The Russians must be laughing their hearts off by now!

"Damn you westerners, you never learn, do you? If you were expecting these people to come back with a thank you card and a flower vase, then you are as dumb as a brick."

This will further strengthen Putin's resolve to hold on to Russia's position on Syria.

Car bomb explodes outside French embassy in Libya leaving two guards seriously injured [size=16pt][/size]

-First such attack in the Libyan capital since the 2011 war

-Car bombs were thought to be detonated near the embassy wall

-Blast caused serious damage to the building



France's embassy in Tripoli has been hit by what appeared to be a car bomb this morning, injuring two guards.
It was the first assault on a diplomatic mission in Tripoli, considered safer than the rest of the North African country, since the end of the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, leaving Libya awash with weapons and roaming armed groups.
There have been several attacks on diplomatic missions, notably in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed last September.






U.S. officials say militants with ties to al Qaeda were mostly likely involved in that attack but no-one has claimed it.

Al Qaeda's north African arm AQIM has warned of retaliation for France's intervention in Mali but there was no indication as to who was behind Tuesday's explosion at the embassy in Libya.
Residents living near the embassy compound, in the capital's Hay Andalus area, said they heard two blasts early in the morning around 0700 a.m. (0500 GMT).
A large chunk of the wall around the compound collapsed into rubble and one corner of the embassy building had caved in. Office cabinets lay scattered on the ground outside and water from a burst pipe ran down the street.
Residents pointed to shrapnel belonging to the car they said had exploded, such as a distorted wheel axle and pieces of the motor lying on the ground.

'We think it was a booby trapped car,' a French embassy official told Reuters. 'There was a lot of damage and there are two guards wounded.'

French President Francois Hollande condemned the attack.
'France expects the Libyan authorities to shed light on this unacceptable act so that the authors are identified and brought to justice,' he said in a statement.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will travel to Tripoli on Tuesday, an official from his ministry said.
The Libyan army cordoned off the compound as dozens gathered outside. An embassy employee arrived at the scene and burst into tears when she saw the destruction. She was let inside to join colleagues and French security staff.

What's a Dbanj?

Abegi, Pass me 9ice jor!

**Gongo aso you know eni foju ana woku ebora abolaso
This time no dulling
Everywhere weh i deh na party
Henessy nlo, Moet nlo, Barcardi nlo
We no go stop, till the break of da dawn bebe nlo***

You knowwwww!!


I'm on fire, no be beans o, Gongo aso!

This is horrific!!!

Funny how the OP came here to rant, and her thread got hijacked .
A woman can't even rant in peace in this God forsaken country called Britain?

adaobi123:

Cheapskate

@Bookface. How far na ?

oooh nothing much, just enjoy watching you two fool around.

One thing i admire about the Russians though, is their consistency. The US at the moment, i believe is all about saving face on Syria. The administration has committed itself too deeply to step back at the moment. It's completely nutters to provide funding for terrorists on one hand and then spend another billion fighting them in another country. Now when they strike the US homeland, you scream blue murder! I just don't get it.

Russia has signified interest to work with the US on counter terrorism, that sounds like a complete Malarkey to me. For one both countries don't trust each other that much to exchange vital information. Russia may be more open, the US is always skeptical.

This is why i think the US's policy on Syria is completely misplaced.

You lads should skip these boring formalities and move right on to the coituss interruptus part.

Enough of these "give me your opinion" talks!! Shymexx isn't hanging here every night for an opinion.

I will wait for the conspiracy theorists to put another spin on this one.

cap28:

I think the intention on the part of the US govt is to cOnvince the US public that there are loads of crazy people (foreigners and US citizens) in their midst with guns and the best way to control the situation is to withdraw the right to carry arms from everyone.

That argument has absolutely no basis! It is completely lacking. People have guns in the first place to protect themselves against crazy people. Guns are not a fashion accessory. They are made to kill people/things. If i decide to buy a gun because i feel less secured about the ability of the government to guarantee 100% protection for me and my family, I will be completely retardedd to give up those guns and those rights just when i need them the most.

In the 3 months after 911, the FBI reported that applications to carry concealed weapons increased by more than 20%. People become more paranoid, and will want to hold on to their weapons when they have just been attacked.

