₦airaland Forum

I pray this doesnt divide the team

woodcook:
People if there were to be internet and NLers during the time of Noah am 100% positive that this is the exact conversations that would have taken place even as the rain continues pouring and the water level rising.  

how u take no ? Lol

The city of Manchester completed a remarkable double on Saturday as its two football clubs won the Premier League and the FA Cup.

Manchester United's 1-1 draw at Blackburn wrapped up a record-breaking 19th league title, before Manchester City beat Stoke 1-0 at Wembley.

Wayne Rooney's second-half penalty earned United the point they needed to win a 12th Premier League title.

Yaya Toure's second-half goal gave City their first trophy in 35 years.

Earlier this week, Roberto Mancini's side's 1-0 win over Tottenham in the Premier League ensured City will play in the Champions League next season for the first time.

"I think it is amazing we have won this final to go with our Champions League place," said goalscorer Toure, who also scored City's winning goal in their 1-0 semi-final win over United at Wembley.

"It means a lot to the players but even more to the fans," added City midfielder Patrick Vieira, who came on in the final minutes to replace David Silva. "They have been waiting a long time for this."

Blackburn had taken a first-half lead through Brett Emerton and just before Rooney's equalising penalty, Martin Olsson hit the bar for Rovers with a header.

If Rooney showed no sign of nerves as he thumped his spot-kick past Rovers keeper Paul Robinson, who had brought down Javier Hernandez to concede the penalty, afterwards he admitted he had been "terrified" before taking his kick.

"I just had to compose myself, said Rooney. "After the year I've had, you know the ups and downs," he added, referring to the transfer request he submitted earlier in the season.

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson added: "Our away form has not been great, yet our home form has been absolutely fantastic - that's won us the title."

The Red Devils have dropped just two points at Old Trafford, though Ferguson's side have picked up just 25 points from a possible 57 on their travels,

United will be presented with the Premier League trophy on May 22 after their home game at against relegation-threatened Blackpool, who boosted their hopes of survival with a 4-3 win over Bolton on Saturday.

As Mancunians celebrated both in the city, Blackburn and London, Manchester City Council confirmed that Blues' victory parade would take place on 23 May.

United's parade celebrations will be held on 30 May - two days after Sir Alex Ferguson's side face Barcelona in the Champions League final at Wembley.

While Manchester's two set of fans revelled in their respective successes, Mancini insisted his players would not be drinking to toast their FA Cup win.

"No, they know that we should play in three days" said Mancini, referring to City's Premier League game against Stoke on Tuesday at Eastlands. "We have another two games and we want to try if possible to get third position."

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has said he is in a place where Nato bombs "cannot reach", in an audio message broadcast on state television.

He also condemned as cowardly an attack on his compound in Tripoli on Thursday.

Libyan officials said the strike killed three people. Nato officials said a command-and-control bunker was hit.

Col Gaddafi's statement came after Italy's foreign minister said he had probably been wounded in an air strike and was believed to have left Tripoli.

Two loud explosions rocked the capital Tripoli on Friday night, as jets were heard overhead, witnesses said. There is no word on any damage.
'Good health, high spirits'

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he heard the report that Col Gaddafi was injured from the Roman Catholic bishop of Tripoli, Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli.

"He told us that Gaddafi is very probably outside Tripoli and is probably also wounded. We don't know where or how," said Mr Frattini.

nairalanders cant stop being funny

Twin bomb attacks on a paramilitary force academy in north-west Pakistan have killed 80 people, police say.

At least 120 people were wounded in the blasts at the training centre for the Frontier Constabulary in Shabqadar, Charsadda district.

After early suspicions that one of the bombs was planted, police said both blasts were suicide attacks.

The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the attack to avenge the death of Osama Bin Laden earlier this month.

The al-Qaeda leader was killed during a US commando raid in the northern Pakistani town of Abbottabad on 2 May.

