are patchy and do not capture indicators such as the types of educational strategies being used, collaborations with industry and universities or how STEM programmes affect students in the long term.

Without continuous and systematic evaluation, it is difficult to understand what is and isn't working. The proposed fund should initially devote significant resources to collecting and continuously updating such data so that informed decisions can be made on improving current programmes and designing or funding future ones.

Coordination essential

The fragmented landscape of STEM programmes also leads to duplication. A number of STEM programmes with similar mission statements and goals have come together to form networks around a central mission.

One example is the 100Kin10 initiative in the United States, which hosts more than 150 organisations that share the goal of training 100,000 new STEM teachers by 2021.

The network supports member organisations by providing tools, resources and grants for the programmes they run. By working together on a central mission, these organisations can share knowledge about best practice.

A network hosted by the non-profit organisation Sasol Inzalo Foundation similarly facilitates the implementation and spread of good practice in STEM education in South Africa.

It is unclear what level of coordination exists between STEM programmes in developing countries. Creating a central database to assess this would be a necessary initial step - and this should be the fund's first goal. [4]

This database could be modelled after the STEMconnector database in the United States, which provides a comprehensive directory and analysis of more than 6,200 STEM education programmes across the country. One type of analysis for a future global database may include assessing the impact of STEM programmes on students' careers.

Which programmes to fund?

The success of the proposed fund will depend on its ability to bring various stakeholders together to improve the accessibility and quality of STEM education in developing countries. It will also depend on making sound decisions on which programmes to fund.

To be successful, funding proposals for each country would need to fit in with both the goals of the fund and national science policies.

And they should be evaluated based on four criteria: impact (does the proposal address a critical problem in STEM education?); approach (is the strategy and analysis appropriate, measurable and feasible?); sustainability (will the interventions be sustainable and have a measurable long-term impact?); and innovation (does the proposal challenge or shift current STEM education paradigms by using novel interventions?).

With the world discussing the targets that will succeed the Millennium Development Goals after 2015 - which should include access to quality science education - it is the right time to create this fund.

S Sudan attacks an abomination, says White House

Rebel fighters remain in control of Bentiu, capital of the oil-rich Unity State

The massacre of hundreds of civilians in South Sudan is an "abomination" and a betrayal of the people by their leaders, the White House has said.

Rebels have denied a UN report that they killed civilians after taking over the oil hub of Bentiu last week.

The US statement said President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar must make it clear that such attacks were unacceptable.

A January ceasefire deal has failed to halt violence that began in December.

People have also been fleeing heaving fighting in the north-east of Upper Nile State this week

More than a million people have since been forced from their homes.

Talks between the two sides which were due to resume on Wednesday in neighbouring Ethiopia have been delayed until 27 April.

China, a major investor in South Sudan's oil industry, also expressed concern about the violence.

"We strongly condemn this and urge all sides in South Sudan, including the opposition and the authorities, to keep pushing political dialogue to resolve the relevant issues," Reuters news agency quotes foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang as saying.

"We also ask that the South Sudanese authorities provide protection to China's reasonable rights in South Sudan and the safety of Chinese nationals," he said.

The conflict pits Mr Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against his former Vice-President, Mr Machar, from the Nuer community.

On Tuesday, the military said the rebels were involved in fierce fighting with the army in several states in the country.

'Hate speech'

"We are horrified by reports out of South Sudan that fighters aligned with rebel leader Riek Machar massacred hundreds of innocent civilians last week in Bentiu," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"Images and accounts of the attacks shock the conscience: Stacks of bodies found dead inside a mosque, patients murdered at a hospital, and dozens more shot and killed in the streets and at a church - apparently due to their ethnicity and nationality - while hate speech was broadcast on local radio," Mr Carney said.

Correspondents say last week's killings in Bentiu are among the most shocking since the conflict began.

Rebel commander Brig Lul Ruai Koang told the BBC on Tuesday that the rebel soldiers had not killed any civilians in Bentiu.

He suggested that government forces and their allies could have been responsible in order to make the conflict appear as though it was "tribal war".