The US is not China or Russia, where you can simply withdraw people's rights as you wish. There are people who fought and died for those rights, those freedom, it will require more than setting up two young lads for terrorism, to make people give up those rights and freedom.

Besides, if US wanted to set someone up, they probably have dozens of terror groups on their watchlist. They might as well just blame a terror group everyone is likely to believe. They could have easily blamed Al-Qaeda and achieved the same purpose you mentioned.

That would have been cheaper and would have saved themselves the trouble of planning a massive set up in secrecy, killing a cop, putting another one in a life threatening condition, doctoring evidence etc as you theorists will have us believe.


Also, I am hoping you may explain the rationale behind those two young boys not giving themselves up to the Police even after being declared wanted. There were lots of people who came up as possible suspects after the bombings. Some of them turned up in Police stations, they got interviewed and were allowed to leave. If the FBI declares me a suspect in the bombing, if I am innocent, I will simply turn up in their office and ask them to prove it, not hide in a boat!

Only guilty people run and hide.

cap28: the goodjoehunt - has it occurred to you that your govt may be responsible for these incidents in order to force the american public to accept the repeal of the second amendment which permits all americans to bear arms. I mean it makes sense - create terror, blame it on foreigners resident in america and then come forward with a solution - confiscation of all weapons belonging to anyone resident in the US.

I am not sure i agree with this line of reasoning. The best way to make people give up their guns is not to create a scenario that will make them hold on to it in the first place. No one will give up their guns if they are acutely aware that there are foreign residents in the United States who are there to cause them harm, it is why people have guns duh!

cap28:

Doesn't it bother you that the US govt have framed certain individuals for crimes that they did not comitt? If they could do it in previous cases surely it is reasonable to think that they could do the same thing in this case.

Like i said earlier, Russia Today confirmed that the brothers had been under surveillance from the FBI it wasnt just the mother who claimed this - everything that you have referred to up there has never been corroborated by any eye witnesses it is the FBI's word against everyone else's and because they are the govt we will never know the truth.

Also listen to this clip in which a journalist is asking the Boston police why everyone was told to remain calm before the bomb went off:

Your argument so far has been centered on: "US framed Mr A up 100 years ago, so it must be the same thing they are doing at the moment".

Even if this were true and there was a true, transparent manner of validating those claims, it shouldn't lay a precedent in Justice. Otherwise, every criminal could claim they are being framed up by the US government even if there are clear evidence proving they committed the crimes. On the subject of set ups, no government of any country will come out with clean hands. From Russia, to China, Britain, Israel, Iran, or even Nigeria. Anyone should be bothered by this, but Justice isn't a perfect phenomenon. It is why, the good ol common law demands innocence till proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt - and no country advocates this more than the US. In the US, you could get away with murder, if more than 3 witnesses claim you weren't at the crime scene, even if the Judge saw you committing the crime himself.

These two kids case is a no-brainer and i can already see several conspiracy theorists crawling out of the woods. They were granted Asylum in the US, provided with a US citizenship, accorded with the same rights and privileges every US citizen has, provided with scholarships and opportunities to live in the land of the free. What will the US be gaining by setting them up?

Have you considered what it will take to pull such a "perfect set up"?

You will need more than two scores of people who can keep such a set up secret away from the public.

You will need to have those two brothers in the same place, carrying bags.

You will need to have those two brothers refusing to surrender themselves to the police.

You will need to have a cop get killed and another put in a life threatening condition.

You need to have all these planned without a whiff of it getting to the press. Except of course, the press are all in on this as well?

Please give up the conspiracy theory. Those two are as guilty as sin.

cap28: obadiah 777 the US govt is known for setting up and framing people in order to accomplish their long term goals.

ever heard of the following people?

Lee Harvey Oswald
Sirhan Sirhan
James Earl Ray

Qu: what do they all have in common?

ans: they were all patsies set up by the US govt and accused of killing, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, everything surrounding the above three murders was shrouded in mystery - most americans do not beleive that the above mentioned people were guilty of perpetrating the crimes that they were accused of by the US govt.

