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Burundi, one of the world's poorest nations, is emerging from a 12-year, ethnic-based civil war.

In early 1994 parliament elected another Hutu, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as president. But he was killed in April alongside the president of neighbouring Rwanda when the plane they were travelling in was shot down over Kigali.

Another Hutu, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, was appointed president in October 1994. But within months, the mainly Tutsi Union for National Progress (Uprona) party withdrew from the government and parliament, sparking a new wave of ethnic violence.

Following long-running talks, mediated by South Africa, a power-sharing government was set up in 2001 and most of the rebel groups agreed to a ceasefire. Four years later Burundians voted in the first parliamentary elections since the start of the civil war.

The main Hutu former rebel group won the vote and nominated its leader Pierre Nkurunziza as president.

The government and the United Nations embarked on the lengthy process of disarming thousands of soldiers and former rebels, as well as forming a new national army.

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Lying off the southern tip of India, the tropical island of Sri Lanka has beguiled travellers for centuries with its palm-fringed beaches, diverse landscapes and historical monuments.

Known as "Serendip" to Arab geographers, the island fell under Portuguese and Dutch influence and finally came under British rule when it was called Ceylon.

There is a long-established Tamil minority in the north and east. The British also brought in Tamil labourers to work the coffee and tea plantations in the central highlands, making the island a major tea producer.

But the majority Buddhist Sinhalese community resented what they saw as favouritism towards the mainly-Hindu Tamils under British administration.

The growth of a more assertive Sinhala nationalism after independence fanned the flames of ethnic division until civil war erupted in the 1980s between Tamils pressing for self-rule and the government.

Most of the fighting took place in the north. But the conflict also penetrated the heart of Sri Lankan society with Tamil Tiger rebels carrying out devastating suicide bombings in Colombo in the 1990s.

The violence killed more than 70,000 people, damaged the economy and harmed tourism in one of South Asia's potentially prosperous societies.

International concern was raised about the fate of civilians caught up in the conflict zone during the final stages of the war, the confinement of some 250 000 Tamil refugees to camps for months after the war, and allegations that the government had ordered the execution of captured or surrendering rebels.

A UN report published in 2011 said both sides in the conflict committed war crimes against civilians. The Sri Lankan government rejected the report, describing it as biased.

There have been ongoing talks between the Sri Lankan government and the biggest Tamil party which may lead to constitutional reforms including substantial regional devolution, which the Tamil party wants given that the north and east are Tamil-dominated.

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HP announced that the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) will provide more user-friendly services to its students by implementing a virtualized private cloud solution based on HP Converged Infrastructure.

USEK is a private Catholic higher education institution founded by the Lebanese Maronite Order to provide university teaching and scientific research to meet the requirements of the labour market. Located in the heart of Mount Lebanon; USEK hosts more than 7,500 students and 900 staff on four campuses with 15 academic units and 40 laboratories. USEK already uses HP printers, scanners, HP laptops and HP desktops, including high end workstations.

“We selected an HP private cloud solution to modernise our administrative procedures and academic systems across the whole university,” says Ziad Eid, Director/CIO, USEK. “Moving to the cloud will enable us to provide our students, staff and alumni with more user-friendly services. Virtualizing our IT environment with HP Converged Infrastructure will not only improve service reliability and availability but also reduce power consumption and cooling costs to support our green initiative.”

HP Converged Infrastructure will provide USEK with a flexible, easily scalable virtualized platform that enables the IT team to add capacity as needed to meet future demand. 150 HP t5745 ThinPro Add-On packages will ensure VMware View 4.5.0 certification, while HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 will consolidate the IT infrastructure into a single virtualized solution that can be managed as a unified environment.

A reliable HP EVA 4400 Storage will support USEK’s critical applications and bulk storage while automatically improving performance through higher capacity utilisation, tiered storage and tightly integrated replication. A processing farm of eight high availability HP blade servers in an HP BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure will connect via two Brocade 8Gb storage area network (SAN) switches, thereby significantly simplifying the SAN environment and ensuring business continuity.

An HP MSL2024 rack-mounted tape library will automate data archival, significantly reducing manual intervention and enabling USEK to focus on IT innovation rather than maintenance tasks.

HP TippingPoint will provide USEK with complete visibility and control over their entire virtual infrastructure for maximum protection from on-line threats.

“USEK chose HP to provide the most efficient and cost effective private cloud solution,” says Alaa Al Shimy, Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking Director, HP Middle East. “As well as the best total cost of ownership, HP offered a collaborative approach to achieving USEK’s business continuity, reliability and green objectives.”

HP’s premier client event, HP Discover, takes place June 4 – 7 in Las Vegas.

