The Janplex Post

The ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia has recently escalated with Ukraine's significant military incursion into the Kursk region, marking a pivotal moment in the war that began in February 2022. This offensive, which commenced on August 6, 2024, represents Ukraine's first official military operation on Russian soil since World War II, signalling a bold strategic shift aimed at pressuring Russia into negotiations. Ukraine's incursion into Kursk has been characterised by surprise and tactical precision. Reports indicate that Ukrainian forces have made substantial advances, capturing key locations such as the town of Sudzha and destroying critical infrastructure, including a bridge over the Seym River. This bridge was vital for Russian supply lines, and its destruction could severely hinder Russian military operations in the area. Ukrainian officials have emphasized that their objective is not to occupy Russian territory but to create leverage for negotiations, compe...

 The COVID-19 virus is no longer a major concern for health policymakers in the UK and many countries around the world. The mandatory wearing of masks in public places has been stopped. It is now optional for people to wear a mask if they feel vulnerable to the virus. At first, all countries went into lockdown. Businesses were ordered to close, and people were asked to stay indoors and not visit family members who did not live with them. Only essential workers such as nurses, doctors, and other emergency workers were permitted to work. Organizing or attending parties or events was also banned around the world, including in the UK. Law enforcement agencies were empowered to enforce the law. The outgoing British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and other cabinet members received fixed penalty notices for organizing a birthday party at No. 10 Downing Street during the lockdown period. When the lockdown rules were relaxed and people were allo...

Doctors in the United Kingdom (UK) working within the National Health Service (NHS) Hospitals are perceived as people that help treat diseases and save lives.  While this is true in many cases, it cannot be true in all cases.  Instead of being savers of lives, some NHS doctors appear to be a source of infections in NHS hospitals.  You might disagree with this assertion if you don't work in NHS hospitals and have no first hand experience of how doctors operate within the hospitals. As you read on, you would find out how doctors could be a source of infection in NHS hospitals rather than being the curers of illnesses.. Some NHS doctors tend to sit on patients’ beds and chairs when these doctors are doing ward rounds.  A ward round involves a situation in which a doctor or doctors visit patients in a ward to discuss the conditions faced by these patients, including any possible treatments for such conditions.  It normally occurs in the morning hours, and doct...

Bogus user registration poses a problem to both large and small website owners.   The term bogus user registration in this context refers to a user sign up which is not genuine. This fake user registrations become a problem to a website if the website allows members registrations. Fake registrations make it hard for the website owner to differentiate between genuine users and fake users. Many website owners tend to think that identifying individuals behind bogus user registrations and banning them from accessing the site is the best solution to the problem.   As a result, they will spend a lot of resources including time to develop tools supposedly designed to block or ban spammers from accessing their site.   While this approach may be effective in denying the individuals behind fake registrations on websites the access to them, it has two major drawbacks.   First, genuine website users can be unwittingly banned from accessing the website if the website...

The disavow link feature is a relief for many website owners who are victims of unnecessary external links to their website.   It puts website owners in control of both internal and external links to their websites. Prior to the advent of the disavow links feature website owners were at the mercy of spammy website owners.   They could only request for any undesirable external links to their website to be removed.   They cannot do anything else if this request is ignored by the owners of the culprit websites. With the introduction of the disavow links feature website owners decide who can or cannot link to their websites.   Thus, the ball is no longer in the courts of dodgy website owners but in the hands of real website owners. The disavow links feature allows website owners to inform search engines about the external links they approve and those they disapprove for their websites.   This prevents a website from being penalised as a result of unsolicited...

The term plugin is often used when talking about wordpress content management system.   However, this does not mean that plugins are exclusive to wordpress websites as there are other content management systems that use plugins including Joomla.   If you are unfamiliar with plugins this short article will give you some insight into plugins.  There are thousands of plugins for adding functionalities to a website.   There is a directory plugin, for example, for building business listings websites.   There is also a recipe plugin for developing a food recipe website that provides information about food menu and how to prepare different dishes.   In fact, the list of plugins is endless and the problem faced by website owners is not whether they can find enough plugins to develop a website but how many plugins they can install on the website. Every plugin comes with an installation guide.   This informs the user about how to install the plugin and ...

