Krystyna Gil was told by her Roma grandmother to "never forget."

Though she was just a child during World War II, when the Nazis began systematically exterminating Roma in her native Poland, she has done just that.

"I was five years old at the time. I became an orphan. The love of a mother and a father, I do not know what that means," she told AFP.

"My grandmother told me 'never forget'. So even though many years have passed, I still remember."

Gil, now 76, was among more than a thousand who gathered on Saturday at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland to remember the genocide of Roma people carried out by the Nazis.

The ceremony was held on the 70th anniversary of one of the worst mass killings of Roma, when nearly 3,000, many of them children, were taken to the gas chambers at Auschwitz on the night of August 2, 1944.

"We join together here in pain, in memory of the victims," said Roman Kwiatkowski, head of the Association of Roma in Poland.

"Here we consolidate as a people, not only in relation to our past but also our future," he said at the ceremony, held on the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust of the Roma.

Around a thousand also marched through Budapest to mark the date. Many of those killed at Auschwitz came from Hungary, where Roma make up between five and eight percent of the country's population of 10 million.

Together with her grandmother, Gil was the only member of her family to survive an anti-Roma pogrom in Szczurowa, a small village in south-eastern Poland, in 1943.

Many others did not survive.

Between 220,000 and 500,000 Roma were murdered by the Nazis -- a tragedy the community refers to as "Pharrajimos", which means destruction in their language.

Of that number, 21,000 met their end at Auschwitz-Birkenau after being forcibly deported from across Europe.

Published: 04 August 2014

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Honking limousines and cheerful shouts by boys in suits resound across downtown Sofia as girls in lush evening gowns totter around on high heels or dance to loud music.

At the end of May, thousands of graduating high-school students, aged 18 to 19, hold their extravagant proms -- a vanity fair in the EU's poorest country.

Bulgaria's average monthly salary stands at about 400 euros ($545) and over 12-percent unemployment has left many families struggling to make ends meet.

But even the poorest make sure to put something aside -- often two or three months' salary -- for this expensive tradition. Parents often go into debt ensuring the children get to enjoy their "big night out", as well as the traditional, wedding-like reception for their relatives that goes with it.

"It's terribly overdone but everyone does it," student Stefka Drenova said in her splendid hairdo and strapless sequin dress one recent evening.

"I would not have minded wearing a T-shirt but that would have made sense only if it was done by everyone," said Hristina, wearing a studded silver-and-blue bodice that glittered in the evening sun.

Preparations for the prom start early in the school year.

"The restaurant has been booked since last October, dresses dominate all talk and as the feast draws nearer, girls have hairstyle and make-up trials to avoid any fault on D-Day," Rositsa Lozanova, a high-school literature teacher, told AFP.

The prom tradition dates back to the days of communism but is becoming "more and more exotic" with every passing year, said Nikolay Ovcharov, casting a proud glance at his daughter standing nearby in a bright yellow tulle dress.

Published: 03 June 2014

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Environmentalists on Friday lashed out after Japan imported 2,000 tonnes of frozen whale meat from Iceland, in what they say is continued defiance of world opinion over the hunting of the mammals.

Packages containing meat from fin whales were unloaded Thursday from a vessel that had travelled from Iceland to Osaka, western Japan, said Junichi Sato of Greenpeace Japan.

The ship left Iceland in March carrying a cargo equivalent to almost all the whale meat imports from the north European country for the last six years, environment groups and news reports said.

An official at the port in Osaka confirmed the arrival of the ship.

"The ship, named Alma, arrived on May 7 and we were informed in advance that it would carry whale meat to be unloaded at Osaka port," he told AFP.

Greenpeace said it was puzzled by the size of the cargo.

"We don't know why Japan had to import such a huge volume of whale meat," accounting for about two thirds of the nation's annual consumption, Sato said.

"No matter what, we oppose such shipments," he added.

