🇲🇺 Teens may get a two-hour daily social media cap

Teens may get a two-hour daily social media cap

Dr Avinash Ramtohul, Minister of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation, used a Friday press conference in Ebene to sketch out a default two-hour daily limit on social media for every teenager. He paired it with a proposed "School Mode" that would mute notifications from 08:00 to 15:00 on school days, and a "Sleep Mode" to silence them between midnight and 06:00.

The argument sits in the numbers. CERT-MU, the national cybersecurity watchdog, counted 5,754 cyber incidents between 1 January and 5 November, nearly 19 a day. Inside that total are 1,697 reports of online harassment, 761 of cyberbullying, 225 of sextortion, and 61 that touch on child sexual abuse material.

None of it is settled. Ramtohul said plainly the ideas are still being discussed with Meta and would need fresh legislation before they mean anything. A limit a teenager can switch off in two taps is nudge, not a rule, and the 61 abuse reports are the figure that should decide which one gets built.

A default set to two hours is only as strong as the law behind it, and that law is still unwritten.

Reforms bill would put the civil service on a clock

The Cabinet has told the Attorney General's Office to draft a Public Sector Reforms Bill, a wide overhaul meant to cut administrative delays and set enforceable service standards across government. The Civil Service Ministry would become the central body steering human resources, reform and innovation.

A new Central Disciplinary Service would push misconduct cases to a verdict inside a fixed window, and a Grievance Desk would sit in every ministry, it must trace why a service failed. Deadlines are cheap. Keeping them is not.

Palmar is set to regain 1.5 arpents of public beach

The Ministry of Housing and Lands has begun reclassifying a 6,331 square metre strip of State land at Palmar, about 1.5 arpents, as public beach. The plot sits inside the Pas Geometriques, the coastal reserve meant to stay open to everyone, and the Cabinet has taken note of the procedure.

On an island where beach access keeps shrinking behind hotels and fences, 1.5 arpents is small. But direction of travel is the story.

Free online courses aim to teach 50,000 people AI skills

Sixteen free courses went live this week on Mauritius Telecom's new myt Learning Hub, a platform built with Amazon's cloud arm AWS that aims to give 50,000 people digital and AI skills within a year. Signing up will be easy. Finishing is the real test.

Mauritius signs up with India for phone disaster alerts

The Cabinet approved a memorandum with India on Friday to build a multi-hazard mobile warning system, the kind that pushes an alert to your phone before a cyclone, flood or tsunami reaches you. For an island that spent last summer arguing about flood response, a siren in your pocket is a concrete promise. Delivery is the hard part.

Shorts

Suspect held after Victoria terminal vandalism – Vandals smashed thirteen shopfronts at the Victoria Urban Terminal in Port Louis, and police have arrested one suspect.

Second man charged in Selven Iyempermal murder – Police have charged a second man over the killing as a fresh witness came forward to the major crime unit.

Opposition calls two years in power a 'zero' – Opposition leader Chetan Baboolall accused the government of broken promises and laws that control more than they help.

A mother and three children left without power – Drug debts in the family have pushed Tania and her three children into a single room with no electricity.

Lawyer grilled over SMS Pariaz's 186 licences – Investigators questioned lawyer Pazhany Thandrayen over whether he fronted a gaming magnate on 186 betting licences.

Upcoming Events

Sat 14 Nov · NASA Space Apps Challenge
2 days · Rajiv Gandhi Science Center

Thu 19 Nov · ThirdThursday Networking
9:30am to 11:30am at Middlesex Uni

Fri 4 Dec · FirstFriday Networking
Social event from 6:30pm to 8:30pm

3,200

pupils attending a state scheme for struggling school leavers, whose future is suddenly unclear; the opposition PMSD's Xavier-Luc Duval pressed the government on their fate this weekend while questioning its wider education spending.

172

drones, backed by 36 missiles, slammed into Kyiv's power grid and bridges overnight, killing civilians and wounding at least five, one of the heaviest Russian barrages on the capital for weeks.

7

startups built their pitches around artificial intelligence for La Turbine's 2026 Innovation Challenge, the annual contest run by the ER group's incubator.

Somalia lurches toward crisis as a court defies its president

Somalia's Supreme Court threw out the extension of the president's term as unlawful, and the political ground shifted within hours. The opposition says the president answered by sending troops to arrest the chief justice who wrote the ruling.

A head of state squaring up to his own top court is the kind of standoff that decides whether a country still has one. Mogadishu now holds two claims to legitimacy and no referee.

South Africa's metros brace for coalition haggling

With the local election count almost done, no party controls Johannesburg, Tshwane or eThekwini outright, so coalition talks will decide who runs the big cities.

Pope Leo starts a South America tour after cancer care

Pope Leo XIV opened a visit across three South American countries on Friday, telling reporters he feels in "fairly good shape" after his cancer treatment.

Gunman kills at least five in Krakow's main square

A gunman opened fire from a car on the Main Market Square in Krakow, the historic heart of the Polish city, killing at least five people and wounding twelve on Friday. Police shot and arrested him at the scene.

The square is one of Europe's busiest tourist spots, which is partly why the toll could have been far worse. Investigators have not named a motive.

Paraguay swears in a new president as the old one falls

Paraguay's Congress impeached President Pena over a banking crisis and put him under house arrest; Vice President Pedro Alliana was sworn in hours later to finish the term.

Meghan's father arrested on child abuse image charges

US agents arrested Thomas Markle, father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in Florida on charges of possessing child sexual abuse material.

The island built on cane now helps run the world's sugar club

Who speaks for sugar on the world stage? As of this month, a Mauritian does. Devesh Dukhira now heads the International Sugar Organisation, the London body where governments and producers thrash out the global sugar trade.

Mauritius has trimmed its cane fields for years, yet keeps real clout where sugar's rules get written. A small island can still hold a big seat at the table.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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