Ghana's Daily Minimum Wage now GHȻ5.24

The Daily Minimum Wage is now pegged at GHȻ5.24 It has been increased by 17 per cent from GHc4.48 by the National Tripartite Committee (NTC) at the consultation of its 2013 National Daily Minimum Wage (NDMW) meeting on April 30, 2013.

It takes effect from May 1, 2013.

This was contained in a communiqué jointly signed by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Nii Armah Ashietey for government, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Employers Association (GEA), Mr Alex Frimpong for the President of GEA and General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr Kofi Asamoah for Organised labour.

“Any establishment, institution or organisation whose daily minimum wage is below the new National Daily Minimum Wage should adjust its wages upward accordingly,” it said.

It said the committee had recommended that the NDMW should be tax exempt.

The National Tripartite Committee reiterated its commitment to the improvement of incomes and productivity in both the public and private sectors.

"I think this is terrible... what happened to sustainability..."

Courtesy:
myjoyonline

How true...Something Has to be Done!

Well this picture says it all...but all the same,something can be done and as a matter of fact something IS being done to attempts to address this challenge by ensuring that kids grow up with that zeal and passion intact.

With the aim of establishing science labs in basic schools in a third world country where kids

find it difficult to understand the basic concepts of science largely due to the fact that

their schools lack the necessary logistics to do so, the dexter's lab project hopes that with the establishing of these lab's, the passion for science would find deeper roots in their hearts that cannot be uprooted hence raising a generation of scientist destined to change their nation and world at large. 

G+ this post to help raise awareness about this project.

Like and share on facebook to help raise awareness

Follow on twitter for updates on its progress

www.indiegogo.com/dexterslab

picture courtesy: "science is awesome" facebook page.

Boston Marathon bomber manhunt: Police nab suspect alive

BOSTON—Police have nabbed the 19-year-old suspected Boston Marathon bomber, after a day-long manhunt that completely shut down the city of Boston and several suburbs.

An ambulance arrived at the scene to take the suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, to a hospital. A volley of gunfire had been heard in the Watertown area around 7:00 p.m., and police told residents to stay inside and shelter in place as SWAT teams rushed in.

Tsarnaev was found in a boat in the yard of a home on Franklin Street, close to where he and his older brother engaged in a shootout with police nearly 24 hours earlier. Police could be heard calling to him to come out with his hands up.

A neighbor told ABC News that the homeowner had discovered Tsarnaev when he saw blood on the outside of his boat and then lifted the cover to find a person inside.

Watertown residents--finally able to leave their homes around 8:45 p.m.--broke into cheers and applauded police officers after word spread that the suspect was in custody.

Just a few hours earlier, police announced that the 19-year-old suspected bomber had so far eluded capture after fleeing from police on foot early Friday morning.

Thousands of law enforcement officers conducted a nearly 24-hour door-to-door manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is believed to have helped his brother plant two bombs near the finish line at Monday's Boston Marathon that wounded more than 170 people and left three dead.

Officials announced at 6:00 p.m. news conference that they had been unable to apprehend the suspect, despite combing through a 20-block area of the Boston suburb of Watertown and shutting down the city's entire public transportation system in an effort to prevent him from fleeing. They said they did not know if he had a car, or if he was still on foot.

Gov. Deval Patrick lifted his previous "shelter in place," or lockdown, order for the city of Boston and many surrounding areas of the city at 6:00 p.m.. But Patrick urged Bostonians to continue to be "vigilant" as the "very dangerous" armed suspect has not been apprehended.

An overnight police chase and shootout left Dzhokhar's 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead and Dzhokhar on the lam.

Federal investigators had released photos and videos of the two men hours earlier, showing them in the vicinity of the marathon finish line before the twin explosions. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen placing a backpack on the ground minutes before the blast, investigators said.

One police officer was killed and another seriously wounded during the violent spree. The city of Boston and its surrounding areas ground to a standstill for hours as police went door to door searching for the suspect in the suburb of Watertown.

Police said they had uncovered several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Watertown and in the brothers' home in Cambridge.

Tsarnaev is a student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The Tsarnaev family is originally from Chechnya, a volatile and once war-torn southern Russian republic. The family fled to Kyrgyzstan and eventually immigrated to the United States as refugees about 10 years ago.



Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the dead suspect, studied at a local community college and was a Golden Gloves boxer. He also reportedly had a wife and young child. The FBI questioned him two years ago for terrorist ties at the request of a foreign government, but cleared him, according to the AP.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was remembered by former classmates as bright and personable, posted links to pro-Chechnyan independence sites on his social media page, and listed his world view as "Islam." It's unknown if either the separatist politics of Chechnya or their religion had anything to do with the suspects' motivations.

Tsarnaev appeared to be posting to his Twitter account even after the marathon attacks, writing in his last post on Wednesday, "I'm a stress free kind of guy." His posts covered everything from cute photos of his cat to rap lyrics.

In an interview with The New York Times, the suspects' father said Tamerlan had been unable to become a U.S. citizen because he was arrested for hitting his girlfriend, and that he traveled to Russia last year to live for six months and renew his passport. Dzhokhar is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The suspects' uncle, when told that one of his nephews was killed by the local CBS News station, replied that he deserved it.

“He deserved his. He absolutely deserved his,” Ruslan Tsarni said. “They do not deserve to live on this earth.”

Later, in an emotional press conference outside his home in Maryland, Tsarni said his nephews had brought shame upon his family, and called them "losers." He speculated that they were not "able to settle themselves" and were "angry at everyone who was able to." He said he did not believe they were motivated by radical politics in Chechnya or their Muslim religion.

"Dzhokhar, If you're alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness from the victims [and] the injured," he said. "He put a shame on our family. He put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity. Turn yourself in."

He added that he hadn't been in touch with the family for several years but would not say why.

"I'm ready to kneel in front of them and ask their forgiveness," Tsarni said of the victims of his nephews' crime. "I respect this country; I love this country ... this country that gives everybody chance to be treated like human being." Other family members, including an aunt and the brothers' father, said they did not believe the brothers could have planted bombs.

The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth announced shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Friday that they were evacuating the entire campus after learning Tsarnaev is a registered student there.

Earlier, at sunrise Friday, Gov. Patrick ordered a shutdown of all public transit and for residents in the city of Boston and on its edges to stay indoors. Amtrak also shut down all trains between Boston and New York.

"We cannot continue to lock down an entire city or an entire state," Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben told reporters. He added that he believes the suspect is still in the state, but would not elaborate.

Boston and the surrounding areas of Watertown, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, Newton, Allston and Brighton were placed on lockdown for most of Friday. A no-fly zone was declared over Watertown. The city of Boston was eerily quiet for much of the day, the city's busy intersections totally abandoned.

The mayhem began at approximately 10:20 p.m. Thursday in Cambridge when police said the bombing suspects shot and killed an MIT campus officer, Sean Collier, 26. The terror suspects then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz SUV with the driver inside and fled, eventually letting the driver go unharmed.

The suspects were then spotted in Watertown, where federal agents swarmed in. At approximately 3:30 a.m., Massachusetts State

Police issued a plea on Twitter for residents of Watertown to lock their doors and not open them for anyone, as dozens of police officers, many of them off duty, searched backyards and exteriors of houses there, and a police perimeter of several blocks was established.

Worried residents were also told to turn off their cell phones out of fear that they could trigger improvised explosive devices.

The suspects exchanged dozens of rounds of gunfire with patrol officers, and lobbed IEDs out of their vehicle, injuring several officers.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot by police and brought to Beth Israel Medical Center. He arrived at the hospital under cardiac arrest with multiple gunshot wounds and blast-like injuries to his chest. The second suspect fled on foot.

A transit police officer, Richard H. Donohue, was seriously wounded during the exchange of gunfire, officials said.

K9 units and SWAT teams searched homes on Spruce Street as officers with a police robot searched an SUV that the suspects had abandoned. Multiple devices were left in the road and two handguns were recovered, according to police scanners.

"We believe this to be a terrorist," said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, of Tsarnaev. "We believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people. We need to get him into custody."

[Related: FBI releases photos of suspects in Boston Marathon bombings]

Police in Watertown, Newton, Brighton and Cambridge were put on high alert. "Units use caution," an officer said. "He might have an explosive object on his person."



Police were able to track down images of the suspects after a victim of the attacks, Jeff Bauman, came to them with a description, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Bauman's legs were torn apart by the bomb.


