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Eritrea emerged from its long war of independence in 1993 only to plunge once again into military conflict, first with Yemen and then, more devastatingly, with its old adversary, Ethiopia.

In 1993, in a referendum supported by Ethiopia, Eritreans voted almost unanimously for independence, leaving Ethiopia landlocked.

The two countries hardly became good neighbours, with the issues of Ethiopian access to the Eritrean ports of Massawa and Assab and unequal trade terms souring relations.

In 1998 border disputes around the town of Badme erupted into open hostilities. This conflict ended with a peace deal in June 2000, but not before leaving both sides with tens of thousands of soldiers dead. A security zone separates the two countries. The UN patrolled the zone at one time but pulled out, unable to fulfil its mandate.

The unresolved border issue compounds other pressing problems. These include Eritrea's inability to provide enough food; two thirds of the population receive food aid. Moreover, economic progress is hampered by the proportion of Eritreans who are in the army rather than the workforce.

Story By: by Laurel Dalrymple

Kentucky Derby winner Orb gets a blanket put on him by exercise rider Jennifer Patterson and trainer Shug McGaughey after a workout earlier this week at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Orb contends Saturday for the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown.

Orb takes a drink during a bath Thursday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. The feisty bay colt won the Kentucky Derby on May 4 and is favored to win Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

“What I saw was what he was bringing to the table. Every time we ran him, he just got better and better, but when we started out in January with him, we had no idea we’d be standing here with him today. We didn’t have this in mind. He just won his first race Nov. 24, and at that time I was thinking, ‘Maybe he’s going to be OK sometime,’ but I didn’t think we were going to win the Kentucky Derby. He was far back there [during the race], but I knew when he pushed the button we were going to be a factor.”

Orb will start the Preakness from the position closest to the rail, which means he may need to break out ahead quickly to avoid getting trapped among his competitors. Tabasco Cat was the last horse to win the Preakness from the rail position, in 1994 — which makes one win from that slot out of the past 52 times the race has been run.

But McGaughey remains optimistic. “Well, they always told me the shortest way around there was on the rail. He’ll be fine.”

In the background as McGaughey spoke, Orb was getting a bath. The thoroughbred stood tall and restless, jerking his muscular head alertly toward the crowd and biting on the leather straps that held him in place. “He’s a bit of a ham,” McGaughey said, chuckling.

McGaughey said that even if Orb doesn’t win the Triple Crown, “My dream came true. A week ago this past Saturday [when the Kentucky Derby was held] — that was something I’ve dreamed about for years, since I got into this, you know, working with thoroughbreds.

“I’ve always said that I wished I’d won it when I was young, so I wouldn’t have had to worry about it anymore, but I don’t believe that now. I think that I appreciate it a lot more now, and I think the people probably appreciate it for me a lot more, because hopefully they know what we’ve tried to do over the years and appreciate that.”

MUMBAI/BANGALORE (Reuters) – A breach of security at two payment card processing companies in India that led to heists at cash machines around the world has reopened questions on the risks of outsourcing sensitive financial services to the Asian nation.

Global banks that ship work to be processed in India, either in-house or to big IT services vendors, were already under pressure to step up oversight of back-office functions after a series of scandals last year.

Last week, U.S. prosecutors said a global criminal gang stole $45 million from two Middle Eastern banks by breaking into the two card processing companies based in India and raising the balances and withdrawal limits.

“India is exposed in two ways: The threat that the same theft could happen in India and the fact that the outsourcing industry will also get affected,” said Arpinder Singh, partner and national director for fraud investigation and dispute services at consultancy Ernst & Young.

The episode is reopening debate on banks sending work requiring a high degree of confidentiality to offshore locations.

“It is the weakest link,” said Shane Shook, an expert with U.S. cyber-security firm Cylance Inc who has helped financial firms conduct investigations into some major cyber crimes.

“I think the lesson is they need to pull back on what they’ve outsourced. When you’re giving a third party, the outsourced entity, the ability to access credit limits or cash limits of the consumers you’re managing the finances for, you’re giving up control that is your fundamental responsibility.”

India’s $108 billion IT services industry is the world’s favored destination for outsourcing. Over 40 percent of exports by the industry are support services for the global financial sector, ranging from investment bank back-office functions to research, risk-management and processing of insurance claims.