Friday's attack came hours before army chiefs appeared before parliament to explain their actions over Bin Laden's death.

At the closed-door briefing, ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shujaa Pasha is reported to have told MPs that he had offered his resignation after the Navy Seals raid, but had been turned down by the army chief.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad

The attack on this paramilitary police academy comes days after the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and in the wake of Taliban threats to avenge him. But regular and tribal police forces have been a target of Taliban militants based in the nearby Mohmand tribal region since 2007.

Together with its northern neighbour, Bajaur, Mohmand has been home to local militants claiming allegiance to an anti-Pakistan Taliban group called TTP. At the same time, the area is home to militant groups close to al-Qaeda's thinking, such as the one led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

After 9/11, Bajaur served as the first sanctuary for foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda. In May 2009, security forces in Mohmand captured five Arab fighters and had to fight a three-hour long gun battle with local Taliban to prevent them from freeing the Arabs.

But al-Qaeda does not have any military capability in the area and is dependent on support from local militants. Analysts expect these militants to use Bin Laden's killing as an excuse to launch similar attacks in coming days
'Deadliest attack'

The bombings happened as newly trained cadets from the Frontier Constabulary were getting into buses after completing their course.

The Frontier Constabulary is used to police the regions bordering Pakistan's tribal areas.

"Both attacks were suicide attacks," said the police chief of Charsadda district, Nisar Khan Marwat.

"The first suicide bomber came on a motorcycle and detonated his vest among the Frontier Constabulary men," AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

"When other [Frontier Constabulary] people came to the rescue to help their colleagues, the second bomber came on another motorcycle and blew himself up."

At least 66 of the dead were recruits, but there were also civilian casualties, officials say. A number of vehicles were destroyed in the blast.

"I was sitting in a van waiting for my colleagues. We were in plain clothes and we were happy we were going to see our families," Ahmad Ali, a wounded paramilitary policeman, told AFP.

"I heard someone shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great] and then I heard a huge blast. I was hit by something in my back shoulder.
Map of Pakistan

"In the meantime, I heard another blast and I jumped out of the van. I felt that I was injured and bleeding."

Lady Reading hospital in Peshawar has been inundated with casualties and doctors said they were fighting to save the lives of 40 critically injured cadets.

"It's the first revenge for the martyrdom of, Bin Laden. There will be more," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told the Reuters news agency by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Shabqadar lies on the border with Afghanistan, about 35km (22 miles) north-west of Peshawar, not far from the militant stronghold of Mohmand.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says the security forces have often been the target of such attacks as they fight the Pakistani Taliban across the north-west of the country, but Friday's bombing is the deadliest attack this year.
He adds that the Pakistani army - which has come under intense scrutiny and criticism over the Bin Laden affair - is likely to point out that this attack is an illustration of the sacrifices it has made in the "war on terror".


source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13385597

~Bluetooth:
Better dont laugh before ojukwu sends his amputated soldiers after you !

which soldiers ?

I dont blame the rioting youths one bit. Cos respect only goes to those that have earned it

Its better they are absent so atleast the eagles will break this unendin victory of the argentines over them

A Cambridgeshire boy has worn a skirt to school in a protest against what he said was "discrimination".

Chris Whitehead, 12, was angered by rules at Impington Village College, near Cambridge, that do not allow boys to wear shorts in hot weather.

The year-8 pupil said he researched the policy, found a loophole in the rules and turned up to school in a skirt.

Following his demonstration, the school has pledged to review the policy.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-13362700

Barcelona clinched their third Spanish La Liga title in a row with a 1-1 draw at Levante.

Barca moved six points clear with two games to go, but their favourable head-to head-record over second-place Real Madrid sealed their triumph.

Barcelona took a first-half lead after Seydou Keita headed home Xavi's cross.

But Levante equalised just before the break when on-loan Manchester City striker Felipe Caicedo took advantage of Gerard Pique's mistake to level.

