UTRECHT: A man opened fire in a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, injuring several people, police said.

A square near a tram station in the west of the city has been cordoned off by authorities, and emergency services are at the scene.

A police spokesman reportedly said the gunman fled the scene by car.

A shooting occurred on the #24oktoberplein in #Utrecht. The incident has been reported at 10.45 hour. Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off and we are investigating the matter.

— Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019

Police say they are investigating a “possible terrorist motive”. They have asked people to stay away to enable emergency workers to get through.

The shooting took place around the 24 Oktoberplein junction at about 10:45 local time (09:45 GMT). Three helicopters have been dispatched.

“A man started shooting wildly,” one eyewitness told Dutch news site NU.nl.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the government has been holding crisis talks after the shooting.

Utrecht’s transport authority said tram services in the city have all been cancelled.

RABAT: Forty-five migrants died while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Spain, including pregnant women, a Spanish rights activist said Thursday, quoting survivors. Morocco reported that at least 21 other migrants were rescued at sea.

Helena Maleno, who runs the Tangiers-based group Walking Borders, said she based her figure on accounts from seven female survivors of the smuggling boat that floundered and took on water Wednesday.

“Survivors told me they had about 13 women on board. Many were pregnant,” Maleno said by telephone. “There was also one young girl, between 12 and 14 years old, who didn’t survive.”

The information was not immediately confirmed by Morocco. A Moroccan official said the Royal Marines rescued at least 21 migrants on Thursday, a day after their rubber dinghy floundered. One body was recovered, he said, but he was unaware of the total number of dead.

The official, who had information about the sinking, was not authorized to discuss it. He said the migrants, all sub-Saharans, were in a critical state when pulled from the water north of Nador.

Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said it offered Moroccan authorities logistical help for the search and rescue operation on Wednesday and Thursday.

Maleno said she was contacted Wednesday morning by a family member but was only able to make contact with the small boat at 3:45 p.m. that day. The migrants told her they were having trouble keeping their boat afloat. Just over two hours later she said that migrants told her by phone: “We are sinking, the Zodiac is full of water.” Then she said she heard screams.

Spain’s maritime rescue said a plane from the European border and coast guard agency and the Algerian coast guard had also joined in the search. It did not explain why they did not reach the boat in time.

Spain became the leading migrant entry route into Europe last year with over 57,000 unauthorized arrivals, according to the European Union. Morocco is the main departure point.

Around 2,300 people died crossing the Mediterranean Sea last year, according to the International Organization for Migration.

(Agencies)

MOSCOW: A Moscow-bound Boeing 737-800 was forced to make an emergency landing in northern Russia. Engine failure is suspected to be the cause behind the incident, officials on the ground said.

The aircraft was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members on board. It was traveling from the small city of Mirny, Siberia to Moscow when the pilots were forced to divert the plane to Syktyvkar in northern Russia.

It is not immediately clear what caused the problem, but early data indicates that one of the plane’s engines stopped working mid-air, officials on the ground said.

The airliner belonged to Russian diamond-mining giant, Alrosa. The incident comes as Boeing faces scrutiny after two air craft of its newest 737 MAX 8 series crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killing everyone on board. This led many nations around the globe to ground their entire fleets of 737 MAX 8 planes.

(agencies)

LONDON: Air pollution kills nearly as many people as smoking in Britain each year, new figures have shown. Although it was previously thought that emissions were responsible for around 40,000 deaths in the UK, new figures suggest it is closer to 64,000, just 18 percent less than the 78,000 deaths caused by tobacco.

A further 29,000 deaths in Britain were also linked to air pollution which exacerbated other conditions such as cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease. Globally, dirty air from vehicle exhausts, factories and power plants causes more deaths than smoking, accounting for 8.8 million deaths a year, compared to the 7.3 million people that die from inhaling smoke.

Co-author Professor Thomas Munzel, from the University Medical Centre Mainz in Germany, said, “Smoking is avoidable but air pollution is not.” In a new study published in European Heart Journal, scientists used an updated modelling technique to calculate how the atmosphere and weather interacts with industry, traffic and agriculture, and mapped it against population data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In Europe alone the death toll was found to be 790,000 twice the previous estimate. The average lost life expectancy of someone dying in Britain because of air pollution was found to be 1.5 years, while across Europe it was 2.4 years.