Published: 09 May 2014

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Hidden in the Twittersphere are nuggets of information that could prove useful to crime fighters -- even before a crime has been committed.

Researchers at the University of Virginia demonstrated tweets could predict certain kinds of crimes if the correct analysis is applied.

A research paper published in the scientific journal Decision Support Systems last month said the analysis of geo-tagged tweets can be useful in predicting 19 to 25 kinds of crimes, especially for offenses such as stalking, thefts and certain kinds of assault.

The results are surprising, especially when one considers that people rarely tweet about crimes directly, said lead researcher Matthew Gerber of the university's Predictive Technology Lab.

Gerber said even tweets that have no direct link to crimes may contain information about activities often associated with them.

"What people are tweeting about are their routine activities," Gerber told AFP. "Those routine activities take them into environments where crime is likely to happen.

"So if I tweet about getting drunk tonight, and a lot of people are talking about getting drunk, we know there are certain crimes associated with those things that produce crimes. It's indirect."

For the study, Gerber and his colleagues analyzed tweets from the city of Chicago tagged to certain neighborhoods -- measured by individual square kilometers -- and the city's crime database.

They then looked forward and were able to make useful predictions about areas where certain crimes were likely to occur -- something which could be helpful in deployment of police resources.

"This approach allows the analyst to rapidly visualize and identify areas with historically high crime concentrations," said the study.

"Future crimes often occur in the vicinity of past crimes, making hot-spot maps a valuable crime prediction tool."

In recent years, the idea of "predictive policing" has gained momentum, with police departments relying on "big data" analytics from companies such as IBM.

This research comes on the heels of other studies showing how tweets can be analyzed to predict elections, disease outbreaks and other important events.

- 'I send our algorithms' -

Gerber said Twitter data can be relatively easy to use because tweets are publicly available, and many of them are tagged with location information.

In addition, researchers, themselves, do not need to go into the high-crime areas to study the information.

Instead, "I send our algorithms to these locations and see what people are talking about," Gerber said.

"The computer algorithm learns the pattern and produces a prediction."

Published: 20 April 2014

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The heartache from the Heartbleed Internet flaw is not over, and some experts say the fix may lead to online disruption and confusion.

The good news is that most sites deemed vulnerable have patched their systems or are in the process of doing so.

The bad news is that Web browsers may be overloaded by the overhaul of security certificates, leading to error messages and impacting Web performance, said Johannes Ullrich of the SANS Internet Storm Center.

"A good percentage of the websites are patched," Ullrich told AFP.

The patches enable the Web operators to obtain new security certificates that demonstrate they can be trusted by Web browsers.

But Ullrich noted that for each patch, Web browsers must update their list of "untrusted" certificates or "keys" that would be rejected.

"For the fix, the website needs to obtain a new private key and the old key has to be revoked," he said. "Browsers will not trust the old keys."

Browsers may usually update dozens of keys on a daily basis, but because of Heartbleed, that may rise to tens of thousands.

If the verification process takes too long, Ullrich said, the browser may simply declare the site invalid or show an error message.

"People will see errors," he said. "They will see an invalid certificate. They can either accept the certificate or consider it invalid."

The big danger is that Internet users may become so confused or frustrated that they ignore the warnings or reconfigure their browsers to no longer perform the security check.

"If people turn off those lists, then a hacker could get in," Ullrich said.

With thousands of websites seeking new security credentials, "some certificate authorities and website administrators have been making careless mistakes," online security firm Netcraft noted.

Published: 16 April 2014

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Troubled smartphone maker BlackBerry will not launch its new models in Japan, reports said on Friday, effectively heralding a pull-out from a booming smartphone market where it is being beaten by Apple.

The Canada-based company, which is hoping its long-delayed BlackBerry 10 series will turn around flagging global fortunes, will not sell the handsets in the country, the Nikkei business daily said.

The report said BlackBerry's share of the Japanese market had slumped to 0.3 percent from about five percent in the past. The paper gave no time frame.