Lured by a tech-savvy English-speaking population and wages that can be one-fifth those in the West, more than three-quarters of global banks have a direct or third-party offshore presence in India.

Indian IT firms, led by outsourcers such as Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, argue that security breaches are rare.

“I think if you look at the nature of the work we do and how much we do, we’ve actually had very very few incidents,” said Som Mittal, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies, the industry lobby.

UNDERCURRENT OF HOSTILITY

Still, any perception that data may be less safe in India is unwelcome for an industry that faces an undercurrent of hostility for taking away jobs in the West, home to most of its clients.

“The threat (to security) is for real, that’s for sure,” said Parag Deodhar, chief risk officer at Bharti AXA General Insurance, the local joint venture of France’s AXA.

“When people don’t take it seriously, it doesn’t help. People still take information security quite lightly, and they don’t address the weakest link, which is the people aspect.”

There has been no suggestion that anyone employed at the two card processing firms, ElectraCard Services and EnStage, is involved.

EnStage, incorporated in California but with operations based in Bangalore, handled card payments for Bank of Muscat of Oman, sources have said. Bank of Muscat lost $40 million in a coordinated heist on February 19.

ElectraCard Services, based in Pune, processed prepaid travel cards for National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC (RAKBANK), according to sources. RAKBANK suffered a $5 million coordinated heist at ATMs around the world on December 21 last year, the U.S. indictment said.

Several industry watchers have said payment card fraud is a global problem and is not unique to India.

Two previous cases of hacking into processors of pre-paid debit cards occurred at RBS WorldPay and Fidelity National Information Services Inc, both in the United States. The amounts involved however were less than the losses suffered by the Middle East banks.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has said many cases of cyber-crime involving credit cards and bank fraud never get publicized.

“The notion that this will affect outsourcing to India is wrong. There is no relation. There have been bigger frauds at BPOs in the United States,” Ravi Sundaram, ElectraCard’s head of strategy and corporate services, told Reuters on Monday.

Nevertheless the breach comes after a series of other events that have tarnished the IT industry in India.

Last year, the New York state banking regulator accused London-based Standard Chartered of hiding $250 billion in transactions with Iran and not giving proper oversight to its back office operation in Chennai, India. Standard Chartered settled with the regulator.

That had followed a backlash in Britain after customers of Royal Bank of Scotland and its Natwest unit were left locked out of their accounts for a week due to an inexperienced IT operator in Hyderabad, media reports said.

A U.S. Senate probe last year criticizing anti-money laundering controls at HSBC identified deficiencies in work done by its “offshore reviewers” in India, according to media reports.

While plenty of global companies are moving more functions to India, either to outsourcers or wholly-owned “captive” operations, some are moving work back home.

Costs, however, remain an over-riding factor.

“Most banks in U.S. are trying to cut costs because of recession. So they will try to outsource, not just to India but to any other country or any other company,” said Nishanth Chandran, co-founder and CEO of E-Billing Solutions, a Chennai-based company that helps merchants process payments.

“For banks, it is completely a balance between security and costs.”

(Additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Bangalore, Kaustubh Kulkarni in Pune and Jim Finkle in Boston; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Published May 19th, 2013 – 13:22 GMTPress Release

Nawras Mousbak mobile customers can enjoy incredible value for longer local calls with the introduction of the Mousbak Sawalif promotion. Prepaid customers can call any other Nawras mobile or Home Voice customer for the flat rate of only 79 Baizas for up to 60 minutes, until 16 August 2013.

Said Hamed Al-Mawali, Nawras Senior Manager – Mass Market & Partnerships said, “Customers opting into this exciting new promotion can get closer to friends and family by talking for as long as an hour for only 79 Baiza. Customers have peace of mind when calling as they are safe in the knowledge that there are no hidden costs andthey don’t need to worryabout the call rateor whether their credit will run out during the call.”

Customers can opt in to Mousbak Sawalif for 600 Baiza per week by simply dialling *141*98#. With an automatic weekly renewal, the service can be enjoyed as often as customers wish during the promotional period. The special call rate to Nawras mobile and Nawras Home Voice (fixed line) numbers can be used for either voice or video calls.

Mousbak Sawalif promotion has been designed in response to Nawras listening carefully to customers and to the way they say they want to communicate.  With this versatile and rewarding call plan, Nawras is doing more to enrich the customer experience by bringing individuals and communities closer together. 

