₦airaland Forum

A total lunar eclipse took place on December 10, 2011. It was the second of two total lunar eclipses in 2011, the first having occurred on June 15. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is positioned just right in its orbit to pass through Earth's shadow.

Asia, Australia, and other areas of the Pacific had the best visibility. European countries only saw a partial eclipse of a rising moon, while northwestern North America saw a partial eclipse of a setting moon.

The eclipse is seen over the Philippines despite of a cloudy and rainy weather over parts of Luzon and other areas. Photos are taken by groups of amateur astronomers from the Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP).

South America and portions of West Africa missed the eclipse completely as it happens at morning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2011_lunar_eclipse

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Le snub! Moment Sarkozy dodges Cameron's handshake with a swift body swerve after PM says Non to treaty changes
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 1:51 PM on 9th December 2011

[b]This is the moment that Nicolas Sarkozy demonstrates exactly what he really thinks of David Cameron's veto of the EU Treaty change.

After a gruelling all-night sitting in Brussels, Mr Cameron approaches the French president with his hand outstretched, as if ready to shake and show there are no hard feelings.

But not only does Mr Sarkozy refuse to acknowledge the PM, he actually does a swift swerve aside, waving pointedly to someone - anyone - on his right.

Mr Cameron, roundly snubbed, uses the rejected hand to give Mr Sarkozy a seemingly affectionate - if awkward - pat on the shoulder, and moves on, head held high, with a pained smile fixed to his face.


Mr Sarkozy's snub came after all-night talks in which the leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro, plus six others, agreed to a new treaty enforcing stricter budget rules seen as crucial to solving Europe's debt crisis.

Efforts by Germany and France to persuade all 27 EU countries to agree to treaty changes failed, in large part because of Mr Cameron's refusal to give up some of Britain's powers.

Mr Sarkozy laid the blame for the failure squarely at Mr Cameron's feet.[/b]

Speaking shortly before dawn, after what he called a 'difficult' night, he said: 'David Cameron made a proposal that seemed to us unacceptable, a protocol to the treaty that would have exonerated the United Kingdom from a great number of financial service regulations.'

Mr Cameron defended his stance.

'What was on offer is not in Britain's interest so I didn't agree to it,' he told reporters in Brussels.
'We're not in the euro and I'm glad we're not in the euro.'
'We're never going to join the euro and we're never going to give up this kind of sovereignty that these countries are having to give up.'

What was that all about? Cameron appears to be quizzing a sheepish President Sarkozy as they finally shake hands at a photocall to mark Croatia's signing of an EU accession treaty

An agreement on fiscal discpline is considered a critical first step before the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others would commit more financial aid to help countries like Italy and Spain.

Even after the long-awaited deal, watched by governments and markets worldwide, the European leaders have huge hurdles still ahead.

They are meeting again later today to work out what exactly their new treaty will contain and how violators of its strict budget rules will be policed. They want it written by March.

Britain led the push against the revised treaty tying all 27 EU countries to tighter fiscal union. The others that didn't sign on were Hungary, the Czech Republic and Sweden.

Mr Cameron argued that the revised treaty would threaten Britain's national sovereignty and London's financial services industry.
Most EU countries had pushed for an EU-wide accord to avoid a split, but Germany and France made clear that a deal among the 17 euro countries and whoever else wanted to join was better than nothing.

The governments signing onto the new treaty will have to agree to allow unprecedented intervention in national budgets by EU-wide bodies.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072061/EU-treaty-change-Nicolas-Sarkozy-snubs-David-Cameron-swife-body-swerve.html#ixzz1g3Ylrnr2

Ex-Occupier now holds Wall Street job
By Chris Knowles and Raelyn Johnson, CNN
December 8, 2011 -- Updated 1038 GMT (1838 HKT)


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Tracy Postert was fully committed to the Occupy Wall Street protests, she tells CNN

The biochemist says she had been looking for work, but couldn't prove it to naysayers

She showed up at Zuccotti Park with her résumé, and soon had a job offer

She now researches biotech companies for John Thomas Financial -- on Wall Street

New York (CNN) -- The occupiers of Wall Street have been portrayed by some as radicals, young kids without focus, ne'er-do-wells who'd do anything but get a job. But one woman used her time in at Zuccotti Park differently, and as a result she has gone from Occupy Wall Street to occupying an actual office on Wall Street.