Courtesy: yahoo news

Psy’s New Single Is Out! Hear ‘Gentleman’ Now

Of course, the question on everyone's mind is, does the new tune gallop like "Gangnam"? General

consensus around the Web is that Psy hasn't strayed far from what worked (very well) for him. "Gentleman" has a driving beat, a repeated catchphrase ("mother father gentleman"), and Korean words that will doubtlessly have nonspeakers scratching their heads.

Is this repetition of sorts a good thing? Critical reviews are mixed, with the expected cheerful-to-grumpy spectrum . The BBC calls the new tune "formulaic"; while Fuse counters that it's "oh-so-danceable" and MTV raves about its "floor-shattering" drive. The Associated Press optimistically observes that at least the song is "stealing attention from inter-Korean tensions."

Fan reviews were predictably mixed as well, ranging on Twitter from "It's great," "Catchy" and even "Brilliant" to "Ugggh," "Let-down," and "Not really unique."

Those who got their groove on learning Psy's horse dance last year will be happy to know that there's yet another signature dance for "Gentleman," although we'll have to wait one more day for the official video to come out to see that.

"The dance is one known to all Koreans but new to 
foreigners," Psy explained earlier this month. He'll reportedly unveil the moves during his sold-out concert in Seoul on Saturday.

Of course, the question on everyone's mind is, does the new tune gallop like "Gangnam"? General consensus around the Web is that Psy hasn't strayed far from what worked (very well) for him. "Gentleman" has a driving beat, a repeated catchphrase ("mother father gentleman"), and Korean words that will doubtlessly have nonspeakers scratching their heads.

Is this repetition of sorts a good thing? Critical reviews are mixed, with the expected cheerful-to-grumpy spectrum . The BBC calls the new tune "formulaic"; while Fuse counters that it's "oh-so-danceable" and MTV raves about its "floor-shattering" drive. The Associated Press optimistically observes that at least the song is "stealing attention from inter-Korean tensions."

Fan reviews were predictably mixed as well, ranging on Twitter from "It's great," "Catchy" and even "Brilliant" to "Ugggh," "Let-down," and "Not really unique."

Those who got their groove on learning Psy's horse dance last year will be happy to know that there's yet another signature dance for "Gentleman," although we'll have to wait one more day for the official video to come out to see that.

"The dance is one known to all Koreans but new to foreigners," Psy explained earlier this month. He'll reportedly unveil the moves during his sold-out concert in Seoul on Saturday.

Story by:
Wendy Geller, Yahoo News

Margaret Thatcher getting a funeral fit for a queen

It’s an announcement that has upset some Brits who feel the former prime minister is undeserving of such an honor.

Luxembourg to ease the secrecy surrounding its banks

Luxembourg has fought hard to maintain the secrecy of its banking system

Luxembourg has said it will ease the secrecy surrounding its banks.

It said it would implement rules on the automatic exchange of bank account information with its European Union partners from 2015. Calls for this have been increasing, as governments seek to raise more taxes to support their finances.

Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said Luxembourg would introduce the reforms in two years. "We can introduce [the rules] without any danger from January 2015," he said.

Luxembourg is a country of only 500,000 people, but its banks and other financial institutions have assets worth more than 20 times the country's economic output. Luxembourg's foreign minister, Luc Frieden, said at the weekend that he wanted to "strengthen co-operation with foreign tax authorities".

Last week, Germany signed a tax evasion treaty with Switzerland - another European banking centre known for its secrecy. The treaty is designed to give the German tax authorities the ability to claw back taxes from their citizens who may be hiding money in Swiss banks.

Story by:

BBC | News Business

The Dexter's Lab Project on Indiegogo

BACKGROUND

I sure do remember how watching Dexter’s laboratory on cartoon network got me inspired and helped me to a very large extent develop a keen interest in science back in my primary and Junior High school days. Even though we lacked the necessary apparatus to bring certain basic concepts in science to our level of understanding at the time, I still remember how my curiosity and passion for science was ignited making me want to think like a scientist and be like one. Today, this ignited passion has been the reason why I chose to pursue science courses both at the second cycle and tertiary level.

An Open Letter to the President of Ghana, His Excellency President John Daramani Mahama

"Following his recent election into office, a concerned Ghanaian has something to say and did it this way... in an open letter."

Dear President Mahama,

I am writing to you as a proud National Democratic Congress (NDC) activist with high hope in my heart for our great party. I have listened to you keenly since you became the President of Ghana and your commitment to job creation and preserving the peace within the NDC family and the nation as a whole is quite critical