The new flat rate helps Nawras Mousbak prepaid customers get the most from their service.  With many additional network sites installed over recent months, more customers can now enjoy great value as Nawras constantly seeks new and better ways to surprise, delight and enthuse customers.

Some people are "put off" making important calls because of confusion over the amount they will be charged, according to the telecoms regulator.

Other phone numbers starting with 08 have allowed businesses or helplines to take calls and divert them to call centres in different parts of the UK, or even internationally.

However, the charging structure can be complicated – with costs often overestimated by consumers, according to Mr Sivak.

For example, some calls that start with 087 include a call set-up fee, whereas some starting with 084 do not. Meanwhile, some 0845 and 0870 numbers are included in packages – making them free at certain times of day – whereas 0844 or 0871 numbers are generally not included.

The complexity has led to pressure – from the regulator, the public and MPs – on key organisations to switch their numbers to one with a slightly cheaper 030 prefix, mainly because these are free in call packages.

HM Revenue and Customs is planning to move all its helplines, such as the self-assessment tax line, to 030 numbers by the end of the summer.

One pressure group has also been running a campaign, highlighting alternative geographic numbers to those fed up with calling 08 numbers.

The key to these chargeable 08 numbers or premium rate 09 numbers is that some of the fee goes to the telephone company and some to the business that is providing the service.

This helps pay for the cost of the service, such as bus or train timetables, but it also means a profit can be made from these calls.

Some 93% of people asked in a survey by market research company Consumer Intelligence said they thought it was unfair that companies could make money from such calls.

Under Ofcom's proposals, the charges will be split into two sections so consumers know what they are paying and where the money is going.

Callers will be told: "This call will cost x pence per minute, plus your standard access charge."

The access charge is a fixed fee that will go to the telephone company. The service charge, quoted in pence per minute, goes to the company being called.

Consultation on the plans ends on 28 May and the regulator hopes the new system will be in place by the start of 2015.

The Federation of Small Businesses wants the changes to be made efficiently, and in one go.

"If it is one good overhaul, we would welcome that, but it never seems to be that way. It may be another five years, or it could be 10 years, but change keeps happening," said Mike Cherry, the FSB's national policy chairman.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for mobile operator O2 said: "Currently, even though we levy retail charges for calls to 0800 numbers, O2 customers can call many of these numbers for free. These include Childline, Crimestoppers and 0800 Reverse.

"In the future, Ofcom proposes that service providers make adequate payments to mobile operators to cover the cost of originating calls to 080 numbers. We support this approach. There are costs associated with delivering mobile phone calls to 0800 services and these need to be recovered, somehow."

Editor’s note: This is the first installment of our series “Life’s Work,” which will feature innovators and pioneers making a difference in the world of medicine.

When Lillehei performed the first open-heart surgery in 1954, Gott was observing as an intern. He later drew an illustration of the operation showing the defects in the patient’s heart, which caught Lillehei’s eye. Gott went on to become one of the pioneers in the development of the pacemaker — a device that he himself benefits from today.

Gott stopped operating at 67, but kept working until age 81, seeing patients, teaching medical students and doing research. These days, Gott, 86, is retired and writing a children’s book about the history of cardiac surgery.

Gott met with CNN to talk about his influential career.

Did you originally want to become an artist?

(chuckles) When I was 12, my folks enrolled me in an art class, and I enjoyed it very much. And I continued with my art. Really, when I got to Baltimore in 1965, I took art lessons once a week from a very fine illustrator-artist, Ann Schuler.

So it was helpful and in fact, as you know, I made a sketch of that very first operation of Dr. Lillehei’s little boy’s heart and all, and it was really that sketch that caught Dr. Lillehei’s attention, and got me into his lab and into heart surgery.

I’ve really enjoyed, over the last year and a half, working on a book on the history of heart surgery for young readers. And so I’m just about through with the illustrations. I’m illustrating about 30 different operations and illustrating also about 25 of the most prominent heart surgeons in the world.

Why did you want to become a surgeon?

I had the opportunity of knowing some surgeons in my hometown of Wichita (Kansas), particularly a very prominent plastic surgeon in Wichita and even when I was in high school, I was able to go over and observe his operations. And when I was in medical school, I was able to observe his operations.

