• Syrian death toll soars with college blasts, triple car bombings

    Syria closed universities and suspended classes for college students across the country today as anti-regime activists reported the death toll from two massive blasts that ravaged a campus in Aleppo reached 87. The opposition and the government have blamed each other for the explosions, which marked a major escalation in the struggle for control of Aleppo -- Syria's largest city and once the country's main commercial hub. NBC's Bill Neely reports.

    The day after a deadly attack on a Syrian university, the State Department issued a statement saying it was appalled – and blamed the attack on President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

    The State Department statement relays information from eyewitnesses at the scene, who said the regime “launched aerial strikes in the vicinity of university facilities.”

    The United Nations said that if the attack -- which reportedly killed 80 people, most of them students taking exams, was launched by the government -- Assad’s government would be guilty of war crimes against civilians.  

    Assad’s government denies the attack, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zouabi told NBC’s Bill Neely. He said al-Qaida is connected with the explosions. 

    “It’s their trademark,” al-Zouabi said. He said the massacre was intended to lay blame on the government, portraying it as unable to protect its students. He said the government had “absolutely nothing” to do with the bombing.   

    The State Department statement further condemned Assad’s government: “Our sympathies and condolences go out to all those devastated by this senseless tragedy, which is only the latest in a long stream of losses inflicted by the Assad regime on its own people.”

    The university, located in Damascas, had been abandoned for many months, Guardian reporter Martin Chulov told NPR’s All Things Considered. A relative normalcy had returned to the city, as had a fresh infusion of food. The bombing changed that. 

  • Can Chinese eye exercises help prevent myopia?

    By NBC News Beijing

    BEIJING – Zhang Xinyu meticulously completes her eye exercises twice daily. Her teacher tells her they will help keep her eyesight sharp. At age 12, Xinyu has already been wearing glasses for two years.  


    For 49 years, the Chinese Education Ministry has required students to exercise their eyes in the name of the Communist Revolution and to combat myopia, or short-sightedness.

    The prevalence of myopia, however, is skyrocketing. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of Chinese are short-sighted by the end of high school – triple the U.S. rate. Few Chinese questioned the effectiveness of the eye exercises over the past five decades – until a recent post challenging the exercises was published earlier this summer on Sina Weibo, China’s widely popular answer to Twitter. 

    “China has had eye exercises for 49 years,” posted a microblooger under the alias “Live from Shanghai.” “Of all the countries in the world, only China uses these eye exercises. The eye exercises are no good for people’s vision. Today, more than 360 million Chinese teenagers have myopia, the second largest percentage in the world.” 

    Watch an educational video about the eye exercises distributed by China's Ministry of Health in 2009.

    The post ignited a firestorm online. Within a day, the post was re-tweeted more than 10,000 times and had received 1.5 million comments on Sina Weibo.  

    What are Chinese eye exercises?
    All schools in China require students to do the exercises daily, playing familiar music over loud speakers during the workout. The Education Ministry even organizes occasional competitions to reinforce the program.  

    This uniquely Chinese activity dates back to 1961, when the Beijing Education Bureau noticed a sharp increase in the rate of myopia and appointed a Chinese doctor to create exercises to stop the growing problem. 

    “The Beijing government must have taken this issue very seriously,” said Yan Yirou, a retired employee from the Beijing Education Bureau who worked closely on developing the eye exercises. “There were only three people in charge of students’ health, and two were sent out to handle the project.”

    It took two years to develop the exercises. Chinese students have been performing them ever since, except during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when schools were often closed.

    Are they effective?
    “For the Communist Revolution, let’s protect eye sight and prevent short-sightedness,” was the explanation school children received for the exercises until recently.  

    The Chinese Education Ministry cannot provide a scientific rationale for this practice. Under pressure from netizens following the recent Weibo post, the ministry told the Oriental Morning Post, “We’ll ask the experts and make an announcement as soon as possible.”

    Ministry officials declined an interview request from NBC News to explain the benefits of the exercises.  

    Zhu Tianyu, a Beijing local in his 40s, admitted his doubts about the exercises. “I do not know whether they help or not. My eyesight is awful, but I never took the eye exercises seriously.”

    His wife, Du Yu, disagrees. “It works,” she said. “I still do them now. Every time I exercise, I feel my eyes are more relaxed.”

    Not everyone is convinced.

    “It’s difficult for me to say whether they are good or not. But even if they are, their advantages are not apparent,” Xu Yujing, who's been a high school teacher for more than 25 years, told NBC. “Students do not know the pressure points… Everyone does it for the sake of inspection.”