In the gathering of the so-called 99%, Tracy Postert had no idea she would be the one who would be working for the 1%.

"There were some days it was a carnival, or lots of music, drumming, costumes, marching, protesting," said Postert, describing the weeks she spent demonstrating at the park in downtown Manhattan.

Frustrated with the economy, Postert says she jumped right into the Occupy Wall Street movement -- all in -- banging drums and washing paint- and dirt-covered sidewalks.

She sounds like the protester stereotype, but she isn't; she has a doctorate in biochemistry.

In the past few years, the biochemist said, she had found herself at times unemployed or underemployed. Until a few weeks ago she decided to change her protest sign to a "Job Wanted" sign and hunkered down in Zuccotti Park with a handful of résumés.

"Passers-by would say, 'Get a job,' and I didn't have a really good response to that," Postert told CNN.

"I wanted to say, 'Well, I'm trying to get a job,' but you know you can't really prove it." Postert said. "So I said, why don't I make a sign (and prove) that I am actively looking for a job?"

Within two days, she said, someone spotted her. They exchanged e-mails, and an offer followed.

That someone was a top executive at a Wall Street financial firm -- in other words, the enemy.

"It might sound like it's a fish-out-of-water story -- (round) peg in a square hole -- but it's really not," said Wayne Kaufman, a market analyst at John Thomas Financial.

"She was standing there. She had her sign, she had her résumé, and I just passed by her and I chatted with her just for a brief few seconds. And she was obviously an intelligent person," Kaufman said.

"The résumé spoke for itself, it was very impressive," he said. "So, I sent her an e-mail the next day and , she responded almost immediately.

"I asked her if she wanted to come in for an interview; she said yes. I told her what I had in mind for her according to her skill set, and the rest is just history."

For now, Tracy is researching early stage biotech companies for John Thomas Financial. She says she plans to take a test that would allow her to become a broker, and thus a full-fledged member of the 1%. So what are her former Occupy Wall Street compatriots saying?

"I have been accused of being a traitor to both sides. Some people are saying that the whole time I was at Occupy Wall Street I was really a Wall Street insider," says Postert.

She said she plans on keeping her sign. She pledged to protest again when she finds something she feels is worth protesting.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/07/us/occupy-wall-street-job/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2

Aging in office: U.S. presidents often outlive peers

By Julie Steenhuysen | Reuters – 4 hrs ago, Email

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Judging by their "before" and "after" photographs, U.S. presidents appear to age before our eyes, adding wrinkles and gray hair with each year in office.

But contrary to conventional wisdom, a few years in the White House do not appear to cut short the lives of U.S. presidents, and most live longer than their peers, according to a new study released on Tuesday.

"Just because they experience what would appear to be accelerated aging outwardly, doesn't mean they will die any sooner," said S. Jay Olshansky, a demographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Olshansky became interested in the subject earlier this summer when President Barack Obama celebrated his 50th birthday in Chicago, their shared hometown.

Media coverage highlighted "before" and "after" pictures focused on the 44th U.S. president's graying hair and deepening wrinkles, and repeated the common refrain that the commander in chief tends to age at twice the rate as the rest of us.

"That would imply that they died sooner than the rest of us," Olshansky said in a telephone interview.

He decided to test that theory.

Olshansky calculated how long U.S. presidents would have been expected to live based on their age and the year in which they were inaugurated and compared it to how long they actually lived. The four presidents who were assassinated were excluded from the study.

To estimate the toll serving as U.S. president took, he subtracted two days for every one day in office, approximating the effects of aging at twice the normal rate. At that rate, a four-year term would cut a president's estimated remaining lifespan by eight years.