In Britain, 98 deaths in every 100,000 can now be attributed to inhaled pollutant chemicals, according to the research, while in Europe the figure was Europe 133 per 100,000 deaths, more than one in 1,000.

(Agencies)

MOSCOW: Thousands of people rallied against Russia’s increasingly restrictive internet policies Sunday which some say will eventually lead to “total censorship” and isolate the country from the world.

The mass rally in Moscow and smaller events in other cities across the country was called after the Russian lower house of parliament backed a bill to stop Russian internet traffic from being routed on foreign servers, in a bid to boost cyber security.

The move was labelled by critics as the latest attempt to control online content under President Vladimir Putin, with some fearing the country is on track to completely isolate its network like in North Korea.

Activists counting people said more than 15,000 people have turned up to listen to internet and media rights activists as well as music performers who have complained of government pressure in recent months.

“The government is battling freedom, including freedom on the internet, I can tell you this as somebody who spent a month in jail for a tweet,” one of the rally speakers Sergei Boiko, an internet freedom activist from Siberia, said.
Police detained several people without explanation. An AFP correspondent saw a man being dragged away by arms and legs near the entrance to the rally.

The popular Telegram messaging app, which Russian authorities have been unsuccessfully trying to block for many months, called on its users to attend the rally last week.

A message in Russian on its official account said that the bill on internet centralization aims to “cut off Russia from the rest of the world, after which they can block foreign social networks and messengers.” The goal of the bill is “total censorship,” it said.

The bill has not yet been voted on in key second reading. A petition against the bill launched by the Roskomsvoboda internet freedoms group calls on Russians to appeal to lawmakers to strike the bill down, “otherwise soon we will be living in anti-utopias of Orwell,” it says.

(Agencies)

LONDON: Nearly a third of Britain’s billionaires have either moved or are relocating to tax havens, where some have broken UK law by bankrolling political parties, a major investigation said on Thursday.

The Times newspaper published a series of reports detailing allegations of Britain’s ultra-rich hiding billions of pounds from the UK Treasury in taxes over the past decade.

The report came out days after the government drew public fury for delaying a vote on proposed legislation aimed at ending secret company ownership in offshore territories.

“We must stop tax evasion so that the wealthiest pay their fair share,” Margaret Hodge, a leading lawmaker from the main opposition Labor Party who co-sponsored the tax haven measure, tweeted in response to The Times reports.
“Public registers and more transparency are the next big step for fairer tax.”

Prime Minister Theresa May’s government did not immediately respond to the investigation.

Knights and dames

The Times said that 28 out of the 93 British billionaires it found through public records “have moved to tax havens or are in the process of relocating”.

It said almost half of the 28 have left in the past decade. The Times said those in the process of moving included Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man and a major Brexit supporter. His chemicals firm is valued at £35 billion ($46 billion).

The Sunday Times reported last month that Ratcliffe’s move to Monaco, where it said 10 British billionaires and 408 UK business owners live, could cost the Treasury up to £4 billion.

Asked about his rumored move last October, Ratcliffe told Britain’s Press Association news agency that he was staying in Britain.

The Times said big business owners were trying to avoid paying Britain’s relatively high 38.1 percent income tax on dividends — the cash payments made by corporations to their shareholders.

It is effectively a profit tax, since business owners hold a large portion of their company’s shares.

Tax-evading 

Companies registered in offshore tax shelters such as the Channel Islands or countries like Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates pay little to no tax.

The Times said the exodus was spurred by a hike in income tax rates for top earners to 50 percent in 2010, which was reduced to 45 percent in 2013.

New rules from 2013 making a switch in tax residency easier also contributed, The Times said. But some of its most damning allegations concerned political contributions.

The Times said successive UK governments have failed to properly enact a 2009 law banning large donations from anyone residing abroad for tax purposes.

It said tax-evading business owners and their companies have made political contributions worth £5.5 million over the past decade.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives accepted £1 million from these entities in the months leading up to the 2017 snap general election, The Times said.

It added that several of these billionaires have also received honorary titles such as baron, knight and dame.