I was very influenced at Yale Medical School, when I was a student, by some of the faculty there, the surgeons at Yale. Then when I finished Yale, I thought, well there was no specialty of heart surgery in 1953 when I finished medical school so I decided, well, I want to be a plastic surgeon.

That’s why then I enrolled in a program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis because they had a straight surgical internship, and it was my plan to stay in plastic surgery. And that all changed with Dr. Lillehei’s operation.

You’ve participated in some highly experimental procedures. Do you think it would be harder to do those kinds of procedures today in the current regulatory environment?

That’s a good question. I don’t think so. There’s a regulatory environment, but with cardiac surgery with anything, there’s continual improvement. I’ve seen over my career, tremendous changes and improvements, say, in the management of coronary artery disease.

These procedures we did were not necessarily experimental but they were new, some of the procedures, particularly for the Marfan aneurysm, were new. And I don’t think, sure, we have greater regulation but I think the opportunity for developing new operations has not been stymied or diminished by the new regulations. New regulations, the HIPPA regulations, are really to permit the privacy for the patient in their medical care.

What do you remember about your first heart transplant? Did you think it would work?

Well, first of all, I’d had the opportunity to train with Dr. Christiaan Barnard (a South African surgeon who performed the world’s first heart transplant). Chris Barnard was trained by Dr. Lillehei, so I knew him well. And also the other person who really was active was Dr. Norman Shumway, who was trained by Dr. Lillehei. Dr. Shumway really worked out the technique of heart transplantation (but) wasn’t able to perform it as soon as Dr. Barnard because of our restrictions here in this country on brain death.

We did our first heart transplant, it was in ’67, and was fortunate to have Dr. Harvey Bender, who was on our junior faculty, as he and I performed the operation together. And I remember, we had the donor in one room and the recipient in the adjacent room. In those days, of course, we had restrictions as far as taking the heart from the donor, there had to be brain death before you could take the heart, and that was important.

It was an important day and the operation went well. The patient, as I remember, only lived for about a year. We just didn’t have the great medications or drugs that we have now to prevent rejection. I’ll never forget that day.

How did you get involved in developing the pacemaker?

When Dr. Lillehei was putting these patches in the children to close the ventricaluar septal defect, there’s a critical nerve that runs right along that hole, and it’s invisible. And in about 10% of the patients, the stitch could go around that nerve and then cause the heart rate to go from, say, 100 in a 2-year-old child, to 20, which is not compatible with life.

More about that from Dr. Gott

That was a problem, actually, for almost two years after Dr. Lillehei started his surgery. It was in the fall of 1956 that a young physiologist, Dr. Jack Johnson at the University of Minnesota, said you know, to Dr. Lillehei and the rest of them, ‘I’ve been pacing frog hearts for five years with an electrical stimulator. Why don’t you use that?’

I went over and borrowed this electrical stimulator from Jack Johnson, and we were able to create heart block in a research animal very easily. It’s just a matter of putting a wire in the heart and a wire in the skin, and connecting it up to Dr. Johnson’s electrical stimulator, and it worked. And then Dr. Lillehei started using that in January of 1967, and that was really the start of the pacemaker.

At that time, there was not a portable pacemaker. And these children could not go home with a pacemaker, but Mr. Earl Bakken, who was the president of a small company called Medtronic in Minneapolis, then built a portable, battery powered pacemaker that these children could use.

We never envisioned at that time that there would be literally hundreds of thousands of adults who could benefit from the pacemaker. I in fact received a pacemaker myself five years ago for heart block.

What is the next step in the field of heart surgery?

I think currently the artificial valves that are used are really quite beautifully designed and functioning extremely well, and work for decades. One of the areas that we’re hoping for improvement will be in longevity for patients after a heart transplant. They’re still a problem, and I’ve been out of surgery now for five years so I’m not totally updated on this, but there’s still a problem with rejection of the heart after transplant.

The other major progress as I see as a development is a total artificial heart. Over the last 30 years, there (has) been a lot of research going on in the artificial heart, and we now seem to have an artificial heart that’s certainly fine as a bridge to a transplant. We still, I think, are looking for a better artificial heart that can be implanted and then left as the final heart.

You can see Dr. Gott and other fascinating stories from the world of health and medicine on “Sanjay Gupta MD,” Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 7:30 a.m. ET.