It seems history is repeating itself with these boys, i am convinced that they have been set up- their mother even confirms this here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ARE9rclZCqw

It is all cool and dandy to reference a few cases where the US government may have allegedly framed a few individuals up. This should then serve as a basis to argue for the innocence of anyone who may have committed crime in the United States, no? Individuals should now walk into a court after stabbing their neighbors and then claim, "Hey, Uncle Sam planted the DNA at the crime scene, I couldn't have done it, just ask my mum"

Hahaha! their mother confirms it! LooooL! and that was good enough to convince you of their innocence!

Good on you! Even Hitler's mum thought he was a great guy!

So let's get ignore the past few days and write a new story from here:

Thousands of people gathered at an event, carefully planned by the CIA.
The bombs were planted by the FBI and the video evidence doctored by special agents.
The two cops that got shot never truly exist, only in theory, another creation of the FBI.
The car that was reportedly hijacked? --- ehrm erhm, let's come back to that.
How about the shootings? ---- ah! that was the FBI, shooting at themselves for fun.
The bullet hole in that dude's chair was from 70 years ago during the second world war.
Why were the dudes running and couldn't simply turn themselves in as any innocent person would have done? --- erhm, well, they were running late for a late night show they couldn't have missed for anything in the world.

Now that's looking just perfect. Conspiracy theorists are gonna have a field day!

onatisi:
na wah oo,every dick and harry is just trying to use gej and the social media to seek relevance as a political analyst and activist.

Siddon there dey yarn rubbish. Keep voting for leaders that will rather waste billions of the country's resources on fanfare and grant criminals amnesty.


4 billion naira for First lady's office, 2 billion for food budget! And you keep voting like retardz simply because "He is from my tribe". Dem don use your brain take do sacrifice to Amadioha tey tey before you were even born. Oshisko!

The rest of the world are laughing at you. The picture below, if it doesn't make you weep, i wonder what will.

[img]https://www.nairaland.com/attachments/1071141_article-2311443-1962F89B000005DC-947_964x672_jpg38311e2b8e4e7b295ba70e20d18285ab[/img]

obadiah777: 'FACT' NOT 'FACTS'

LoL, go on, make my day. Fact not facts! still hasn't stopped you from being a kunt!

obadiah777: YOU MEAN TO SAY IT IS JUST 'RIGHT THERE'

Yeah, i meant to say right there, still doesn't change the facts that typing in all caps makes you a kunt!

obadiah777: LISTEN HERE BRUV, YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE NOT OPERATING ON A HIGHER FREQUENCY YET. LET ME CLUE YOU IN, AMERICA DOES NOT BELONG TO ITS CITIZENS. IT IS OWNED BY CORPORATIONS NOW. AND THE POLICE AND ARMY WORK FOR THE CORPORATIONS. THE CITIZENS ARE POTENTIAL ENEMIES. THATS HOW THEY ARE VIEWED. THE CITIZENS ARE NO LONGER NEEDED BECAUSE ALL THE FACTORIES ARE IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES. THEY NOW VIEW THE CITIZENS AS A WASTE OF SPACE. THIS IS WHY THE VIOLENCE ON THE CITIZENS HAS INCREASED. THEY ARE NO LONGER VALUABLE COMMODITIES AS IN THE SIXTIES ETC WHEN ALL THE JOBS WERE STILL IN AMERICA

Stop being foolish! Type in small caps - the normal way. Just press the "Caps Lock" button on your computer. It is just write there on your keyboard. Common, even you, a complete retarrd, can do it.

obadiah777: EXACTLY BROS. THEY ARE WAITING TO BE SPOONFED. A COUNTRY WITH NO REGULATIONS AND THEY ARE STILL WAITING FOR JOBS. YOUR SENTIMENT IS THE BEST I HAVE HEARD IN A WHILE >>> NIGERIA IS THE REAL LAND OF THE FREE

slowpoke, stop typing in all caps!