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Release Date: 04/16/2012Contact Information: Kris Lancaster, (913) 551-7557, lancaster.kris@epa.gov

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., April 16, 2012) – EPA has approved Nebraska’s list of impaired waters, which removes 21 waters from the previous impaired waters list and adds 92 waters. Today’s decision brings the total number of impaired waters in the state to 330.

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) submitted its impaired waters list to EPA for review and approval, as required by the 40-year-old Clean Water Act (CWA). The act requires EPA to review the state’s list of impaired waters to determine if the state reasonably considered available water quality-related data, and identifies waters to be listed.

EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks said, “The impaired waters list sets priorities for reducing sources of water pollution in the state. Nebraska is making solid progress in assessing and restoring its waters for all Nebraskans.”

A water body is placed on the impaired waters list when monitoring finds that pollutant levels prevent the lake, river, or stream from attaining its beneficial uses. Beneficial uses in Nebraska include human recreation, agricultural water supply, and maintaining healthy aquatic life.

EPA’s April 16, 2012, decision letter provides a more detailed description of EPA’s review and the basis for this action. The decision letter, including the 2012 impaired waters list, is available at www.epa.gov/region7/newsevents/legal/.
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ATHENS (Reuters) – Greeks who plunged their country into turmoil by voting overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject parties behind an EU/IMF bailout say they are ready to do it all over again if, as seems all but certain, the election is rerun next month.

The two parties that dominated Greece for decades and negotiated its 130 billion euro bailout were reduced to just 32 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, with the rest of Greeks picking fringe parties that all oppose the bailout.

Politicians show virtually no sign of being able to cobble together a government, which means a new election is likely to be held in 3-4 weeks.

The political disarray has fuelled speculation Greece could be ejected from Europe’s single currency, even though polls show most Greeks want to keep the euro.

“I have no regrets. I feel vindicated because the two pro-bailout parties have been unfair with us for so many years,” said 70-year old Petros Chiotopoulos, who owns a small bus rental company and cast his ballot for the conservative splinter party Independent Greeks.

The comments were echoed by dozens of Greeks on the streets of Athens, who said they were unrepentant about punishing a ruling establishment that presided over five years of recession, surging unemployment, falling wages and rampant corruption.

They said they want to make sure their message is heard at home and in Europe: they want to stay in the euro but can’t take any more pain.

The conservative New Democracy and Socialist PASOK have alternated ruling Greece since the fall of the military junta in 1974. Last year, with bankruptcy just weeks away, they formed a coalition and jointly negotiated the 130 billion EU/IMF bailout.

EU leaders have made clear since Sunday that Greece must stick to the reforms agreed in return for the bailout – including firing public sector workers, slashing pay and raising taxes – to keep getting aid and stay in the euro.

Greeks say they want a rescue plan that would not hurt the poorest and middle class as much.

“We want to stay in the euro. We want to be on an equal footing with other people and not just slaves of some countries,” said public sector worker Dimitris Nasis, 62, who voted for a small leftist party.

Nasis pinned his hopes on Francois Hollande, who won the French presidential election on Sunday on a pro-growth ticket and a promise to renegotiate an EU fiscal pact.

But Hollande’s margin of maneuver will be limited by the need to compromise with euro zone paymaster Germany, which insists on strict fiscal policies.

NEW ELECTION?

Greece’s two mainstream parties are closer to power than their 32 percent share of the vote might suggest, and could be gambling that they can win a mandate in a new election.

Under rules designed to make it easier to form a government, New Democracy was given a bonus of 50 extra seats in the 300-seat parliament for placing first. Along with PASOK, it emerged just two seats short of the 151 needed to form a government.

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras failed when given the first opportunity to form a coalition. Alexis Tsipras, a radical leftist, has now been given until Thursday to form a government, but is seen as having virtually no chance after he demanded any coalition partners agree to tear up the bailout accord.

If Tsipras fails as expected, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos would also have a chance, but it is hard to see how he can succeed where Samaras failed, meaning a new election would probably be announced next week.

Samaras may be reckoning that some of the voters who cast protest votes on Sunday will hold their noses and back him in a repeat election, so that he can form a government at last.

Theoharis Konstantinou, 32, a lawyer who voted for one of the two pro-bailout parties, said he hoped those who cast protest votes would change their minds.

“Everybody (in Europe) is looking at our mess. I hope people realize what they did and vote more responsibly next time.”

Pollsters said the outcome of a repeat election would be hard to predict, not least because – according to exit polls – 6 out of 10 people voted differently than in the previous election, when 77 percent backed New Democracy or PASOK.

Many Greeks said they wanted to see a swift coalition and blamed the politicians for causing chaos by stalling.

