Pregnant woman to face court for child abuse
Apam (C/R), 24.03.2007 , GNA -
A 25 year-old pregnant woman, K. M., is to be arraigned for assaulting her seven year-old-son with a piece of wawa board inflicting multiple wounds on his head. The boy, who is on admission at the Apam Hospital was said to have gone swimming with his playmates at the Apam beach last Thursday. According to a Police source, parents of the boy's playmates accused him of leading their children to the seashore and claimed Kate had not disciplined her son.
This infuriated Kate, who in the early hours of last Friday, picked a piece of wawa board, hitting the boy several times inflicting multiple wounds on his head.
Some tenants in the house rescued the boy, rushed him to the Apam Hospital and reported the case to the Police. The Police source told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that a docket on the case was being prepared for the woman to appear before court.Source:
GNA
Four remanded in police custody for allegedly murdering a girl
Breman Towoboase(C/R),24,.02.2007 GNA -
The Asikuma - Odoben- Brakwa District Magistrate's court has remanded four people from Breman Towoboase in police custody for allegedly murdering a five-year-old girl, Felicia Abaka.
The plea of I. A.49, K. A. 28, E. N. 60, and F. A. 35, were not taken and ordered to re-appear on March 29.
Police Chief Inspector Gershon Awuyeh, prosecuting told the court presided over by Miss Cynthia Hammond that on March 13, this year, father of the deceased Mr Samuel Abaka detected that his daughter, Felicia Abaka was missing.
He said the people organized a search party and the decomposed body of the deceased was found under a tree about 100 meters away from the complainant's house with most of her parts missing. Police Inspector Awuyeh said the corpse was sent to the Cape Coast Government Hospital for autopsy and had been buried. He said police investigations led to the arrest of the accused persons who were charged with the offence.
Source:
GNA
Pot belly not sign of good living - Doctor
Accra, 24.03.2007, GNA-
A medical practitioner at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital on Friday said pot bellies did not connote 'good living' as referred to by many but rather reflection of a protracted period of accumulated cholesterol that could trigger serious health problems.
Dr. Martin Kye re, a Surgical Consultant, Korle-Bu noted that, "the bigger our tummies the more we become susceptible to deadly diseases such as diabetes or cancer and other many ailments".
Delivering a lecture on the theme: "Caution diabetes kills mind your lifestyle" as part of the 6th annual public lecture organised by the University of Ghana Medical School Association in Accra, he indicated Ghanaians were not health conscious and that, the sad of it was that they had adopted arcane eating habits that predisposed them to all manner of diseases.
Dr Kyere stressed that the continental dishes that many have affinity for in recent times contained a lot of sugar and oily products that was detrimental to their health, yet they do not involve in exercises that would beat down the effect of such foods.
He pointed out that elsewhere in the world when it was discover that some of the foods they ate were posing serious health problems, they changed their lifestyles but that was not the case here. "In some years ago Africans have claimed that diabetes, cancer and other diseases were foreign but today science and technology have proven that those diseases are also here with us and has killed many people", he added
Dr Kyere said about 1.4 million Ghanaians are diabetes patients, excluding those who did not report to the hospitals with majority of them being between the ages of 55-65 and mortality rate of 15 per cent. He said the situation was alarming as the disease started around the age of 30year but because they were within their active period it was not detected and only report it when it had gotten to a stage that required surgery.
"We hate to amputate patients suffering from diabetes but it is not our fault that is the only option left, if we refuse they will die, but it is largely their fault as they consult herbal doctors and when they fail before they turn to seek medical assistance."
He advised people who frequently pass out urinal to seek medical attention as it was one of the symptoms of diabetes or have a bit of their urinals to detect their sugar content.
Dr. Gilbert Buckle, Shell Ghana Limited, said diabetes was gradually creeping to the arena of the top ten deadly diseases and was all over the country across all ages and present in all sexes. He said the disease could be permanently controlled for patients to have fulfilling lifestyles and therefore urged individuals to seek early treatment.
Source:
GNA
WAEC to introduce CD registration
Ajumako (C/R), 24.03.2007, GNA -
Registration of all Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates will now be compiled on Compact Disc (CD) with effect from September 2007.
The exercise dubbed "Batch Registration" is to replace the use of scan able forms, which were previously used by candidates. This is to facilitate the smooth placement exercise being conducted under the Computerised School Selection Placement System (CSSPS) to eliminate wrong shading on scanable forms.
Mr Kweku Nyamekye Aidoo, Head of National Examination Administration Department, of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC0, outlined the procedure to participants mainly regional directors of the CSSPS at a training of trainers workshop for public educators on CSSPS at Ajumako in the Central Region on Friday. The workshop is to address issues and concerns arising out of the 2006 BECE placement and to launch a public education campaign on the smooth implementation of the CSSPS.
Mr Aidoo said under the new registration exercise, head teachers would be required to use computers and that "the issue of my school has no computers would not be accepted."
He said: "Computers are all over, we need to make use of technology", and explained that under the batch registration teachers and parents would be required to provide reliable data of candidates so that those pieces of information would be transferred on to the CD. "Dates of birth and wrong spelling of names is crucial because institutions are now depending on such data when employing people and any wrong information offered could affect your wards." Mr Aidoo advised head teachers to keep reliable records of performance of candidates to help determine the choice of school and programmes.
According to him admissions into schools and programmes were becoming very competitive and urged candidates to work hard to get the schools and programmes of their choice. Mr Aidoo also entreated BECE registration committees to undertake error free BECE registration and to ensure that the choice of school and programmes commensurate with candidates' verifiable academic performance.
He announced that the WAEC would soon offer programmes to educate head teachers on the use of computers.
On examination malpractices, Mr Aidoo said the act was criminal and was attracting stiffer punishments from the law. He therefore urged society to assist the Council to stamp out all sorts of examination malpractices.
Mr Andrew A Akuoku, National Coordinator of the CSSPS said the placement would now be conducted once instead of in phases. Giving an overview of the CSSPS established two years ago, Mr Akuoku said the system was to address complaints of unfair treatment of some candidates.
He said in "2005 while 287,294 students registered for the BECE, 177,070 qualified for senior secondary schools and 151,016 were placed with 4,834 deferred.
In 2006, 308,379 registered, 160,119 qualified, 145,961 were placed and 3,031 deferred their placement."
Mr Akuoku said there were reports that some candidates did not report on time and he pleaded with parents to notify heads of their choice of schools on their inability to report early. He identified weak monitoring structures by the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the running of unapproved programmes in some schools as some challenges facing the CSSPS.
Others, he said were failure of some head teachers to report to the CSSPS of various vacancies existing in their schools and in some cases fraud through alteration of records.
To address these problems, Mr Akuoku said the GES Research Unit was going to take full control over the CSSPS and also link up with the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports.
Mr Akuoku said the release of BECE results by the WAEC was also going to be streamlined so that placements and the release of results would be done simultaneously. He cautioned head teachers against flouting of the CSSPS guidelines so as to avoid sanctions being taken against them.
Source:
GNA