It was only the 20th goal that the Catalan giants have conceded in the league this season but it could not prevent them winning their 21st league title.

Barcelona, who play Manchester United in the Champions League final on 28 May, pushed for the winner but despite going close settled for a point against mid-table Levante.


source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/13368064.stm

A house in the Chicago suburbs, made famous in the hit 1990 movie Home Alone, has gone on sale for $2.4m (£1.47m) in the US.

The four bedroom Georgian home provided the setting where eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, played by Macauley Culkin, outwitted a pair of bungling burglers.

The film earned more than $477m (£291m) at the box office and spawned a number of sequels.

Owners John and Cynthia Abendshien lived in the house during filming.

They said they had been approached by producer John Hughes' company about using their property in Winnetka, Illinois as a set for his previous film Uncle Buck, but had refused.

When a location scout returned 18 months later for Home Alone, they agreed to turn their 1920s built home into a movie set.

Mr Abendshien described the film's child star Culkin as "a nice, but quiet young boy".

The film was directed by Christopher Columbus, who went on to direct two of the Harry Potter films and Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief.

Producer Hughes - a prolific director in the 1980s - died of a heart attack two years ago.



source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13308157

The discovery of a bomb-making factory at Rafin Guza area of Kaduna by the Nigeria Police is one of the worrisome developments that characterised the just-concluded general elections in the country. The plant is believed to be the source of some of the bombs that rocked states in the North during the election season, and resulted in loss of lives.

Police officer in charge of electoral duties in Kaduna State during the elections, Mr. Haruna John, while conducting newsmen round the bomb-making site, said suspects have been arrested and are undergoing investigation.

Among offensive items discovered by the police bomb disposal unit are high-calibre explosives reportedly hidden in vegetable oil gallons. They are capable of causing massive destruction. Other items include special rifles, locally made pistols and dane guns and ammunition. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Hafiz Ringim, has constituted an investigation team to look into the matter. He charged the team to be thorough and diligent in the discharge of their assignment.

By all accounts, the bomb-manufacturing plant raises serious security concerns. It aptly signals a dangerous phase in our democratic process. Illegal manufacturing of bombs poses a great threat to security, and this discovery must not be taken lightly. The police authorities, including bomb experts and other related security agencies, should work hand-in-hand to determine and arrest the owners of the factory.

The discovery of the bomb-making site suggests that it may be just one of many such in the country that are yet to be discovered. Existence of such units may be the reason for increased bombing incidents across the country, especially the Northern states, which witnessed a harvest of bomb blasts before and after the elections. Security agents need to be diligent to uncover similar sites wherever they may be located in the country.

Unlawful production of bombs is a criminal offence. We urge the police authorities and other agencies to see the Kaduna discovery as a wake up call to take issues of national security more seriously. A situation where unknown persons set up arms manufacturing sites is a threat to the state.

More vigilance is required by all – the police, other security agencies and the citizenry. This is not the time to toy with matters that pose great danger to our national sovereignty. This discovery should be matched with a sincere resolution and proactive strategy to fish out the sponsors of the factory. Those behind the facility should be fished out, prosecuted and given the maximum punishment prescribed by law. This will deter other Nigerians from similar nefarious activity. Our democracy was hard fought for and won. The successful conduct of the elections, despite the odds, demonstrates the resolve of a vast majority of Nigerians to see the system succeed.

Anyone that tries to make a mockery of the quest for peace and security in the country through manufacturing of firearms and terrorism should be promptly checked. Illegal manufacturing of bombs and other munitions is a despicable practice that must not be allowed a foothold in the country.

source: http://sunnewsonline.com/webpages/opinion/editorial/2011/may/10/editorial-10-05-2011-001.htm

Manchester United, already the most valuable and profitable sports team in the world, is set to see its worth and profitability increase dramatically because of its success on the pitch this season.