NOT THE STRESS THAT KILLS

Olshansky found that 23 of the 34 U.S. presidents who died from natural causes did not appear to have their lives cut short by the stress of leading the nation. They lived longer than men of their same age and era - and in many instances far longer.

For example, the average age of the first eight presidents at their time of death was 79.8 years - during a time when life expectancy at birth for men was less than 40.

The reason is likely the effects of advanced education and better access to healthcare, Olshansky said.

"All of these presidents benefited from the trifecta of exceptional wealth, almost all were highly educated and all of them had access to medical care," said Olshansky, who noted that there was no scientific way to directly measure the rate of biological aging.

At the time of inauguration, the average age of presidents in the study was 55.1, which means they managed to avoid illness and infectious disease long enough to reach that age and run for office.

"They have survived the early perilous decades of life," Olshansky said. "That is not trivial."

He said the most recent eight presidents who died of natural causes lived an average of 1.8 years longer than the first eight. Olshansky attributed that finding to advances in medical care.

As for the before and after photographs, Olshansky said stress may increase the visible signs of aging, but it does not shorten a president's lifespan.

"It is a very clever way of expressing an important principle of what we call successful aging," Dr. William Hall, an aging expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said in a telephone interview. Hall was not involved in Olshansky's research.

But not all the presidents included in the study fared so well, according to Olshansky, who said 11 died earlier than expected at an average age of 62.1 years, compared to an estimated lifespan of 67.8 years. Many of these presidents held office between the years of 1841 and 1923, he noted.

"For some reason, in that window of time those presidents didn't do that well," Olshansky said.

http://news.yahoo.com/aging-office-u-presidents-often-outlive-peers-124048923.html

7 December 2011 Last updated at 15:59 GMT

Russia protests: Gorbachev calls for election re-run

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has said Sunday's Russian parliamentary election was marred by fraud and has called for a re-run.

"The country's leaders must admit there were numerous falsifications and rigging and the results do not reflect the people's will," he said.

Protesters were planning new rallies for Saturday as arrests in Tuesday's crackdown in reached 800 across Russia.

Key figures in the protest movement are starting 15-day jail sentences.

State TV channels have ignored the protests, giving coverage only to rallies in support of the government.

The centre of Moscow saw its biggest protest against the rule of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his allies in years on Monday, when several thousand people came out to condemn widely reported fraud at Sunday's parliamentary elections.

An attempt to hold a smaller rally on Tuesday was quickly broken up by riot police, while rival rallies by Putin supporters were allowed to proceed.

The big question now is whether the fledgling protest movement can maintain its momentum, the BBC's Daniel Sandford reports from Moscow.

While the movement began as a protest against the election results, most of the slogans have been against Mr Putin, our correspondent adds.

The Russian prime minister, who formally registered on Wednesday to stand in the March presidential election, has played down losses by his party, United Russia, which saw its support drop sharply to just under 50% of the vote.

Destination Revolution

OSCE monitors have said the polls were slanted in favour of United Russia, noting apparent manipulations such as the stuffing of ballot boxes.


A Facebook page is organising Saturday's Revolution Square rally Mr Gorbachev told Russian news agency Interfax in Moscow: "I think they [Russia's leaders] can only take one decision - annul the results of the election and hold a new one."

The former leader, 80, initiated democratic reforms in the final years of the USSR but rapidly lost popularity and influence after the emergence of the new Russian state under the late Boris Yeltsin.

"Literally by the day, the number of Russians who do not believe that the declared election results were honest is increasing," he said.

"In my opinion, disregard for public opinion is discrediting the authorities and destabilising the situation."

Messages on Twitter and other social media, used to co-ordinate the earlier protests, are fixing Saturday as the date for the next demonstrations.

Revolution Square, just 200m from the Kremlin, was named as the venue in Moscow.

Unconfirmed reports in the Russian media on Wednesday said the city authorities were planning to shut down the square's metro station of the same name "for repairs".

According to the Russian news website lenta.ru, the Solidarity opposition party has received permission from the city authorities to hold a rally on the square limited to 300 people.