(Agencies)

BRUSSELS: The European Union said it will start screening foreign direct investment (FDI) into the 28-nation bloc from April.

The decision has been taken as a move to ‘safeguard Europe’s security, public order, and strategic interests’, according to the European Commission.

European ministers on Tuesday approved the process, which was first proposed by the Commission two years back in 2017, agency reports said.

The screening is aimed at giving EU countries a tool to intervene in cases of FDI in strategic assets, according to reports. (Agencies)

KATHMANDU: Russia has clarified its stance of providing support to Venezeula government.

“Russia support the Venezuelan authorities in resolving social and economic problems through legitimate humanitarian aid,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday at a joint press conference with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.

“We are cooperating closely and coordinating all our steps on the international arena,” Lavrov said.

Battered by an economic meltdown, Venezuela descended into political crisis when opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president in January and asserted that Maduro was no longer legitimate.

Maduro and his allies, including Russia, have accused Washington of attempting to carry out a coup against his government.

The United States has recognised Guaido and led a diplomatic campaign in support of his leadership.

(Agencies)

Finland is considered a country rich in intellectual and educational reforms. Its initiation on a number of novel and simple changes over the years have revolutionized Finland’s educational system. The country has outranked the United States and is currently gaining on Eastern Asian countries.

Finland’s education system has been widely appreciated because of its holistic teaching environment and common-sense practices. This country does not believe in cramming on robotic schedules.

The reasons why Finland’s education system is getting popular:

It does not have a standardized testing

Finland does not believe in standardized tests. It has, however, a National Matriculation Exam — a voluntary test for students at the end of an upper-secondary school. Students in Finland are graded on an individualized basis and a grading system set by their teachers. The Ministry of Education carries out the students’ overall progress.

Teacher’s Accountability

Teachers in Finland are required to have a Master’s degree before entering the teaching profession. If a teacher is not performing well, the principal will take care of the teacher. They are not blamed since there is often no reason to have a rigorous “grading” system for teachers.

Cooperation not competition

In Finland, they believe that real winners do not compete since they do not worry about arbitrary merit-based systems. They do not believe in top performing schools or teachers. The education system is not an environment of competition in Finland. Cooperation is the mantra.

Basics is the priority

Instead, they looked to make the school environment a more equitable place.

Finland focusses on making the school environment a more equitable place because they believe education should be an instrument to balance out social inequality. All students in Finland receive free school meals, and have access to health care, psychological counseling and individualized guidance.

School at an older age

In Finland, students are enrolled to schools when they are seven years old. This is to give free reign in the developing childhood years, which means that it is a way to let a kid be a kid. A Finnish student is required to attend only 9 years of compulsory school. All things past the ninth grade or at the age of 16 is optional.

Professional options

Finland offers options that are advantageous for the students continuing their education. They have also a three-year program, which prepares students for the Matriculation Test. The test determines their acceptance into a university. They have also a vocational education, a three-year program, which trains students for various careers.

Students wake up late

Students in Finland usually start school anywhere from 9:00 to 9:45 am. According to research, early start times can be detrimental to the well-being, health, and maturation of the students. Schools in Finland usually end by 2:00 or 2:45 am. They also have longer class periods and longer breaks in between. The system is to create an environment of holistic learning.

Consistent instruction

Schools in Finland has fewer teachers and students. Students often have the same teacher for up to six years so that the teacher can take on the role of a mentor. This will ensure mutual trust and bonding.

Relaxed atmosphere

Finland schools believe in more caring, less stress, and less unneeded control. Students usually have a couple of classes, several times to eat, and have recreational activities or generally just relax. They also have 15 to 20-minute intervals where the students can get up, stretch, grab some fresh air and decompress. Teachers can lounge about and relax, prepare for the day or just simply socialize.

Less homework

Students in Finland have less homework. They spend only half an hour a night working on homework or assignment. They get everything they need to get done in school, and that too without added pressures. (Agencies)

Seven MPs of the UK’s Labour Party have resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism.

MPs, including Chuka Umunna, Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey resigned from the party.

MP Berger alleged the party of becoming ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’ and therefore, she was “embarrassed and ashamed” to stay.

Chuka Umunna urged other Labour MPs to join them in “building a new politics”.