More than one million have fled their homes in the four months since the conflict began

Some have left to neighbouring countries many others have sought shelter at UN camps

Bentiu, capital of the oil-rich Unity State, has changed hands several times during the conflict.

Control of the oilfields is crucial because South Sudan gets about 90% of its revenue from oil.

Mr Carney said that US officials were also appalled by an armed attack last week on the UN camp in Bor in Jonglei State in which at least 58 people were killed.

The UN has said it could constitute a war crime.

"These acts of violence are an abomination. They are a betrayal of the trust the South Sudanese people have put in their leaders," he said.

Both Mr Kiir and Mr Machar have prominent supporters from various communities, but there have been numerous reports of rebels killing Dinkas and the army targeting Nuers.

Fighting broke out last year after Mr Kiir accused Mr Machar of plotting to stage a coup.

Mr Machar, who was sacked as vice-president earlier in 2013, denied the charges but launched a rebellion.

The UN has about 8,500 peacekeepers in South Sudan, which became the world newest state after seceding from Sudan in 2011.

 

Africa: Citizen Scientists Pitch New Uses for Paper Microscope

Stanford bioengineer Manu Prakash, PhD, is giving away 10,000 build-your-own paper microscope kits to citizen scientists with the most inspiring ideas for things to do with this new invention.

Ten thousand 'print-and-fold' paper microscopes initially designed as low-cost medical diagnostic tools are being given away to researchers and citizen scientistswho come up with novel ways to use them to test their ideas.

The goal of the Ten Thousand Microscopes initiative, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is to create a crowdsourced lab manual for Foldscope, the low-cost microscope launched earlier this year by a US bioengineering team that combines pragmatic, origami design with sophisticated micro-optics.

The idea is to make "microscopy for everyone", says Manu Prakash, a bioengineering researcher at Stanford University, United States, who led the development of the frugal innovation to address the lack of cheap, easy-to-use diagnostic tools for diseases in remote and impoverished communities.

Assembled from a single sheet of paper, Foldscope microscopes are fitted with tiny ball lenses - about the size of a grain of salt - that can magnify samples up to 2,000 times.

Yet, as well as being lightweight, Foldscope is durable and, at roughly 50 US cents each, cheap enough to manufacture and distribute on a large scale, according to Prakash.

"We wanted to find a method by which we could manufacture [microscopes] in large enough quantities and at an extremely low cost, while keeping the design simple so that they could last out in the field and be used by anyone," he says.

Foldscope is undergoing field trials in India and Uganda as a diagnostic tool for malaria, sleeping sickness and schistosomiasis, with the results due to be published later this year.

And the Stanford team is developing 30 Foldscope variants to target specific pathogens and diseases by using add-ons such as LED lights and fluorescent filters.

But the microscope's potential applications are virtually limitless, says Prakash, who describes the innovation as a "platform technology".

"The impact [of Foldscope] will ultimately be driven by developing new applications that are context-specific," he says. "Scale-up will really be about getting the right sets of communities to engage and build an initial set of examples."

Platform technologies such as Foldscope that are easy to adapt for local use have great potential for successful scale-up, says Ali Jazairy, who is senior counsellor for the innovation and technology sector at the World Intellectual Property Organization.

"These kinds of 'appropriate technologies' can become very useful because they are very simple, which means they can be easily adapted to local contexts," he says. "This innovative, folded approach - that is almost playful - is also a good example of how science can be integrated into everyday technologies and made accessible."

About 7,000 potential testers from more than 30 countries have already responded to the open call to develop new Foldscope experiments, according to Prakash, with proposals ranging from using the microscopes to test for diseases in bee populations to using it as a low-cost way of monitoring pathogens in milk in Mongolia.

"The response has been phenomenal," says Prakash. "People have dreamt up applications for Foldscope I never would have thought of."

Ultimately, Prakash hopes citizen scientists will use Foldscope to solve development problems.

"It's very important to me to connect hands-on science education with global health issues," he says. "This is the much bigger challenge. The technology is a small piece of the entire solution and engaging people is as important. We need a much broader group of people thinking about global challenges."