However, the party's Facebook page "Rally For Honest Elections" had received nearly 16,000 requests to attend the rally as of Wednesday afternoon.


Police also broke up a rally in St Petersburg on Tuesday
Plans are being discussed for rallies in 69 Russian towns and cities, from Saratov on the Volga to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.

Nikita Batalov, a journalist for Russian commercial radio station Kommersant FM, has been blogging on his Twitter account about a pro-government rally on Wednesday on Moscow's Pushkin Square.

Quoting a mother, he said schoolchildren had been taken out of class and brought in for the event without parental consent.

In custody

Moscow police sources have told Russian media the number of arrests at Tuesday's opposition rally on Triumphal Square was 569, suggesting the gathering was much bigger than originally thought.


Hundreds turned out for Tuesday's Moscow rally Many remained in custody on Wednesday morning, Russian media said.

Some 230 arrests were also reported in the second city, St Petersburg, and 25 in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don.

Veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov, who was detained at Tuesday's rally in Moscow, was freed after three hours in custody, he confirmed on his Twitter account.

Two key figures at Monday's rally, anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and Solidarity activist Ilya Yashin, were both jailed for 15 days on charges of obstructing police.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16066061

Moshe Katsav, Former Israeli President, Enters Prison

JERUSALEM -- Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav entered a minimum security prison on Wednesday to start serving a seven-year sentence for violation, but not before defiantly accusing the state of Israel of "executing" an innocent man.

The day was a bittersweet one for Israel, both shameful because the former holder of a lofty office was going behind bars for such a heinous crime and at the same time, a point of honor because it showed that even a president is equal before the law in Israel.

Katsav, 66, was convicted last December of Desecrating a former female employee when he was a Cabinet minister and of sexually harassing two other women when he was president from 2000 to 2007. The former president, who repeatedly has professed his innocence, remained free while he appealed his case, but the Supreme Court upheld the conviction last month and ordered him to prison.

"They are sending an innocent man to jail, period," Katsav told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday night.

"In my case there is no proof – just version against version," he said. "You can't judge a person based on impressions ,  Some evidence, some proof, must be presented ,  In these cases you need to bring more evidence, more proof, witnesses from real time, someone who saw something, bring DNA,  there is nothing."

TV footage on Wednesday showed Katsav entering the Maasiyahu prison in central Israel, where he became the highest-ranking Israeli official ever to spend time behind bars.

Earlier in the day, Katsav looked agitated and overwhelmed as he ventured from his house in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi to address the hordes of journalists who had gathered there before he set off on the hourlong drive to Maasiyahu prison. In a brief statement, Katsav accused authorities of ignoring evidence that he said could clear him but predicted that one day, "the truth will come to light."

"The state of Israel is executing a man today on the basis of impressions, without real time testimony, without evidence," Katsav railed. "One day, consciences will prick and you will see that you buried a man alive."

In the absence of forensic evidence, prosecutors built their case almost entirely on witness testimony. Legal experts say the similarities in the accounts of victims who did not know each other likely led to the conviction, in which the judges accused Katsav of lying.

Immediately after reaching the prison, Katsav was put through the same paces other new inmates go through: registration, meetings with a social worker, intelligence officer and section warden, and a medical checkup, according to prisons service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman. Most of the time he will be able to wear civilian clothes like many other inmates do, she said.

Katsav has been assigned to a special section of Maasiyahu reserved for observant Jews and likely will share a cell with Shlomo Benizri, a former Cabinet minister convicted of accepting bribes, she added.

Inmates in the religious section are woken at 4:30 a.m., attend morning prayers and spend five to six hours in religious study. They have no access to television but can use a public pay phone. They can receive family visits every two weeks, beginning early next week, she added.

After serving a quarter of his sentence, Katsav could become eligible for short furloughs and even apply to have his term shortened.

Officials said security would be beefed up around the former president – both as part of a suicide watch placed on all new prisoners and to prevent other prisoners from harming him. Katsav's lawyers have expressed concerns that the distraught politician might try to harm himself.