Getting the pages of wordpress website to load up very quickly is one of the problems often faced by many web developers.   Most of the times this problem tends to arise after new plugins have been installed. For many developers who cannot resolve this problem of slow page speed there is often the tendency to uninstall the troubled plugins.   While this strategy can help restore the site pages to their original speed the benefits associated with the plugins being uninstalled are often lost. There is a way of increasing the page speed of your wordpress website without uninstalling the so-called culprit plugins and losing their benefits.   This involves uninstalling any caching plugin on the website before installing plugins.   In other words, install the caching plugin after all other plugins have been installed.   This should be done every time a new plugin is being installed on the website for the site to retain its page speed. Adhering to this s...

Driverless cars will replace normal cars on British roads within a decade from now.   Some pilot ones are being tested in certain parts of the United Kingdom including in South east London. However, some people are alarmed over this news and think that allowing driverless cars on the roads could result in unintended consequences for road users but I do not think that this is necessarily going to be the case. Driverless vehicles have been transporting people from one point to another both in the United Kingdom and abroad.   The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in London for example is a driverless metro train service that came into operation in 1987.   The Copenhagen Metro and Barcelona Metro are also driverless trains operating in Denmark and Spain respectively.   Many commuters using these train services will be shocked to discover that the trains are driverless. So far the use of these driverless trains has been progressing smoothly.  There have been ...

For some months now the page 3 of the Sun Newspaper which usually contains semi naked photos of young British models largely in their late teens and early twenties has been a subject of debate in the British media.   Last week, a sister newspaper announced that the Sun was stopping the publication of this page 3 for good.   Campaigners against the publication were delighted over this news.   However, this jubilation was short lived after the Sun newspaper came out to dismiss the claims of the demise of its page 3. The number of people against the publication of page 3 of the Sun newspaper is large.   As of last week, it was rumoured that up to 250,000 people have signed up to an online petition asking the Sun newspaper to scrape the page 3.   For these campaigners, having nude photos of young women in one of the leading British newspapers does not only belittles women but also is sexism dating back to 45years ago and should be stopped.   There is no ro...

The causative factors for cancer is becoming so elusive now that scientists are blaming a person’s bad luck rather than their lifestyle or genetic factors for cancer. According to scientists in the USA, cancer arises from faulty cells during cell reproductions.   Old cells die and new cells spring up throughout the lifespan of a person.   Most of the times, this regeneration happens smoothly without any problems.   However, if any a cell malfunctions during any stages of the cell divisions, this will result in abnormal growth called cancer. This abnormal phenomenon can occur in any person irrespective of his or her lifestyle or genetic factors.   Thus, a person who exercises regularly can have cancer if his or her cell malfunctions while a person who does not exercise and consumes a lot of fatty or sugary food can remain cancer free providing the person’s cells do not malfunction. Up until now the main factors attributable to cancer...

A number of British Members of Parliament (MPs) is calling for the anonymity of sexual assault defendants.  Presently there is no legislation against the naming of any person accused of sexual assaults.  The press can publish the names and photos of sexual accused individuals even before they are charged with the allegations without any fear of breaking the law and facing possible libel action. In contrast, there is anonymity for defendants of other crimes including murder until these individuals have been charged with the crimes.  That is, revealing the names or pictures of people accused of crimes besides sexual assault crimes before the accused are charged is illegal and can attract legal action. Mark Pritchard The latest MP to call for anonymity of individuals accused of sexual assaults is the conservative MP,  Mark Pritchard.  Mr Pritchard was accused of sexual assault last December by a lady whose identity is protected by law.  The Crown Pr...

Roger Bird and Natasha Bolter Male politicians in Britain who like to have consensual sexual relationships with their female counterparts should think twice before engaging in these relationships.  Some male politicians have lost their positions because of inappropriate sexual relationships.  Others have lost not only their high positions but also have been prosecuted for such sexual misconduct. The most recent male politician to be caught up in this sex scandal is the UKIP’s general secretary, Roger Bird.  Mr Bird was accused last week by Natasha Bolter, a UKIP aspiring election candidate, of repeated sexual advances.  Following this allegation the UKIP party has suspended him and launched an investigation into the case. While this investigation is being conducted, Mr Bird has come out to refute Ms Bolter’s claim of pestering.  He is arguing that his relationship with Ms Bolter was consensual.  He has released one of the text messages sent to...

