If you can recall the town criers, pigeons, newspapers and radio, which were a common source to spread the latest updates, over the years these methods have undergone a dramatic change. News updates people on the latest events, specifically where and how they are happening. These updates are often responsible for creating new opinions which can influence the lives of people. It will not be wrong to say that the advent of internet has made it easy for the common man to be up to date with the latest events from every corner of the world.

Events which are encompassed by the most recent major and minor happenings are termed the latest news. Along with numerous TV channels, there are a wide range of online news websites that feature these latest news stories. These mainstream media websites have the most up to date information regarding the latest global events. After any incident takes place, its details are uploaded onto their websites in no time. These mainstream media websites distribute news utilizing journalistic standards, but are marred by the hidden agenda of their editors.  Reading a biased news source is no way to follow current events.

An ideal news website deals with news that is presented in a more ethical way. News is meant for the masses, it has to be up to date, accurate and without hidden agendas or biases. This is the brings us into the era of the new media, Mizozo, a news website that not only features the latest news, but also allows its readers to filter out the bias by pointing out more accurate news articles. Mizozo intends to take true journalism to the next level. Mizozo doesn’t simply deliver the news, rather they showcase both sides of the story. You must have noticed that today’s news websites only provide one side of the story. In order to get the real story you must read several news sites with contradicting viewpoints.  Now, with Mizozo, that is no longer the case.

Mizozo allows you to report the news in you own way. Moreover, you can give your point on other people stories. When it comes to the facts that relate to terrorism, politics, self defense etc, each and every citizen has the right to speak out; they just cannot rely upon the biased opinion of media and other sources. It is essential for people to be informed of the latest happenings so that they can come up with their own decisions regarding the events around them.

Mizozo presents the latest news with all its possible perspectives.  The whole picture of a particular event is showcased. You must think as an individual, you cannot depend on other people’s perspectives. Join the group and utilize your knowledge bank to place your opinion for versatile topics like world news, business news, sports news, entertainment news and technology news.

The subject of Science can be more fully grasped if learned experientially. Experiential learning has a much longer staying power in the minds of the learner. This is a fact that most teachers and educational staff realize. As such, they are giving science projects
and experiments to do.

However, these hands- on learning are seen by more students as a burden and very seldom do they appreciate the value and importance of Science experiments. Most school children do admit that they do a Science experiment at least two days before it is due.

Remember also how Science fair goes? Only the outstanding and top students piously and devotedly commit in doing their projects. Most of the class population spends countless time thinking and thinking what they are supposed to do.

So how can Science experiments be appreciated?

If you are the student these tips are directly for you to help you value and appreciate experiential learning through science experiments. If you are the parent or guardian or the teacher, these tips will help you motivate your children to appreciate doing science experiments.

1. Do not work alone. There is value in working together as a group with classmates or even with family members. Interactions during working for a science experiment are actually good learning tools. Questions, queries, what- ifs and a lot more comments float when working for a science experiment or project. This way, learning becomes fun and work becomes a bonding activity. This only works if 99% of the time is spent in learning, not in fooling around.

However, if you feel that you are better off working alone, you can still do a bit of interaction by asking your peers

2. Grab and get ideas first. Once you have identified your science experiment topic, you may want to read a bit about how to do it. You may also want to look at magazines and other resources that can contribute to you. Visit science fairs and even malls that have science topic displays.

A helpful tool to creating your science experiment is the science kit. They are readily available in stores and are much helpful when used and explore. Topics are vast and numerous.

3. Go for the do- it- yourself science experiment. If your science experiment does not have strict requirements on how you will carry your experiment, opt for the do- it- yourself ones. Do- it- yourself science experiments are inexpensive and almost free. This also brings out the creativity in you. This also gives you freedom to choose what materials or tools are best to use. Do it yourself science experiments also give a good feeling of ownership and accomplishment to you as you know that you have worked the extra mile for your science project.
Do not throw previous science experiments (unless perishable). Even if your science project got a low grade, do not throw them away yet as they are the learning steps in improving your science experiment. They can also serve as an inspiration for you to do better next time.

AN unknown number of people have been killed after a landslide triggered by torrential seasonal rains swept through a hilly region in southern India and a suspected suicide car bomber struck a congested traffic circle outside Peshawar.

The blast happened in Charsadda, which is located about 18 miles (29 km) north of Peshawar.

It occured just as Charsadda District Police Chief Mohammed Riaz Khan was leaving the area, and Khan told CNN he believes his convoy was the target of the attack.

The landslide, according to the Associated Press (AP) yesterday, demolished nearly 300 tin-roofed mud huts on Monday in the Ooty and Coonoor region of Tamil Nadu state.