    Ian Morgan, a visiting scholar at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center in Guangzhou, is even more skeptical of the Chinese routine.

    “I think it is pretty obvious that Chinese eye exercises do not prevent myopia,” Morgan said. “There is no scientific evidence that they do anything useful at all.”

    Student pressure
    There is broad consensus that China's hyper-competitive education system is a prime cause of the prevalence of myopia.   

    “The Chinese believe that exams and the Gaokao [the Chinese college entrance exam] decide a student’s future,” said Yan Yirou, the retired Education Bureau employee. “The eyesight problem is obviously from the heavy school work. In my survey for the Education Ministry, I found myopia rates were the lowest during the Cultural Revolution because no one was studying."

    Chinese school children's excessive workloads have only gotten worse with time and are widely believed to be contributing to the problem. 

    “When I became a teacher in 1986, only one third of students were short-sighted,” said Xu, the longtime teacher. “Today, most students in my class are.”

    Pressure for students to study is intense – especially since a student’s Gaokao score can largely dictate his or her future career path.

    Despite the prevalence of myopia and the flawed eye exercises, there appears to be no solution in sight.

    “It’s unlikely that either the Chinese education system or the eye exercises will change anytime soon,” said Zhang Xin, chairman of the Beijing Education Association Students' Health Division.

    Some recent research has shown that children who spend more time outside during daylight hours do not become short-sighted, even if they study a lot. But getting children outside is difficult when the pressure to study is so great. 

    Some Chinese parents are now taking their overworked children to so-called “eye exercise centers,” where children can rest while masseurs do the eye exercises for them.

    At only $3.50 for one treatment, the cost seems like a bargain way to combat short-sightedness for the glory of the Communist Revolution.

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  • Ex-pats rush to aid Syrian students abroad

    Courtesy of Mohamad al-Tabbakh

    Mohamad al-Tabbakh, a recipient of emergency education funds from Jusoor, stands outside the Arkansas Technical University Library, where he attends graduate school.

    By NBC News’ Joanna de Boer

    CAIRO – When the violence broke out in Syria, Ayham Ahmad’s parents and brother fled their home in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city with a population of 2.9 million, for neighboring Turkey. They wanted to spare their youngest son from having to enlist in the Syrian Army and turn his gun on his countrymen.

    Ahmad, 26, had left Aleppo before the conflict began to attend Syracuse University in New York to pursue a graduate degree in computer science, an opportunity not available in his own country.

    With his family unable to support him, the future he had worked so hard to achieve was in jeopardy as a result of the conflict. 

    He went to the international office at Syracuse University for guidance and they recommended that he apply for emergency funding from an organization aptly named “Jusoor” in Arabic or “Bridges” in English.  

    Their response was immediate. “It was a very good feeling when somebody called me to tell me I would be able to receive funds [for tuition], to know that people cared about my education. They really do care. I don’t know what would have happened without the funds.” His parents were relieved and grateful. At least one dream would not have to be sacrificed.

    The financial miracle was the result of the work of expatriate Syrians who decided to take action to help their fellow citizens caught in the crossfires of the conflict.

    “In Syria my mother was a professor at the University of Aleppo, my father was a mechanical engineer and my brother was studying law,” said Ahmad, in a phone interview. “But now [my brother] had to stop his education and they cannot work. My parents are living off their savings [in Turkey]. The situation is deteriorating every day. They cannot return to Syria without putting the whole family in danger.”  

    Just like the other approximately 100,000 Syrian citizens, according to the UN Refugee Agency, who have been forced to flee their country because of the violent conflict between President Bashar al-Assad and anti-government forces that began in March 2001, Ahmad’s family faces an uncertain future.  

    A cause everyone believes in: education
    “We wanted to do something. The situation in Syria was urgent, people really want to help but don’t know how. Jussor is an outlet,” said Dania Ismail, co-founder of Jussor and a Dubai resident, in a phone interview. “We don’t take sides on politics or religion, and people appreciate having a way to help without getting entangled with politics.”

    Ismail and her colleagues knew they wanted to focus on what unites people rather than on what divides them.

    Courtesy Jusoor

    Attendees view art in Dubai at an auction hosted by Jusoor aimed at raising funds for Syrian students studying abroad on May 25, 2012.

    “Jusoor has brought the Syrian community together behind a cause that everybody believes in: education,” explained New York based co-founder Rania Succar.

    Their mission is to mobilize the expatriate community to invest in the next generation of Syrians who are studying or want to study abroad.