“The leaders should cooperate, put things in order. It’s their fault anyway, they brought us here,” said Christie Papanikolaou, 50, owner of a clothing shop. She voted for New Democracy and would do the same in a new poll, although she said she understood those who cast ballots for fringe parties.

Eleni Papadopoulou, an unemployed 25-year-old, said she had voted for a small party and did not regret it, “although I am scared now”.

“I wish they would have formed a coalition government by now because we want stability.”

Among the only voters who expressed regret were some of those who cast ballots for extreme-right Golden Dawn, out of concern for illegal immigration and rising crime.

Many reacted with shock after the fringe nationalist party scored 7 percent in the election and media published photos showing a party member posing with knives and bullets.

“I just wanted them to get into parliament but not to be so big. I just wanted them in to rock the system,” said a clothing shop clerk who identified herself as Vaia, 30.

(Additional reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Writing by Ingrid Melander)

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Gabon is one of West Africa's more stable countries. Since independence from France in 1960 Gabon has had just two presidents. Its late leader, President Omar Bongo, was in power for over four decades.

Gabon's dependence on oil has made its economy – and political stability – hostage to fluctuations in oil prices. When oil prices fell in the late 1980s, opposition to President Bongo increased, culminating in demonstrations in 1990.

These ushered in political liberalisation. A multi-party system was introduced in 1991.

Government critics have pointed to the wealth gap between the urban elite and the rural poor.

Thanks to its oil exports and a small population it enjoys more wealth per head of population than many of its neighbours. However, most of its people live in poverty.

As oil reserves diminish, eco-tourism could grow in economic importance. Gabon's rainforests teem with wildlife, including lowland gorillas and forest elephants. National parks make up around one tenth of the land area.

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When did it become received media wisdom that global warming skepticism was all the work of shadowy right-wing groups lavishly funded by oil companies? As best we can tell, it started with a 1995 Harper’s magazine article claiming to expose this “high-powered engine of disinformation.” Today anyone who raises a doubt about the causes of global warming is accused of fronting for, say, Exxon, whatever the facts.

Now comes a rare glimpse inside the allegedly antiscience behemoth, with the online publication last week of documents purloined from the conservative Heartland Institute. The files appear to contain detailed financial, donor and personnel information and outline the think-tank’s projects. Chicago-based Heartland says one of the documents is fake and warns that others may have been altered.

Given the coverage the story has generated, you’d think some vast conspiracy had been uncovered. Heartland is, according to the Associated Press, “one of the loudest voices denying human-caused global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change.” The Vancouver Sun reports that it is “heavily funded by right-wing industrialist Charles Koch,” while the Virginian-Pilot dubs it “the ideological center of the denial movement.”

Related Video

Heartland Institute President Joe Bast on why global warming activist Peter Gleick stole and forged documents from his organization.

So how flush is Heartland? The documents show the group is expecting revenues of $7.7 million this year, mostly from private donations and grants. Mr. Koch’s “heavy” funding came to $25,000 in 2011, though the Heartland “Fundraising Plan” has it hoping for an increase in 2012. To put those numbers in not-for-profit perspective, last year the Natural Resources Defense Council reported $95.4 million in operating revenues, while the World Wildlife Fund took in $238.5 million.

Press coverage has focused in particular on Heartland’s plans to produce and distribute “educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political.” Heartland is budgeting $200,000 this year for the effort, which in the past has “had only limited success,” per one of the documents. Little wonder if teachers aren’t returning Heartland’s calls: Last year the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million on “public education” alone.

As for “the largest international scientific conference of skeptics,” Heartland will, according to the documents, spend all of $388,000 this year on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. That’s against the $6.5 million that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change costs Western taxpayers annually, and the $2.6 billion the White House wants to spend next year on research into “the global changes that have resulted primarily from global over-dependence on fossil fuels.”

In the pages of Rolling Stone last summer, Al Gore warned of the “Polluters and Ideologues [sic] . . . . spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on misleading advertisements in the mass media.” He had the wrong spenders.

A version of this article appeared February 21, 2012, on page A18 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Not-So-Vast Conspiracy.

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Dubai Schools in Dubai generally lack in facilities and staff to cater to children with special needs, according to a senior official at the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).

Highlighting the key findings of the Dubai private school inspection report, the chief of Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau (DSIB), Jameela Al Muhairi, said that the education system as a whole does not recognise the requirements of children with special needs.

"Every year, we focus on one aspect of the education system and this year we focused on special needs and we found out that our education system as a whole does not recognise the needs of this segment, which is very serious and we need to address this urgently."

She added that almost all schools have no clear admission policy for children with special needs.

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