Israel's presidency is a largely ceremonial office, typically filled by a respected elder statesman expected to rise above politics and serve as a moral beacon. That made the allegations against Katsav all the more shocking.

The case broke in 2006 after Katsav, still the sitting president, told police one of his accusers was trying to extort money from him. The lurid details stunned Israelis who had tended to see him more as a bland functionary than a predatory boss who repeatedly used his authority to force intimate favors.

The twists and turns of the case both riveted and appalled the country. In one memorable moment, the Iranian-born Katsav held a news conference to accuse prosecutors and the media of plotting his demise because he didn't belong to the country's European-descended elite.

Katsav reluctantly resigned two weeks before his seven-year term was to expire in 2007 under a plea bargain that would have allowed him to escape jail time. He then stunned the nation again by rejecting the plea bargain and vowing to prove his innocence in court.

He has said he did not regret that decision because it would have meant he confessed to a crime he says he did not commit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/07/moshe-katsav-prison_n_1133417.html

Putin's phoney election

What lies behind this weekend's sham parliamentary election
Nov 29th 2007 | moscow and tver

“MARIA”, a teacher in Tver, near Moscow, felt ashamed when she told her 15-year-old pupils to join a rally in support of President Vladimir Putin before this weekend's parliamentary election. The order came from the local administration, staffed by members of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. “I would not have lost my life or even my job if I had not followed the order. But I felt I could not refuse it, perhaps because I am not a free person. Ten years ago I would have told you my real name,” she sighs. Her pupils were given Russian flags to wave, but the sound system was so bad they could not hear the speeches. It was not until later that they learnt from television that they had joined in an “outburst of patriotic feeling”.

Tver was chosen because it is the land of Mr Putin's forebears, but similar “voluntary” demonstrations have been staged all over Russia. A local theatre in Tver hosted a council of pro-Putin groups. Anyone who is for Mr Putin is for United Russia, they decreed. Or, to put it the other way round, anyone who is against United Russia is against Mr Putin. When the president decided to head United Russia's party list, its poll rating jumped from 50% to 63%.

Yet Mr Putin is not even a member of United Russia. The party is no more than a vehicle. If the advertising banners hung across streets in every Russian town are a guide, most of the country will vote for their president on December 2nd, even though he is not up for election. Indeed, the exercise is not really an election at all. It is not about political competition and does not have fair rules. It is about confirming that power in Russia lies with Mr Putin, who has presided over an oil-driven bonanza for his country.

Only candidates approved by the Kremlin are allowed to take part. Besides United Russia, which could secure 70% of the vote, these include the toothless Communist Party (which may get 12%) and the Liberal Democratic Party, a clownish far-right party set up in the late 1980s with the help of the KGB. (Its party list includes Andrei Lugovoi, the ex-KGB officer accused of poisoning his former colleague, Alexander Litvinenko, in London last year.)

The results were fixed months ago, when the Kremlin changed the rules. To keep the opposition out of parliament, the Kremlin raised the threshold for seats to 7%, and banned small parties from forming coalitions to meet this requirement. The minimum turnout rule was abolished, as was the option to vote against all candidates. Regional parties and single-mandate seats that let in independent deputies were scrapped. Opposition leaders have been harassed or arrested and their financing blocked. Television has given blanket coverage to United Russia and dished dirt on all opposition. This propaganda has been so effective that, despite United Russia's refusal to participate in TV debates, 8% of viewers believe they have seen it win them. The opposition Union of Right Forces (SPS) has not been allowed to air an advertisement warning the country against a return to the Soviet past.


Why have a people used to Soviet elections, when they had only one candidate, found the Kremlin's machinations so palatable? One reason is that Russian economic growth, sparked by the privatisations of the 1990s and kept going by the oil-price boom, has brought rising living standards and a new sense of stability. This, as well as his control of television, has made Mr Putin genuinely popular. Even the teacher from Tver says her life has improved.