    “We asked what we could do in the shortest possible time to help make that happen. It was so hard to get involved at the time. Jusoor was a way for us to make a difference in the short-term as well as the long-term,” said Succar, a Harvard graduate, over the phone.

    Members provide mentorship for those who want to study overseas and need guidance, they raise emergency funding for those caught midway through their foreign studies with no access to funds due to sanctions and job loss, and solicit scholarships for talented students who face a life of fear and danger if they stay home. In order to raise funds, they held an auction of donated Syrian artwork in Dubai and have reached out to potential donors. 

    The mentorship program, which is currently working with about 90 applicants, matches Syrian students who want to study abroad with those who have already worked their way through the maze of standardized tests, college selection and visa applications to gain admission overseas.

    “It is a very simple thing you are giving these students by joining the program: time,” said Ismail.

    Jusoor’s Emergency Aid program has had the largest impact. Jusoor has partnered with the Institute of International Education to raise $50,000 to support 50 Syrian university students studying in the U.S. with emergency financing to help them continue their education when the crisis in Syria undermined their financial support.

    “It has been the most impactful thing we have done,” said Ismail.

    ‘Syrian students are not left alone’
    Mohamad Al-Tabbakh, a 28-year-old graduate student from Aleppo, received emergency funding to continue his emergency management studies at Arkansas Technical University.  

    “When Jusoor provided this scholarship it was in a very professional way. They did not ask what my attitude to the crisis was, or my background. It was given to me as a Syrian student only, without any other considerations. That was wonderful. For me as a student, Jusoor and the emergency funding they provided made me feel like Syrian students are not left alone.”

    For students like Ahmad, the opportunity to study in the U.S. is priceless. 

    Courtesy of Malda Takieddine

    Malda Takieddine, a recipient of emergency education funds from Jusoor, attends graduate school in Seattle Washington.

    "The U.S. provides the best education; it is advanced. Sadly in Syria the education is on a whole different level. Education is one of the reasons why the students were part of the [Arab Spring] uprising,” said Ahmad. “We demanded a better education. I am so happy to be able to continue in the U.S. and not lose this opportunity that I have right now.” 

    Ahmad returned to Syria shortly after the crisis began and took to the streets with other young protesters in the struggle for a better quality of life.

    “As a student I was part of the uprising in Syria. We were peaceful protesters; the only thing I took to the street was a bottle of water, so that I would never lose my voice.” Ahmad was fortunate and left Syria before the situation deteriorated. He has not been able to return since.

    Al-Tabbakh would like all Syrians to share the freedom he now enjoys in Arkansas. “In America I am free, I can do anything. Here I have the freedom Syrians are fighting for.”


    Malda Takieddine is trying to look beyond the bombed-out buildings and besieged neighborhoods in Syria to a day when she can help create a lush and landscaped future for her country. Takieddine, a 25-year-old graduate student studying landscape architecture at the University of Washington, also received emergency aid from Jussor.

    “I will return to Syria after things calm down. I want to work in landscape architecture. We [Syrians] definitely need this,” said Takieddine. "This is the only thing we can do now. The most important thing for Syrian people is to build our education in order to build our future. It is crucial to the process of development.” 

    Along with Al-Tabbakh and Ahmad, Takieddine intends to join the mentorship program to help other hopeful applicants have the same chance at a bright future, despite a bleak present.

    NBC News Charlene Gubash contributed to this report.

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  • A day of anxious waiting for parents in China as students take college entrance exams

    AP

    Parents wait outside a closed gate of a school where their children are taking the annual national college entrance exams in Fuyang, in central China's Anhui province, June 7.

    Carlos Barria / AFP - Getty Images

    Parents wait outside the Shanghai No.1 High School during the first day of the China's annual national college entrance exam in Shanghai June 7,

    AFP - Getty Images

    Chinese parent wait as their children take the tough college entrance exams or Gaokao, in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province on June 7.

    Carlos Barria / AFP - Getty Images

    A happy mother greeting her daughter after finishing the first day of the tough college entrance exams or Gaokao, in Beijing, June 7.

    Carlos Barria / Reuters

    A student and her father leave Shanghai No.1 High School after finishing China's annual national college entrance exam in Shanghai, June 8.

    Carlos Barria / Reuters

    A student and her mother leave Shanghai No.1 High School after finishing China's annual national college entrance exam in Shanghai June 8.