The Red Devils, owned by the billionaire Glazer family, defeated Celsea 2-1 on Sunday, giving them a virtually insurmountable six point lead in the Premier League with just two games remaining in the season. In addition, ManU plays Spain’s Barcelona May 28 at Wembley Stadium for the Champions League title. Capturing both the Premiership and Champions League titles will mean roughly $85 million in additional revenue for Manchester United and would allow the club to post an operating profit (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of at least $170 million for the 2010-11 season, $22 million more than the previous season.

With commercial revenue also increasing, the value of the English soccer club will be in the neighborhood of $2 billion.


source: http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian/2011/05/09/manchester-united-set-to-post-170-million-operating-profit/

The recipient of America's first full face transplant has hailed his newly regained sense of smell as one of the top benefits of the surgery.

Dallas Wiens, whose face was burnt off after his head hit a power line in 2008, appeared in public for the first time since the surgery on Monday.

He said he looked forward to hugging his daughter and hoped to return to university following his recovery.

"I'm only 26 years old," he said, "and there's a lot of life left to live."
'Without a face'

At Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mr Wiens' doctors said he had yet to recover full nerve and muscle function but said they were confident he would improve.

"He was quite literally a man without a face," Dr Bohdan Pomahac said.

Dr Jeffrey Janis said the 15-hour transplant "represents a new frontier in reconstructive surgery".
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

To know that I could smell a rose or anything like that again, it really hit home for me”

End Quote Dallas Wiens

Mr Wiens has undergone about two dozen operations since the 2008 accident, which occurred while he was painting a church.

The transplant procedure was funded by the US military, which hopes the findings will help it treat soldiers with severe facial wounds.

"The face feels natural," Mr Wiens said on Monday in slightly muddled but intelligible speech. "It feels as if it's become my own."

Doctors were unable to restore Mr Wiens' eyesight and he appeared at a table wearing large black sunglasses.

But Mr Wiens said the recovery of his sense of smell and the ability to breathe through his nose had been the best parts of the recovery.

He told reporters the first thing he was able to smell after the surgery was hospital lasagne, saying: "You wouldn't have imagined it would smell so delicious."

He added that the reality that he had recovered his sense of smell struck him when a nurse brought a hibiscus flower into his room.

"The smell of life - plant life again - and to know that I could smell a rose or anything like that again, it really hit home for me," he said.
'In God's hands'

Mr Wiens said no words could describe the gratitude he felt toward the family of the anonymous donor, and credited his faith with giving him the courage to undergo the surgery.

"Even though I'm in amazing hands here, I'm also in God's hands, and that alone has been a vast help to me," he said.

He said the first thing he would do upon returning home to Texas would be to hold his daughter.

Asked to describe his goals, he said: "just to be the best father that I can be and to provide for my daughter in the best way possible, as well as to finish my own education."


source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13339512

Former African Footballer of the Year, Emmanuel Amuneke, is being considered to coach Nigeria Under-17 team, the Golden Eaglets.

Top officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have specially told MTNFootball.com that Amuneke or former international defender Nduka Ugbade has been proposed to assist the head coach of the Eaglets.

“The job of assistant coach for the Under-17 team is between Amuneke and Ugbade. The NFF technical committee have narrowed the job to the two former internationals,” a top official disclosed.

Former Barcelona winger Amuneke has for several years sponsored a youth club in Lagos, while Ugbade, who made history when he led Nigeria to win the inaugural Under-17 World Cup in 1985 in China, is working with an academy, also in Lagos.

Amuneke has bagged his coaching badges in Spain and has already worked as coach at former club Julius Berger as well as Ocean Boys in the Nigeria Premier League (NPL).

MTNFootball.com further learnt that a more experienced coach will head the country’s schoolboys, who have failed to qualify for the African Junior Championship since 2007.

NFF president Aminu Maigari has already hinted that all arrangements for a new Under_17 team have been concluded and a formal announcement as regards the new coaches as well as the date to kick off a nation_wide screening will soon follow.