Ladies, take a warning from this fuckface and take your vitamins in time when pregnant, lest you live us the rest of the world having to deal with retarded tossers like this.

obadiah777: LISTEN HERE M-O-R-ON, SKIP OFF MY NUTSAC. I AINT GAY

You are clearly the slowpoke here! Didn't your mother teach you simple etiquette? Respect others, shouting on a forum when no one is shouting back at you are clear signs you are a few cards short of a full deck.

obadiah777: The incident began when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) attempted to raid the ranch. <<< EXCERPT FROM THE STORY. THE ATF IS THE USA GOVT. YOU SAID WHY WOULD THE GOVT TURN ITS GUN ON ITS CITIZENS ? THE ATF IS PART OF THE GOVERNMENT

See? It's not so hard to act normal! Don't be so stupidd!

obadiah777: EXACTLY BROS. AND SOMEONE HERE IS SAYING WOULD THE AMERICAN GOVT TURN ITS GUN ON ITS OWN CITIZENS ? LMAO YOU CAN TELL THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER LEFT NIGERIA WHEN ARGUMENTS LIKE THESE COME UP. THE POLICE BRUTALITY IS GETTING OUT OF CONTROL BRUV. ITS SCARY. THERE IS NO FREEDOM IN THAT LAND. AND WONDER WHY THEY CALL IT THE LAND OF THE FREE.

Where did you school and who trained you to be so obnoxious, loud and rude? Typing in all caps says something about your etiquette and attitude in real life. If you can't just act like normal people will and f**king type like normal people will, then you shouldn't even deserve one jot of attention around here.

What an idiott

tellwisdom: Ok, is that the winner of the boston marathon race?

No, he is the winner of the Ikeja crippled dance.

50calibre:

Yeah that's true, i know keeping up with 300+ million people isnt easy but even at that, they have thousands upon thousands of staff who work for them whose operations are highly funded by the government. They have access to the best of the best available technology you can think of.

Tell me a country in the world who can afford to spend the amount of money America spends on security and defence, not even china with their 1.3 billion people spend that much. America outspends the whole of Europe combined when it comes to matters of defence.

FBI currently employs 36,000 people - less than the number of employees at Apple.

These 36,000 people (not excluding domestic workers) are expected to Track and Monitor dozens of live events, Track and Trace criminals both within and outside of the United States, Investigate and Enforce federal laws, Track and Monitor suspected terrorist movements within and outside of the United states, Provide a swift response to emergencies, Gather and provide Intelligence to a global network - AND still keep a close watchful eye on the more than 1 in four persons around the world, who bear a formidable hatred for the United States and its citizens and could strike in any second of the day.

The FBI's budget for 2013 is 8 billion dollars. Nigerian government earns 282 million dollars daily on crude oil revenues - which imply a Nigerian government could happily fund the entire FBI's budget every 28 days!

Damn, give some credit to where it is due bro.

50calibre:

This is how 911 guys were allowed to roam free and go to flight school even after showing up on the radar as radicalised Muslims. I remember in 2009 that Nigerian boy that tried to blow up an aircraft even after his father tipped off the FBI.

Maybe the FBI isn't as effective as people think

You are kidding right? Do you know how many people, phone calls, travels, meetings and emails the FBI keep a watch of on a daily basis? Do you know how many tip offs the FBI receive on a daily basis? From scams, robberies, assassination attempts on the President, terrorist attempts on the United States, or even the occasional silly calls of people who are experience their first menstrual periods!

Millions of people around the world probably hold radicalized views on America and it is yet the job of the FBI to ensure that American public - all 313 million of them - are kept safe from terrorists within and outside America, surely an "easy going" MIT bright fellow or a son of a wealthy Nigerian elite aren't likely to be the topmost thing on their priority, No?

Show me another Police Force, anywhere in the world, that could come the tiniest bit closer to keeping 313 million most hated population, from harm, everyday! Show me which force is more competent!

I don't know why people still choose to mess with the yanks. History has never been kind to those who did.

How can you tell that they aren't Arabs by those grainy pictures?

The crazy shyt with FBI is: If they have their pictures, they are going to find them, except these dudes drown themselves overnight in the middle of the sea.

Another hypothesis is that they may have left the country immediately after the blast. But to do that, they will have to pass through thousands of security cameras, leaving their footprints all the way. If however, they are still in the US, then the only two places they can hide is either in the ground or in the sea.