    More than 9 million students sat China's notoriously tough college entrance exams with "high-flyer" rooms, nannies and even intravenous drips among the tools being employed for success, and with just 6.85 million university spots on offer this year, competition for the top institutions is intense, and attempts to cheat are rife -- 1,500 people have been arrested on suspicion of selling transmitters and hard-to-detect ear pieces.   

    More photos on PhotoBlog of Chinese students taking their entrance exams in 2011.

  • Explosion at school in Italy kills teenage girl, others hurt

    Police are on the hunt for suspects after a bomb exploded outside an Italian high school. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    By NBC News and msnbc.com news services

    Updated at 9.10 a.m ET: An explosion at a school in Italy Saturday killed a teenage girl and injured several others, according to reports and officials.

    The blast happened at 7:45 a.m. at a school in Brindisi as students were waiting to go inside, NBC News reported.

    The high school, which is opposite a court in the city, is named after the slain anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and his wife, Francesca Morvillo, a judge who was also killed in the 1992 bombing in Sicily by Cosa Nostra. 

    One of the wounded students, a girl who was walking alongside the victim outside the school in Brindisi, was reported in critical condition after surgery.

    Officials said at least seven students were injured, but some news reports put the figure at 10. 

    Brindisi's Perrino hospital, where the wounded were taken, declined to give out information by phone. 

    Dr. Paola Ciannamea, a Perrino physician who helped treat the injured at the hospital, told reporters there that one of the injured was a teenage girl who was in grave but stable condition after surgery.

    She added that plastic surgery was still being performed on some of the other injured, who suffered burns in the blast. 

    No claim of responsibility
    An unidentified hospital official, briefing reporters there, said the critically injured student was in stable condition after surgery and that several of the injured students had suffered burns and is undergoing plastic surgery. 

    Max Frigione / AP

    Notebooks are seen scattered at the site where an explosive device went off near the Francesca Morvillo Falcone High School in Brindisi, Italy, Saturday.

    There were no immediate claims of responsibility. 

    Italy has been marking the 20th anniversary of the Sicilian highway attack, but it was unclear if there was an organized crime link to Saturday's explosion. 

    In Brindisi, local civil protection agency official Fabiano Amati said a female student died of her wounds after being taken to a hospital and at least seven other students were hospitalized. 

    Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, in charge of domestic security, said she was "struck" by the fact that the school was named after the slain hero and his wife, but she cautioned that investigators at that point "have no elements" to blame the school attack on organized crime. 

    "It's not the usual (method) for the Mafia," she told Sky television in a phone interview. The Sicilian-based Cosa Nostra usually targets specific figures, such as judges, prosecutors, turncoats or rival mobsters in attacks, and not civilian targets such as schools. 

    "The big problem now is to get intelligence" on the attack, said Cancellieri. She added that she had spoken by phone with Italian Premier Mario Monti, in the United States for the G-8 summit. 

    Outside the school, textbooks, their pages flipping in a breeze, notebooks and a backpack littered the street near where the bomb exploded. At the sound of the blast, students already inside the building ran outside of the school to see what happened. 

    Officials initially said the device was in a trash bin outside the Morvillo-Falcone school, but later the ANSA news agency, reporting from Brindisi, said the device, consisting of three cooking-gas canisters, a detonator and possibly a timer, had been placed on a low wall ringing the school. The wall was damaged and charred from the blast. 

    Public high schools in Italy hold classes on Saturday mornings. 

    Specializes in fashion, social services
    A school official, Valeria Vitale, told Sky that most of the pupils were girls. The school specializes in training for jobs in fashion and social services, she said. 

    The bombing also follows a number of attacks against Italian officials and government or public buildings by a group of anarchists, which prompted authorities to assign bodyguards for 550 individuals and deploy 16,000 law enforcement officers nationwide. 

    Minister Cancellieri indicated that after the school blast, authorities' sense of what could be a possible target had been tested. 

    "Anything now could be a 'sensitive' target," she said. 

    Austerity measures, spending cuts and new and higher taxes, all part of economist Monti's plan to save Italy from succumbing to the debt crisis roiling Greece, have angered many citizens, and social tensions have ratcheted up. 

    "The economic crisis doesn't help," Cancellieri said, referring to the tensions. 

    Brindisi is a lively port town in Puglia, the region in the southeastern "heel" of the Italian boot-shaped peninsula. An organized crime syndicate known as the Sacred United Crown, has been traditionally active there, but crackdowns have been widely considered by authorities to have lessened the organization's power in the region.

    The Associated Press and NBC News' Claudio Lavanga contributed to this report.