The sense of stability is based largely on hopes that the crises of the 1990s will not return. Opinion polls suggest that half the people do not expect anything from this election; most believe that elections serve only those in power. Most voters say the results will be rigged anyway. Only 5% of Russians are ready to protest. “Nothing depends on us,” says one woman. Yet she will vote for Mr Putin—who else? Even those who once backed the SPS will stay at home: what is the point if they are bound to lose? Worse, some 35% of Russians prefer the Soviet political system. Two-thirds of Russians consider the concentration of power in Mr Putin's hands to be a good thing. Most would like him to stay for a third term. The strength of the Kremlin lies in the lack of any resistance to it, says Lev Gudkov, head of the Levada Centre, an independent pollster. Indeed, the only danger for the Kremlin is the possibility of an embarrassingly low voter turnout.

To guard against that, Mr Putin recently gave a rousing speech at a stadium in Moscow, broadcast on every television channel. Standing on a neon-lit catwalk in a black turtle-neck jumper, surrounded by thousands of flag-waving Putin youths, the president said Russia was in danger from ill-wishing foreigners and thieving liberals. “Those who oppose us need a weak, sick state, a disorientated, divided society, so that behind its back they can get up to their dirty deeds and profit at your and my expense,” he said. “Unfortunately there are jackals inside the country who sponge off foreign embassies.”

The message is clear. Russia's enemies are the liberals who in the 1990s squandered its wealth, cut defence spending and led people into poverty. They are now the candidates and sponsors of the opposition. The security services and police took Mr Putin's words as an instruction. When the opposition gathered in Moscow and St Petersburg as part of the Other Russia movement, which has not been allowed to register for this election, many people, including journalists, were beaten up and arrested. These scenes, broadcast around the world, were not shown on Russian television. Russians did not hear opposition speeches; they were not told that candidates had been unlawfully detained by the police; nor that Garry Kasparov, leader of Other Russia, was forbidden to meet his lawyer and jailed on bogus charges.

Equally, Russian television has largely ignored angry anti-government demonstrations in Ingushetia, a republic next to Chechnya where a six-year-old boy was killed recently in a skirmish between Russian commandos and local militants. Three journalists and a human-rights campaigner who came to cover the protest were abducted from their hotel and beaten up. What viewers have seen instead were pictures of fountains in Chechnya and of polite policemen in Moscow helping old ladies and children.

The paradox is that the Kremlin would surely have won even had this weekend's election been free and fair. Its heavy-handed tactics betray the nervousness linked to the transition of power in any authoritarian system. A power struggle is clearly taking place within the Kremlin, as shown by the arrests of senior officials in different camps. Mr Putin needs to retain power after his second term expires next March, but at the same time to preserve legitimacy. It is not an easy task.

This is why the parliamentary election has been turned into a ceremony of approval for him. A score of 70-75% of the vote, on a turnout of 60%, as planned by the Kremlin, would strengthen his claims to continue to lead the country. If Mr Putin cannot stay as president because the constitution bars him from a third consecutive term, he should take power with him wherever he goes. Dmitry Peskov, his spokesman, is adamant: Mr Putin will not be president after next March. But his every word will still be awaited, his every written statement demanded by newspapers. A servile president handpicked by Mr Putin and elected with a majority of, say, 51% will be unable to compete with Mr Putin's “legitimacy”, says Mr Peskov.

Some Kremlin insiders think Mr Putin could make himself head of the powerful Security Council, whose functions may then be pumped up. Others suggest he could become prime minister, with extra powers, before returning to the Kremlin to replace the president, who could conveniently fall ill. The only problem of Mr Putin's system is that stepping aside even for a short time could be lethal for him and his cronies. And that is why Russia, despite the predictability of this election, feels like a country heading towards crisis.

http://www.economist.com/node/10217312

Russian parliamentary elections: rousing from a long slumber

If Vladimir Putin's popularity is on the wane, that of the party he created, United Russia, is in a nosedive

Editorial guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 December 2011 19.49 GMT

Vladimir Putin made it crystal clear what he expected out of yesterday's parliamentary election – a national show of loyalty. Parliament was no place for the opposition. He told shipyard workers in St Petersburg: "If someone wants to watch a show, then they need to go to the circus, the movies or theatre." This is akin to the Duma speaker's comment that parliament was no place for debate. Putin naturally thought he would get his way. To combat a boycott of the Duma elections as a popular protest option, he needed to ensure a respectable turnout. It came. It always will, if you tell every bureaucrat, every public sector worker, every regional and local government, student, teacher, policemen, soldier that their job or regional grant or piece of tarmacked road depends on it.