Domestic shipments of smartphones soared 40 percent on-year to hit an estimated 14 million in April-September but BlackBerry sales were believed to be only several tens of thousands, the paper said, without naming its sources.

Given the falling share, the company judged it too costly to develop a Japanese-language version of the new operating system, it said.

While BlackBerry helped create a culture of mobile users glued to smartphones nearly a decade ago, many of those customers have since moved on to Apple or Android-based phones.

The firm was until last week was known as Research in Motion (RIM) but rebranded itself with the launch of the BlackBerry 10 platform and Z10 and Q10 handsets.

The Wall Street Journal cited a spokeswoman for BlackBerry, who confirmed the new phone model would not be rolled out in Japan "at this time".

Published: 08 February 2013

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A third of final year primary school children are overweight or obese, figures suggest.

Last year 33.9% of year six pupils, aged 10 or 11, weighed more than they should - a slight increase from 33.4% the previous year.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) said year six pupils in urban areas were more likely to be obese than those who live in towns and suburbs.

The percentage of children in reception who were overweight or obese was 22.6% in 2011/12, the same as the previous year, the figures from the National Child Measurement Programme show.

The programme, which checks more than one million children in England, measures the height and weight of children in reception, who are generally aged four and five, and Year 6 pupils.

The highest prevalence of overweight and obese children in reception was recorded in the north east of England. London recorded the highest rates in Year 6 pupils.

Published: 12 December 2012

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Schools or local authorities could have to foot the bill for millions of pounds in National Insurance (NI) contributions as a result of hiring supply teachers via recruitment agencies which use off-shore firms, the taxman has warned.

Such companies do not have to pay employer's NI contributions because they are based off-shore.

But according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), this arrangement could leave "the end client or the employment businesses" liable to foot the bill.

An HMRC spokesman said: "These kinds of arrangements are not compliant with tax and National Insurance legislation and the end client, or the employment businesses, may be liable for any underpaid tax and National Insurance.

"Employers have a legal responsibility to operate PAYE and should be questioning very closely anyone offering quick-fix tax and National Insurance arrangements.

"We are actively pursuing a growing number of investigations against these types of arrangements, and have already successfully pursued a number of companies for tax, National Insurance and interest where they were not playing by the rules."

ISS, based in the Channel Islands, pays the salaries of more than 24,000 temporary agency workers in the UK, mostly supply teachers, according to an investigation by BBC Five Live.

Published: 04 November 2012

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Applications by English students to UK universities have risen slightly this year, official figures show.

The latest Ucas statistics show that almost 600 more students have applied to start courses in 2013, compared to 2012.

In total, 36,051 students living in England have already applied, compared to 35,455 who applied for courses starting this autumn - an increase of 1.7%.

Students have been able to submit applications for next year for all universities from early September, and those applying for medical courses and Oxford and Cambridge had to apply by October 15.

The figures give the number of people who applied for courses with an October 15 deadline.

This is the first time that Ucas has published the data this way. In previous years, the figures have included the numbers of people that have applied so far for other university courses, which have a January deadline.

Published: 24 October 2012

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A large number of independent schools have pledged to open their doors to talented pupils from non-privileged backgrounds if the Government agrees to pay part of their fees.

The high-performing institutions said they wanted to admit bright children regardless of family income, arguing the move would be the "single biggest policy step" towards boosting social mobility.

A total of 80 independent day schools are in support of a state-funded Open Access scheme that would see them match fee subsidies from the Government with money from their own bursary funds.

The programme, in which parents pay a sliding scale of fees according to their means, has been piloted at the Belvedere School in Liverpool over a seven-year period.

Headmasters from 44 independent schools have thrown their weight behind the scheme in a letter to The Times.

The signatories said: "As heads of some of the most successful independent day schools in the country, we would like to admit pupils on merit alone, irrespective of whether their families can afford fees.

"We have a proud history of educating a wide social-mix and we are determined to extend that opportunity.

Published: 05 September 2012

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