The region is nearly 1,800 kilometres south of the capital, New Delhi. Rescuers found 14 bodies in the debris on Monday and another 28 yesterday, the official said, adding that eight injured people were hospitalised.

The death toll was expected to rise further with the rescue operation continuing in the region, an Indian official said.

Ooty is a popular tourist destination, but none of those killed or injured were foreigners, he said.

India’s June-September monsoon season causes severe flooding and kills hundreds of people across the country. But the annual monsoon brings rains that are vital to agriculture in India. It is common for the southern parts of the country to receive heavy rains in November and December.

In recent days, Peshawar – the capital of North West Frontier Province – has come under increasingly frequent attacks. A suicide bombing at a police checkpoint on Peshawar’s Ring Road killed at least three people on Monday. A suicide car bombing on Sunday killed 17 people in the city, including an area mayor.

On October 28, a massive car bomb tore through the heart of a bustling marketplace in Peshawar, killing at least 100 people and wounding at least 200 others. It was the country’s deadliest attack in two years.

Pakistan has blamed the violence on Islamic militants who have vowed to avenge an intense military offensive to rout them from their haven along the country’s border with Afghanistan.

Japan yesterday said it would give Afghanistan up to $5 billion in new aid, ahead of United States President Barack Obama’s visit this week.

Tokyo and the Washington also agreed to set up a working group to examine plans to relocate a U.S. military base on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, a feud over which had raised concerns about the security alliance between the world’s two biggest economies.

It is the first big test of ties between Washington and a new Japanese government that wants a more equal relationship with its closest security ally.

Hatoyama is expected to present the aid package to Obama, who is reviewing U.S. strategy for Afghanistan, at a summit on Friday in Tokyo. The aid would be delivered over five years.

The aid package, which comes ahead of a planned halt to Japan’s naval refueling mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, will focus on civilian steps including job training for former Taliban fighters.

Television footage broadcast yesterday showed insurgents handling what appears to be U.S. ammunition in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan that American forces left last month following a deadly firefight that killed eight troops.

The U.S. military said the forces that left the area said they removed and accounted for their equipment.

Al-Jazeera broadcast video showing insurgents handling weapons, including anti-personnel mines with U.S. markings on them. The television station reported that insurgents said they seized the weapons from two U.S. remote outposts in Nuristan province. It was unclear when the video was filmed.

Nuristan was the site of an October 3 battle in which some 200 fighters bombarded a joint U.S.-Afghan army outpost with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells. Eight U.S. troops died – as well as three Afghan soldiers – in one of the heaviest losses of U.S. life in a single battle since the war began.

Meanwhile, the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan has confronted the British Prime Minister about an alleged lack of equipment.

Jacqui Janes had accused Gordon Brown of “insulting” her son Jamie, 20, by spelling his name incorrectly in a personal note of condolence.

When Brown phoned her to apologise, she challenged him over a shortage of helicopters, the Sun reports.

He told Mrs. Janes, from Brighton, he had “tried his best” for troops.

PRESIDENT Umaru Musa Yar’Adua yesterday urged the 2009 Senators’ Retreat in Enugu to be focused on the issue of getting Nigeria’s electoral system right.

The Senate President, David Mark, spoke in a similar vein, decrying calls for removal of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof, Maurice Iwu, as unnecessary as it would not solve the nation’s electoral problems.

Yar’Adua and Mark spoke at the opening of the yearly All Senators’ Retreat in Abuja.

But the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), which yesterday also reviewed the state of the nation, concluded that Nigeria has gone 40 years backward under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) owing to the alleged negligence and self-centredness of the ruling political grouping.

Yar’Adua, who opened the retreat, named two core issues which should be addressed before meaningful national development. They include the enthronement of proper sets of legislation to boost the electoral system and the change of attitude of Nigerians in a way that would make the laws operational.

His words: “I believe that if we get the issue of election right in this country, every other thing will fall in place. I say so because I know that our people are very eager to be counted in the process of good governance; once we can gain their confidence and convey that the various social ills plaguing our country today range from corruption to unrest in various different segments of the country will disappear. I charge you to please take necessary challenges in this regard and one is getting a good law to enhance credible electoral system. The second is changing our attitude. I consider those things very important knowing that all of us know that no law would be effective unless we collectively decide to make it effective by abiding by its dictates.”

Yar’Adua stated his resolve to assent to the electoral bills currently pending in the National Assembly into law immediately they were passed.

He said: “I want to restate here that as government, we shall support the National Assembly’s effort to amend our Constitution and Electoral Act. We shall waste no time in signing it into law the outcome of the exercise as long as the bill meets the aspirations and views of Nigerians.”

According to Mark, those calling for the removal of the INEC chairman were trivialising a very serious matter, which needed to be tackled headlong.