Men accused of sexual exploitation A civil injunction against six men has been granted by a high court judge, Mr Justice Keehan, to prevent sexual exploitation of young girls. These men include Mohammed Anjam, 31, Omar Ahmed, 27, Mohammed Javed, 34, Alam Shah, 37, Sajid Hussain, 40, and Naseem Khan, 29. According to this injunction, these men cannot talk to any teenage girl under the age of 17 years.  The violation of this order can result in prosecution and subsequent punishment.  This injunction was necessitated by the reports that the six men were sexually abusing young girls in the local community.  However, there was no sufficient evidence to prosecute them.  Both the police and NSPCC have shown support for this measure.  The police Det Ch Supt Long reacting to the injunction stated: "This is not a soft option. Where we have the evidence we will always go down the criminal route, we will look to arrest and to put people in front of a court...

Ched Evans was convicted in April 2012 by a jury at Caernarfon Crown Court for raping a 19 year old woman in a hotel near Rhyl, Denbighshire.   The jury disregarded his defense of consensual sex with his victim.  The court subsequently sentenced him to 5 years for the act.  Evans was released on 17 th October, 2014, just half way through this sentence.  He is preparing now to rejoin his former club, Sheffield United, but this decision has divided the public over whether Evans should be allowed to return to his former employment. Last week, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), Gordon Taylor, stated that Evans could be allowed to continue his career after his release. In other words, he was saying that Evans will be punished twice for his crime if he is denied the privilege of participating in his former club. Aside from this support, Evans has not received much support from the public regarding his decision to ret...

Laptops are now being sold at Tesco.  This might come as good news for people who are familiar with this giant British food retailer.  However,   you will find out very shortly why you should not buy your new laptop from a grocery store. The number of laptops for sale at Tesco stores is very limited.  Just six laptops from two different makers including Acer were available on sale when we visited the supermarket a week ago.  Thus, you are limited to this stock and cannot choose from a variety of brands. You will also be mistaken to think that Laptops will be sold at a discount rate at Tesco compared to proper Laptop shops such as PC World and Argos.  This assumption is inaccurate.  The prices of laptops at Tesco are the same as those in other Computer stores. In addition, you cannot get proper advice from Tesco staff in-charge of the laptops.   They will go inside their inner store either to search their system for inform...

How many times have you checked your receipt at home after shopping to make sure that you have not paid more than you ought to pay for the shopping?  If you have not been doing this before, you should start checking your shopping receipt for one important reason.   Retailers especially food retailers appear to mislead customers using their so-called sale promotion labels. I will demonstrate this deception using two similar items that are sold at different prices.  The cheaper item is on promotion but the more expensive item is not.  For the retailer to get customers to buy the more expensive item, the promotion label of the less expensive item would be placed on the shelf containing the more expensive item.  This will lead customers to pick up the expensive item thinking it is the cheaper one. This deception is rarely identified at the check-out point.  Only a few customers tend to check the item prices at the till to make sure they are cor...

Pope Francis Pope Francis, the Catholic Pope, was not shy to air his view on Iraq when confronted on his way from South Korea to Rome by reporters. He told one of the reporters who had asked him whether he would like military action against ISIS in Iraq that some solutions need to be found for the troubled country. The Pope, however, did not say what these solutions might be. Unsatisfied with this vague answer the reporter pressed the Pope for clarity but the Pope said the decision should be made by politicians. This Pope's reaction is unprecedented.  In the past the Pope used to ask for conflicts to be resolved through pacifism - without the use of force - rather than through military force. The question that arises now is what is leading the Pope to shift his ideology for resolving conflicts by pacifism to militarism? Has the Pope too become polarised due to the current persecution of Christian minorities in the middle east by Islamist radicals? Holy See ...

The acquitting of Mr Bernie Ecclestone, Formula one boss, by German Court of bribery allegations this week came as a surprise to many observers.  Mr Ecclestone was accused of offering bribes to ensure that a company he favours can buy a stake in Formula one.  Before the case was dropped, many observers had thought that he would be punished like his accomplice, Gerhard Gribkowsky , who is currently serving prison term for similar bribery allegation involving $44m.  However, the German prosecutor dropped all the bribery charges against Mr Ecclestone after receiving $100m (one hundred million dollars) settlement payment from him.   Bernie Ecclestone There is no doubt that the German court wanted to prosecute Mr Ecclestone because of the court belief in the rule of law comprising of the notions of equality before the law and similar punishment for similar offences.  However, the decision to accept the $100m settlement payment from Mr Ecclestone and clos...