1.Rwandan jailed for genocide
Pascal Simbikangwa, a 54-year-old former member of the Rwandan presidential guard, was found guilty of perpetrating genocide and of complicity in crimes against humanity to 25 years in prison over the 1994 genocide .
2.U.S. defends snooping as ‘lawful’ and ‘valid’
The United States defended its controls on mass surveillance on Friday before a U.N. watchdog body, amid a sweeping review of Washington’s record on civil and political rights.During a session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, experts from the 18-member panel repeatedly quizzed Washington’s delegation about the scale and scope of spying.
3.Road map for ‘Crimean Spring’
Crimea’s referendum on Sunday to break from Ukraine and join Russia is regarded as illegitimate by the West but seen in Moscow as an example of self-determination like Kosovo leaving Serbia.
Here are some facts and figures for the vote that has sparked a security crisis on Europe’s eastern border and is being carried out with Russian forces in control of the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
Voting: Polls open at 0600 GMT and close at 1800 GMT, with more than 1,200 polling stations spread out over the rugged diamond-shaped region.
Media: There are 623 journalists from 129 media accredited and a professional-looking press centre has been set up at the headquarters of “Krym” state television in the regional capital Simferopol.
Exit Poll: Crimean pollsters will survey voters, with their estimate expected very soon after polls close. They will have white baseball caps reading: “Crimea. Poll. Spring” — a reference to what local authorities are calling the “Crimean Spring.”
Voters: Around 1.5 million ballots have been printed, organisers say, dismissing as “lies” the claim by officals in Kiev that many more are in fact being prepared so as to falsify the result.
Ukrainian military: Organisers say there are “no obstacles” for Ukrainian soldiers in bases surrounded by Russian forces to come and vote too. Chief organiser Mikhaylo Malyshev said he had received calls from Ukrainian soldiers who want to vote but are being prevented by their commanders.
Social media: Updates in English and Russian are being posted on the Facebook page “Openpresscentr” and through the Twitter account @crimea_gov. The website referendum2014.ru is also regularly updated.
Results: The preliminary results are expected to be announced “soon after” that by Mr. Malyshev as well as from concert stages being set up in Simferopol and Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Final results are due by Monday morning, after which Crimea’s pro-Moscow authorities have said they will declare independence from Ukraine.
4.Robotic fish swims ‘like the real thing’
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has unveiled a robot fish that it claims can change direction almost as fast as the real thing.The fish was designed to explore performance capabilities, not long-term operation,” said Marchese in MIT’s announcement of the research“Next steps for future research are taking that system and building something that’s compromised on performance a little bit but increases longevity.”
That will involve switching carbon dioxide for a pumped-water system that could keep the fish swimming for around 30 minutes of a time. Such a device could eventually be used to swim alongside schools of real fish to study their behaviour in the wild.
5.U.S. to cede Internet oversight
The United States will give up its role overseeing the system of Web addresses and domain names that form the basic plumbing of the Internet, turning it over in 2015 to an international group whose structure and administration will be determined during the next year, government officials said on Friday.
Since the dawn of the Internet, the United States has been responsible for assigning the numbers that form Internet addresses, the .com, .gov and .org labels that correspond to those number
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