CHAK SHAH MUHAMMAD, Pakistan — Chak Shah Muhammad, a small farming village of low brick houses, poultry farms and wheat fields, is reportedly one of Osama bin Laden’s last hiding places.
Bin Laden’s youngest wife, who was detained after the raid that killed her husband, told Pakistani investigators that they lived for more than five years in their last home, in Abbottabad, and before that spent two and a half years in this village of roughly 1,500 people, some 25 miles to the south.

But the feudal landlord who owns much of the land in the area, his tenant farmers and the local police were all in disbelief.

“It’s a joke, played on all of us,” the local police inspector said as he patrolled the village, checking on security after a horde of journalists turned up there looking for Bin Laden’s erstwhile home. “It’s absurd,” he said. He asked not to be named in keeping with police force rules.

“It’s impossible,” said Liaquat Khan, the main landowner in the region, whose ancestor Shah Muhammad gave his name to the village and founded the nearby town of Haripur. “It is a very open place, with 50 houses, and they are very poor people who live there,” he said.

While the surrounding district has been known to harbor militants, there seemed little sign here that this village could. There is no walled compound or well-protected house like that used by Bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad. Farmers live in simple houses, with a few rooms surrounding a courtyard where children play among the buffalo and chickens. Most everyone knows everyone else here, and many are related in some way.

“Everybody has a very small house and they are overcrowded,” said Muhammad Saleem, a 35-year-old chicken farmer. “There is no place to rent, and we could not give a room to a stranger.”

Mr. Khan insisted that the feudal system is such that no villager would host an outsider without checking first with him. “They give me daily reports from the village,” he said of his tenants.

The one anomaly in the village was the mullah’s house, which was a palatial two-story building with high columns and deep verandah — but uninhabited and still under construction. The mullah, Noor Muhammad, was not at home but his two sons said that it went against tradition to rent your home out to a stranger.

“There is only one stranger here,” said Muhammad Iqbal, 36, one of the mullah’s sons. “He lives in the next-door village. He is Roshan Khan, an Afghan shepherd, and he lives in a tent,” he said. Mr. Iqbal said the money to build the house had come from another brother who had been working for 10 years in Saudi Arabia.

Still, if Chak Shah Muhammad does not reveal an obvious hiding place for a fugitive, the town of Haripur, just a mile away, and the wider Haripur District, which adjoins Abbottabad, has harbored its share of militants.

Over the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 20 militants have been arrested in the district, the police say. Most of the militants were members of Pakistani groups, like Sipah-e-Sahaba, but at least one was a foreigner suspected of ties to Al Qaeda.

In May 2009, a local house owner went to the police to complain that his tenant, an Egyptian, had not paid him rent for three months. The police raided the house and detained the man, who was known as Abdullah al-Misri, and found a wealth of jihadist propaganda videos and other material. Mr. Misri had been living in the house, just 10 minutes from the center of Haripur, for four years apparently unknown to and unhindered by the local police and intelligence services.

The police, who believed Mr. Misri was a member of Al Qaeda, allowed his wife and four daughters to remain in the house but kept them under surveillance. Then later that year, gunmen attacked the police and tried to take the women away. Three policemen were killed in the attack and one gunman was killed. He was named as Ijaz, from Abbottabad, and was found to have connections to Al Qaeda.

As often happens in Pakistan, the state failed to prosecute Mr. Misri on any charges of militancy or terrorism. He was imprisoned on immigration violations and released on bail in 2010, whereupon he disappeared, along with his family.

On Saturday, officials in Haripur District did not seem to take the report of Bin Laden hiding here seriously.

The deputy police chief of Haripur, Najib Bhagvi, conceded that there were people with extremist sympathies in the district who could help such fugitives. Nevertheless he ruled out the chances that Bin Laden had lived in the area. “There is not a single chance of having such a high-level target here,” he said.