Story By: All Things Considered

A new study confirms that the vast majority of scientists who research the climate accept that the planet is warming and human beings are largely responsible. Yet a large slice of the American public believes that scientists are deeply split about global warming.

Police in London say they are investigating complaints against a UK-based Pakistani politician to see if he has violated UK law.

Altaf Hussain, leader of the MQM party that controls Karachi, addressed supporters from London last Sunday after Pakistan's general elections.

In response to accusations of electoral fraud, he is alleged to have threatened his accusers with violence.

Mr Hussain says that his remarks were taken out of context.

London's Metropolitan Police confirmed to the BBC that an investigation had been launched "following complaints concerning comments made in a broadcast" by Mr Hussain.

Since the mid-1980s, the MQM has won every poll it has contested in Karachi and it did so again in last Saturday's general election.

But this time, it is facing strong and widespread allegations of rigging and electoral fraud.

Half a dozen smaller parties, led by former international cricketer Imran Khan's Movement for Justice Party (PTI), have been holding rallies and sit-ins to demand a re-run in Karachi.

On Sunday, addressing party workers from London, Mr Hussain responded to the allegations by appearing to threaten protesters with violence, and suggesting that if his party's mandate was tampered with, Karachi would have no choice but to separate from Pakistan.

During his speech he referred to protests taking place near the Three Swords roundabout in Karachi.

"Those people who are protesting – and grandstanding – near Three Swords – I don't want to fight or quarrel, but if I order my supporters now, they will go to Three Swords and turn them into a reality."

He added: "MQM is blamed for everything. I say, oppose us with respect and decency, and with proof, otherwise I will soon unleash my supporters."

Karachi is wracked with violence – much of it politically motivated.

Mr Hussain has since said that his remarks, which were broadcast on live TV, were taken out of context.

On Wednesday, the British High Commissioner in Pakistan, Adam Thomson, told a news conference that the UK took allegations of inciting hatred very seriously.

He said it was up to the police in London to determine whether Mr Hussain's remarks violated British laws, and whether or not he could face prosecution.

The BBC's Shahzeb Jillani in Karachi says that Mr Hussain effectively controls the city of 18 million people from his MQM headquarters in north London.

He has lived in the UK since 1991, saying his life would be at risk if he returned to Pakistan.

The MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) is supported mainly by Muslim Urdu-speaking people whose families moved to Sindh province at the time of the partition of India in 1947.

Story By: by Bill Chappell

A scholarly publisher has issued a warning to Jeffrey Beall, a librarian who writes about what he calls “predatory” practices in the scholarly publishing industry, threatening him with a $1 billion lawsuit for his blog posts criticizing the company.

Beall is an academic librarian at the University of Colorado; he writes about the journal industry on his personal blog, Scholarly Open Access.

More specifically, Beall identifies and lists journals that he says prey on academics’ need to publish their research. Such companies often charge a “handling fee” that requires authors to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars if a paper is published.

One publisher named on “Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers 2013″ is OMICS Publishing Group, which told him this week that it “intends to sue Mr. Beall, and says it is seeking $1-billion in damages,” reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

And because OMICS is based in India, The Chronicle says, it also warned Beall that he could also face a prison sentence if an Indian court finds him guilty. There has been no indication that a lawsuit has been filed.

The message from OMICS came in a letter from its attorney at IP Markets, a law firm described on its own website as the “largest Intellectual Property rights management firm” in India.

“I found the letter to be poorly written and personally threatening,” Beall tells The Chronicle. “I think the letter is an attempt to detract from the enormity of OMICS’s editorial practices.”

The Chronicle, also spoke to IP Markets’ Ashok Ram Kumar, a senior lawyer. with IP Markets, who said of Beall, “What he has written is something highly inappropriate,” adding, “He has committed a criminal offense.”

Beall explains his criteria for scholarly publishers on his blog. The factors he looks at range from adhering to ethical standards and codes of conduct to being transparent about ownership and staffing. A warning sign, he says, is when a publisher creates dozens of journal websites at once. Or they might plagiarize the submission guidelines they provide authors.

An article on predatory publishers in The New York Times featured Beall last month. It described another ploy of unscrupulous publishers: creating scientific conferences that have names similar to — and none of the prestige of — established gatherings.

The Times article also mentioned the OMICS Group, and its director, Srinubabu Gedela, noting that the publisher “has about 250 journals and charges authors as much as $2,700 per paper.”