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  • Three Boston University students killed, five injured in New Zealand van crash

    By Miguel Llanos and Marian Smith, msnbc.com

    Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET: Three Boston University students were killed and five others hospitalized in New Zealand on Saturday when their minivan veered and then rolled over several times.

    Joseph Bergen, the U.S. vice consul in Auckland, identified the deceased as Daniela Lekhno, Roch Jauberty and Austin Brashears, according to Boston University.

    Of the five hospitalized, a 21-year-old woman was in critical condition at Rotorua Hospital, the New Zealand Herald reported. Two other women aged 20 and 21 were in stable condition there and a 21-year-old woman and 21-year-old man were treated and discharged at Taupo Hospital, the Herald said.

    The families of all students in the accident were informed, police said.

    The injured are Stephen Houseman, Alys McAlpine, Emily Melton, Kathy Moldawer and Margaret Theriault, Boston University stated.

    Lekhno was from Manalapan, N.J., Brashears from Huntington Beach, Calif., and Jauberty's parents live in Paris, the university added.

    Police said the students were traveling in the minivan at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET Friday) near the North Island vacation town of Taupo when the vehicle drifted to the side of the road and then rolled.

    "The driver appears to have corrected, or over corrected, and the vehicle started to roll and then cartwheeled down the road," police inspector Kevin Taylor told reporters.

    John Cowpland / New Zealand Herald via AP

    Eight Boston University students were in this minivan when it crashed near Turangi, New Zealand, on Saturday.

    The students were reportedly headed for Tongariro National Park, where they were planning to hike the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

    A second vehicle carrying more Boston University students and a student from another American university was traveling behind the first in convoy.

    Those in the second vehicle "are traumatized ... and don't wish to speak to media," New Zealand police said in a statement.

    Watch world news videos on msnbc.com

    Police could not confirm if the students had been wearing seat belts but said that some had been thrown from the vehicle, indicating that might have been the case, Taylor said.

    "This is a horrible tragedy," Boston University President Robert Brown said in a statement. "Our prayers go out to the students and their families. We will do all we can to provide comfort and assistance to those who have been injured, and to the families and friends of the victims."

    Two of the students who died were studying at the University of Auckland and the other was at the Auckland University of Technology, the Boston Globe reported.

    The head of University of Auckland's study abroad program told the Globe he believed 47 Boston University students were enrolled there.

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  • Chinese students use IV drips while test cramming

    Disturbing pictures have emerged of a classroom full of Chinese high school students hooked up to IV drips so they stay alert as they cram for the annual "gaokao" -- college entrance exam. 

    Some 9.5 milion students will take the two-day exam in June to compete for some 6.5 places in Chinese colleges. The competition is most intense for the elite universities like Beijing's Peking University and Tsinghua University.

     

     

     

  • Violent confrontations between student protesters and police in Spain

    Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

    Firemen extinguish a fire after clashes between students and policemen during a demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labour market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

    Albert Gea / Reuters

    A man confronts hooded protesters who were vandalizing a bank during a protest against cuts in public education in Barcelona, on Feb. 29.

    Jose Jordan / AFP - Getty Images

    Students demonstrate to protest austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Valencia. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

    Spanish students in Barcelona clashed Wednesday with police and set fire to garbage containers during nationwide protests against education spending cuts.

    Police said officers in riot gear charged a crowd outside the stock market in Spain's second largest city after protesters who had broken away from a peaceful rally of thousands threw rocks and other objects. Authorities made an unspecified number of arrests.

    The fire in the containers spread to a car and protesters smashed a bank window.

    The country is enduring steep austerity cuts and the prospect of recession as the government tries to stem an unemployment rate of almost 23 percent. Among those under age 25 it approaches a staggering 50 percent.

    Read the full story.

    -- Associated Press

    Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

    Students burn a doll representing the death of the public university system in front of Barcelona's stock exchange during a student's demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

    Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

    Students clash with policemen during a demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

    Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

    Students protest during a demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labour market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

     

  • Chinese media say 15 killed in school bus crash

    By The Associated Press

     BEIJING -- Chinese state media say a school bus belonging to a primary school has overturned, killing at least 15 students, despite a recent government pledge to improve school safety after an earlier crash of a school van.

    The official Xinhua News Agency did not give the ages of the victims in the crash Monday evening.

    It said the bus was carrying 29 students when it overturned in Xuzhou city in Jiangsu province in eastern China. It said 11 others were hurt.

    Last month, 19 students and two adults were killed when a nine-seat private school van packed with 62 children and two adults crashed head-on with a truck in northwest Gansu province.

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.