JAMB test goes full-blown computer base in 2015

The Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) will from next year go full-blown computer based test.

Registrar and Chief Executive of the board, Professor Dibu Ojerinde disclosed this at the second technical committee meeting for 2014/2015 admissions into tertiary intuitions in the country
Ojerinde stated that last year UTME was partially manual and computer based test but noted that with the success recorded last year, the board would go full blown on computer based test in 2015/2016 UTME.
Ojerinde disclosed that anybody who can operate handsets will be able to take part in the computer based tests.
He therefore appealed to the Governor to build and operate computer centres,  one at least in each of
the three senatorial districts of the state for the candidates from the state because  the board has only four computer based centres in the state.

EFCC: IT WORKER WANTED FOR BANK SCANDAL

A Nigerian IT worker is being sought by police for his alleged role in co-ordinating a £25m ($40m) cyber-theft at a bank in Abuja where he worked.
Godswill Oyegwa Uyoyou is being sought by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
A wanted notice claims he helped conspirators dressed as maintenance staff get into the bank so they could use computers to transfer cash.
Local reports suggest the theft was spotted when stolen cash was withdrawn.
Although no members of the gang have been caught, several are being “tracked”, Wilson Uwujaren, a spokesman for the EFCC, told News Nigeria.
Details of the robbery are scant but it is thought that Mr Uyoyou and conspirators entered the bank on a Saturday when it was closed and no other staff were working.

Nigeria sentences 12 soldiers to death for mutiny in northeast

Nigeria’s military authorities have sentenced 12 soldiers to death by firing squad for mutiny in the northeastern region where a Boko Haram Islamist insurgency is raging, they said on Tuesday.
The soldiers also attempted to kill their commanding officer during the mutiny in May, a statement from the military said.
Another five involved were discharged and one was given a four-week jail term.
The mutiny took place at Maimalari Barracks, Maiduguri, the statement said. Security sources at the time said soldiers were angered by a lack of equipment and support after an ambush on a convoy of their colleagues by Boko Haram militants.
Morale is extremely low among foot soldiers in Nigeria’s northeast, where poorly equipped and underpaid troops face a determined foe.  Sometimes troops lack basic radio equipment or ammunition.
Nigeria’s military, backed by war planes, has been fighting to push back recent advances by Boko Haram, whose leader Abubakar Shekau last month declared the remote parts of the northeast they control an “Islamic territory”.
“The nine-member all-military court martial also found the soldiers guilty of insubordination (and) use of abusive language,” the statement said.

CRISTIANO RONALDO FED UP OF MADRID

Cristiano Ronaldo could make a sensational return to Manchester United because he is disillusioned with life at Real Madrid, claims former Bernabeu chief Ramon Calderon.

Calderon claims Ronaldo is unhappy because of the exodus of star names from Real over the last few years, including Arjen Robben, Xabi Alonso and Angel Di Maria, according to a talkSPORT report.
Calderon, who signed the Portuguese star for Real in a then world record £80million deal, says he could rejoin United because he was so happy at Old Trafford.
"When I signed him in 2009, I remember he said he was grateful to Manchester United," said the ex-Real president.
"He had a marvellous time there, he likes everything. It is a really great club."

18 SOLDIERS CHARGED FOR MUTINY

Eighteen soldiers charged with alleged mutiny will know their fate today as the General Court Martial (GCM) delivers judg­ment.
The soldiers, who are from the 7 Division in Maiduguri, Borno State, were recommended for court martial, after a Board Of Inquiry(BOI), investigated the immediate cause of the mutiny at the Maimalari Cantonment in Borno State found them culpable of the offence while fighting Boko Haram insurgency.
The BOI, according to Army sources, said they were the masterminds of the May, 14 crisis when angry soldiers opened fire and attempted to kill the former General Officer Commanding(GOC), 7 Division, Major-General Abubakar Mohammed, after sighting the bodies of 10 of their colleagues who were killed by insurgents.
The soldiers had accused authorities of the division of possible information leak to the terrorists group about their operation. The crisis prompted the authorities to immediately replace the GOC.
The soldiers were disarmed, arrested and flown to Abuja, before the convening of the GCM. They were charged with mutiny, indiscipline, insubordination, disobedience to standing orders among other offences as stipulated in the Armed Forces Act before the GCM.

Researchers have discovered a new antibiotic, made by the bacteria that live in the vagina.

According to a news report on Nature,  the drug,  lactocillin, hints at the untapped medical potential of this microbial landscape.
Michael Fischbach led a team to figure out how our microbiomes (the bacteria living in our bodies) impact our health, research which proceeded to reveal thousands of molecules that could act as drugs.
One example of these was a thiopeptide antibiotic produced by a bacteria that normally lives in the vagina.
According to the researchers while they couldn’t prove it produced the antibiotic while in the body, it did when they grew it in lab conditions.
The researchers found that the drug could kill the same types of bacteria as other thiopeptides — for instance, Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause skin infections, Nature reported.

UN troops withdraw from Syrian Golan

Hundreds of UN troops withdrew from the Syrian to the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan on Monday, an AFP correspondent said, two weeks after Al-Qaeda-linked rebels kidnapped dozens of the peacekeepers.
They crossed in a UN convoy in the afternoon into the Israeli-occupied sector, the correspondent said.
There was no confirmation from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors a 1974 ceasefire between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights.
In late August, rebels on the Syrian side including Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front seized the Quneitra crossing and kidnapped more than 40 Fijian UNDOF troops, before they were released two weeks later.
They also clashed with 75 Filipino members of the force, who eventually fled a nearby outpost.