“If he was in this area, certainly the authorities should have been looking much more carefully,” said Omar Ayub Khan, a former state minister of finance who lives in Haripur. “But he came here from Afghanistan, and American forces should have been looking more carefully when he escaped from there,” he said.

Obi might have good plans 4 d state but he should watch it, he is fast loosing ground

One year after Nigeria’s nominees, P-Square and reggae artiste Prince Wadada, won at the 2010 edition of KORA, they are yet to be paid their monetary prize.

wadada

While P-Square was voted the Artistes of the year with a million dollars (N150m) in prize money attached, Prince Wadada won as the Best reggae artiste of the year plus twenty thousand dollars (N3m).

Jude Engees, elder brother and producer of P-Square videos who smiled home with the video producer award and twenty thousand dollars (N3m) in prize money is also yet to receive his monetary gift.

Apart from the money, the winners are also yet to receive a dime from the organisers of the awards after they were contracted to play at a command performance in honour of President Blaise Campaore whose country Burkina Faso hosted the controversial awards in Ouagadougou.

Prince Wadada, the first Nigerian musician to win in that category and who was at awards held at the Burkinabe capital, told Showtime that “it is an unfortunate situation.”

“The president of KORA Mr. Ernest Adjovi, assured us that the prize money would be remitted to us as soon as they tidied up loose ends after the awards. One year after, he is still tying up loose ends.

The last time I met with Mr. Adjovi was in Cotonou the Benin Republic capital where I’d played on the same stage with Akon and as usual it was promise as usual. But these days when I call, he won’t pick my calls,” the dread locked wearing musician lamented to Showtime.

Asked if his colleagues P-Sqaure may have been paid without his knowledge, Wadada said “It’s impossible for them to have been paid without my knowledge. I picked their awards on their behalf because they were not there on the night of the awards. We played together at the command performance and we returned to Nigeria together. So there is no way they could have been paid without my knowledge” he posited.

Is he contemplating legal actions yet? No he told Showtime.

KORA awards organisers are in court with the government of Cross-River State after they (organisers) breeched on agreement and venue of the 2009 edition by moving the venue of the event from Calabar the Cross River State capital to Lagos.

This also explained why the organisers moved the awards to Burkina Faso after all efforts to resolve the crisis failed

The rumour started like a wild fire and pretty soon, it spread through the industry. Female rap artiste Kelecch Ohia a.k.a. Kel was caught cheating in the examination hall, while writing one of her final papers, Micro Economics (Economics 512) papers.

In what seemingly gave credence to the story, Kel couldn’t be reached nor her aides available to debunk the very damaging rumour.

After weeks of laying siege for the Umuahia, Abia state-born musician, our vigil paid off when Showtime finally caught up with her.

“ Yes I heard about the rumour saying I was caught cheating during my final papers in the examination hall. I wondered where all those come from. I want to tell you that it’s all a lie. There’s no iota of truth in it.”

Speaking further, she disclosed that she’d been in the studio recording.

Our enquiry and attempt to make her divulge what was cocking met brick walls as she insisted, it was top secret.

“I will let the cat of the bag when the right time comes but I can assure that I’ve been in the studio, working on my next release. But I can’t tell you what I’m working on now because it isn’t yet time. I’ll let my fans know my next move at the right time.” She told Showtime.

Kelechi Ohia is one of Nigeria’s foremost female rapper who’s made a mark in the entertainment industry. Her hit songs ‘Wa Wa Alright and You Too Fine’ were among the songs that shot her into the limelight.

better, its now left for the court to decide

tank God we made it
Cameroon next to fall

Way to go 2 bobo

Mmhh

Six bombs in 3 days in one state. This is really absurd

Anambra things are peaceful and calm but the turnout is quite low

I will give it to the rich oil guys in the south southern part of the country

wat a loss 4 ghana