America has a long memory. It could take decades, but it gets its pound of flesh - probably more than its pound of flesh even - A head for an eye, a heart for a tooth!

You all should put your money where your mouth is.

If you know you are more handsome looking than the OP, put up your piksure or shut up!



No mind them @OP, everyone is just jealous of your shinning lips.

You ladies should seriously stop giving birth to gay babies. You create a helluva problem for us folks later on!

In the time it takes to read this article, Nigeria will have added 50 people to its population, or about 11,000 a day. While some see these new consumers feeding an engine of prosperity, others fear they will create a crisis of poverty and unrest.

By 2050, the global Population Reference Bureau (PRB) projects it will be the world's fourth most populous country, with 400 million people - just less than the projected figure for the United States, but with only a tenth of its territory.


While Africa's most populous nation has long had business leaders salivating over its potentially huge market, especially retailers of fast-moving consumer goods, it is not clear whether it can turn a growing population - already at 170 million - into a richer society with widespread higher living standards.

Nigeria is often used by promoters of an "Africa Rising" narrative urging investors to buy into the continent's potential to reap a "demographic dividend" from an expanding population of young people of working age.

Yet in the waterside slum of Makoko, where 100,000 residents huddle together in homes on stilts that spill right out into the Lagos Lagoon, few feel on the verge of prosperity.

"We're poor, and not much is changing," said Benedicta Hunkpe, as she stirred a cauldron of fish stew over smoking charcoal while children swept along the water in canoes.

Demographers fear a crisis of poverty and social upheaval could offset gains from the birth of new consumers.

The 3,000 naira ($19) a week that the 55-year-old Hunkpe earns from selling fish helps feed her eight offspring and 10 grandchildren; her house sleeps 40 people at a time.

"The money is never enough," she said. "I wanted my children to go to school to give them a better life, but I couldn't afford it."

Skeptics say services and the environment can't keep pace with a population rising at 2.4 percent a year, according to U.N. figures. They fear swelling numbers of jobless and uneducated youths threaten the stability of a country already suffering an Islamist uprising in the north and oil theft, piracy and kidnapping by criminal gangs in the south.

"If we keep growing our population at this rate, without also growing our means to sustain it, we are heading towards catastrophe," says Owoeye Olumide, a demographer at southwest Nigeria's Bowen University.

"We have to do something very fast ... or we face more poverty and agitation or worse - disease, hunger, war."

NIGERIA RISING?

Few investment funds share this view. Banks like Renaissance Capital believe African demographics will spur an economic transformation of the sort Asia has seen.

"Only sub-Saharan Africa is positioned to experience 15-20 percent growth in the crucial 15-24 age range over the coming decades, which will provide the plentiful labor force the world economy will rely on," the bank said in a 2011 report entitled "The bottom billion becomes the fastest billion".

This will provide huge opportunities for retailers and the auto industry, for which "demographic data alone suggest Africa will be overtaking China within two generations".

Nigeria is already a big market for basic goods, like the soap, beer or flour sold by PZ Cussons (PZC.L), Nigerian Breweries (NB.LG) and Flourmills of Nigeria (FLOURMI.LG).

And some are preparing for the next step up; South African supermarket chain Shoprite (SHPJ.J) has plans for 700 stores in Nigeria, up from only a handful at the moment.

Yet countries that reap the "demographic dividend" usually do so only once population growth starts to slow.

While fertility rates are crashing across Asia and Latin America - mirroring falls in Europe a generation ago - in sub-Saharan Africa they remain high. A 2012 World Bank study put them at five children per woman; in Nigeria, it is 5.6.

The United Nations predicts sub-Saharan Africa's population will double by 2045 to 2 billion. Nigeria will account for a fifth of that, and some fear city infrastructure, education and the job market won't keep up.

"RUNNING TO STAND STILL"

Sprawling around a lagoon and the Atlantic coast, Nigeria's commercial hub of Lagos - a steamy, tropical city of some 21 million people, according to its government - receives hundreds of thousands of new arrivals each year from rural areas.

The city grows by 672,000 people a year, state data shows.