His words: “Another important question is the lack of autonomy and independence for our Election Management Bodies (EMBs). These and other such issues have contributed to the present state of our political challenges and agitation. Let me also admit that there is need for some reforms in our system.

“But may I quickly add that our process is certainly not the worst in the world as some self-styled analysts would want us to believe and let me say further and more emphatically this time that the removal of Prof. Maurice Iwu is not the review or the reform of our electoral process. Removal of Iwu is not synonymous with electoral reform or review. Those calling for the removal of Iwu as the first step are trivialising a very serious national issue.”

Mark added: “Let me also admit that weak democratic institutions and processes exist that are not able to exert effective control over this situation. Disregards for rule of law as well as the ignorance of a large section of the populace on their rights and freedoms more often than not threaten to undermine our electoral process.

However, we must take critical look at all the issues. We need to look inwards and see whether we need a review of the entire Electoral Act or whether we have to place emphasis on public enlightenment to educate the populace to understand their voting rights. Is the problem actually with the existing Electoral Act and legislation or with our attitude or indeed the vaulting ambition of some individuals who believe that unless they are in power, nothing can be right?”

In a statement in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Emmanuel Eneukwu, the ANPP said that, for example, the standard of living of an average Nigerian has continued to decline steadily daily and is heading to a zero per cent level.

It stressed that the PDP-led government has created a situation whereby the future of an average Nigerian seems bleak, as a result of increase in poverty rate.

The ANPP went on: “Most of our people are not sure of the next meal. Even though they labour like elephants, they end up earning like ants. This is as a result of government inability to create an enabling environment devoid of hardship and frustration, which will in turn boost investment in our country.

“The government keeps announcing rise in the price of crude oil, but there is nothing on ground to show for it as the dividend. Rather, what we see in our country is increase in unemployment and crime rates every day. We are convinced that the PDP led government deliberately embarked upon this project of punishing Nigerians with hunger so that the people will remain slaves before them in order to use the same people as agents of electoral malpractice during elections.”

He cited the Second Republic when the rate of hunger and unemployment was far lower than the current situation, saying that the ruling group in power then, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), could not use the masses for such illicit practice, because they were not too hungry.

“Presently, our roads are dilapidated, the hospitals are ill-equipped, the education sector is in total shambles, our electoral process is truncated, the refineries are totally closed down, etc problems they created that can take them 40 years to restructure if they should remain in power,” the ANPP remarked.

It added: “The wishes and aspirations of our citizens are totally subverted by the PDP government. The volume of damages, which our dear nation has incurred under the visionless authority of the PDP government, has sent our country to a compulsory 40 years backward.

“It is evident that with what is on ground and coupled with severe agony which the same party, the PDP, has subjected the masses to, that the ruling PDP lacks the moral justification and credibility even to present candidates under its platform to stand for any election in this country any more, as it has failed and cannot lead our country to actualise her vision 20-2020, and join the league of other development-oriented nations in the world, who effectively provide the basic needs of her citizenry.

“In view of this therefore, the relevance of their continue stay in power come 2011 election cannot be justified and they should be voted out of office to usher in the much desired good leadership.”

THE delegation of the European Commission (EU) to Nigeria has stormed the Lagos fair with export helpdesk for exporters.

According to the Head of the Politics, Economics Trade, Information & Communication Section, Mrs. Belen Uyarra, the delegation of the European Commission to Nigeria had decided to grace the fair to offer helpdesk for developing countries like Nigeria.

According to her, helpdesk is an export service provided by the European Commission to facilitate market access for developing countries to the European Union.

She disclosed that an important element of EU’s developing policy was to assist developing countries in achieving higher economic growth through trade.

The free and user friendly service at the on-going fair, Uyarra said, provides information on EU preferential import regimes for the benefit of developing countries and educate on EU and member states’ import requirements, as well as, internal taxes applicable to products.

She said visitors to the company’s stand at the fair would know more on import tariffs, customs documents, rules of origin, as well as, obtain information about EU and member states’ import requirements, and internal taxes.

She explained, “the relationship between trade and development is a complex one. While trade is not a guaranteed route to economic growth for developing countries, evidence suggests that trade and openness to the global economy play an important role in creating jobs and prosperity in developing countries.

“Making trade work for developing means weighing the needs of every developing economy carefully, and tailoring policies that reflect different vulnerabilities and different potential strengths. There is no single model for trade and development.

“Through its trade policy, the EU aims to ensure that developing countries are able to benefit from access to its own markets and from the openness of the global economy. It sees progressive openness to trade as one part of a development strategy that has already lifted hundreds of millions of people in the developing world out of poverty, and can do the same for hundreds of million more.”

She said that the EU has been a strong advocate of pro-development measures in the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Round’ of world trade negotiations.

The EU, she added, works closely with developing countries in the search for appropriate solutions to their particular concerns and needs.