"It's like we're running just to stand still," said Ben Akabueze, the Lagos commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, a sharply dressed, bespectacled man whose phone trills constantly with demands from state governor Babatunde Fashola.

"You roll out services, then so many more people arrive," he says. "Sometimes we can't quite cope."

Two thirds of Lagosians live in what are effectively slums with no reliable electricity or water. Most crowd into "face me, face you" accommodation squeezing whole families into seven- square meter rooms (75 square feet) sandwiched together along thin corridors.

Noah Semedi, head teacher at one of only two schools serving Makoko's tens of thousands, is lucky he can read at all.

"My dad has 22 children. I am the last born in the family, so I am the only guy that went to school," he told Reuters at the wood-hewn school, where 117 children in blue and yellow uniforms huddled around a jetty over the filthy water of the lagoon.

Residents of such areas are a long way from consumerism.

The 7UP (7UP.LG) that Owolala Elijah, 27, a fisherman, slurps at a village meeting was paid for by the local chief - he is rarely able to afford branded fizzy drinks himself, he says.

A Standard Bank study last year questioned Nigeria's potential as a mass consumer market. It showed that in some of the urban centers seen as promising, like Lagos, household incomes are far below the threshold for a retail boom.

It found 93 percent of Lagos households were in the poorest category, with monthly income lower than $390, compared with only 38 percent in Johannesburg.

Only retailers targeting "the bottom of the pyramid", like brewers or Swiss food group Nestle (NESN.VX), can tap such people, said Standard Bank's head of equity product, Matthew Pearson.

"(Retailers) ... down in South Africa were most surprised," said Pearson. "Received wisdom was that the middle class in Nigeria was a lot bigger than it actually is."

That suggests retailers like high-end South African supermarket Woolworths (WHLJ.J), which set up in Nigeria in 2011, face a small market for some time. Strategies targeting middle-income groups that worked in places like India and South Africa may not yet work so well for Nigeria, Pearson said.

DANGERS OF YOUTH

Official figures say absolute poverty rose to 60 percent last year, from 54.7 percent in 2004, worsened by rapid population growth. Some 100 million Nigerians live in poverty.

"With that kind of pressure of population, the way Nigeria has worked ... would be very difficult to repeat over the next 20 years without some big catastrophe happening," said Antony Goldman, head of Nigeria-focused PM Consulting.

The PRF says nearly half of Nigerians are under 15, and in the "Middlebelt" - a region of central Nigeria populated largely by minority ethnic groups - violence is common among youth gangs, with disputes over scarce land and water. Dozens have been killed in the past week in Plateau state.

In the Niger Delta, gangs of mostly unemployed armed youths steal tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day from pipelines.

And the biggest threat to Nigeria's stability - the north's Islamist insurgency - is driven by its desperate, unemployed youth population, said Mohammed Junaidu, a northern opposition politician and academic, adding that Nigeria had 12 million children of school age who were not in education.

"It's a combination of failures of governance and the ticking demographic time-bomb," he said. "They urgently need to pacify these youths or face more instability and terrorism."

ROOM FOR OPTIMISM?

The government has for decades tried to curb population growth through family planning, but struggles to influence a poorly educated population, many living in remote rural areas, that values having many children, officials say.

"Nigeria needs an attitudinal change," says John Adegbite, executive director of NGO the Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria, adding that only around 10 percent use contraceptives.

Yet those who take a bullish view of Nigeria's economic future argue that its growth can still eventually lift large sections of society out of extreme poverty.

Charles Robertson at Renaissance Capital says over a third of children go to secondary school, compared with just 7 percent in 1975. That is now similar to India 20 years ago, he says.

He also thinks that, as Nigeria and Africa become more prosperous, populations will naturally rise more slowly.

"As African countries get richer, birth rates will drop dramatically," he said - as has happened in India and Egypt. As a result, he says, U.N. projections for Nigeria's population by 2050 will be "out by tens of millions".

For demographers like Olumide, that is too complacent.

"Without a change of reproductive behavior, I can't see how we can slow population growth," he said. "We are just loading more people onto the table. Very soon, it's going to collapse."

($1 = 157.5000 naira)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-africa-summit-population-idUSBRE9380DH20130409