[b]Golos, an EU and US financed Russian vote-monitoring group, clocked up more than 5,300 electoral violations and put them on a map, kartanarusheniy.ru, before that was taken down yesterday by a denial of service attack. Also crippled yesterday were the websites of Ekho Moskvy, Snob.ru, New Times, Livejournal and anyone else wishing to publish real-time evidence about how the vote was being rigged in favour of the ruling party, United Russia. Golos, in particular, faced a concerted campaign of harassment because it showed it was serious. It had 3,000 observers in about half of Russia's 83 regions. On Saturday its director was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport for 12 hours and had her laptop confiscated. The Russian deputy ambassador to Berlin issued a grovelling apology when summoned by the German foreign ministry last month, after a respected German political scientist who had helped Golos was refused entry at the same airport and put in a detention centre, even though he had a valid invitation and visa. But it is all part of the same campaign. Putin compared Golos to Judas, which makes him, by extension, Jesus.[/b]

Putin has no serious rivals, except the growing national fatigue with the semi-authoritarian system he created. Even those who welcomed the leadership he provided to stabilise Russia in his first two terms of president are growing weary at the prospect of another two terms, when he will be re-elected in March next year. If Putin's popularity is on the wane, that of the party he created, United Russia, is in a nosedive. In elections in 2007 it secured a landslide majority of 64.3% of the vote or 315 seats in the Duma. That majority was enhanced by the sort of vote rigging which was out in force yesterday, but if that had been entirely absent, pollsters and independent political analysts say their natural support would today be about 30% – way below what Putin needs to ensure a majority in a quiescent Duma. As it is, three exit polls last night showed a marked drop in support for United Russia. A poll for Russian TV showed 48.5% of support, which would give Putin's party 220 seats, and two polls, from Vtsiom and the Fom group gave United Russia 48% and 46% respectively.

If confirmed, this spells trouble. United Russia should lose its constitutional majority. Even after the bullying and blatant manipulation (election posters for United Russia bore an uncanny resemblance to the official posters of the Central Election Commission) ordinary voters were unwilling to play ball. It is not as if they trust anyone else. Anyone who thinks that the forlorn band of Yeltsin-era democrats will benefit from this is deluding themselves. Russians will take a long time to forget who created the system that turned government into a massive takeaway. But an electoral embarrassment could herald the breakup of United Russia as a party. It is quite possible for Putin to turn on his own creation. Although he was their presidential candidate, he himself never became a member. In the words of Marx (Groucho) he never joined a club that would have him as a member. The Duma should become an unexpectedly lively place.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/04/russia-elections-putin-editorial

Toll Collection on Lekki-Epe Expressway Begins Dec 18
02 Dec 2011

By Benneth Oghifo

Lagos State government Thursday said it would commence payment of tolls by motorists plying the Eti-Osa, Lekki-Epe Expressway redeveloped by Messrs Lekki Concession Company (LCC) from December 18.

The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba, at a joint press conference with LCC’s team in Lagos, said government decided to go ahead with toll collection because some of the alternative routes created for people who don’t want to patronise the LCC facilities are now ready for use.

The state government had stayed action on the collection of tolls on the roads in the wake of demonstration and criticisms by stakeholders on the Lekki corridor.

However, Managing Director/ CEO of LCC, Mr. Opuiyo Oforiokuma, who expressed the readiness of his company to ensure road users get full benefits for their money said road users, can avoid the payment of tolls by using alternative routes created by the state government. Such people, according to him, can still make use of the expressway by gaining access to the road through some of the adjacent roads, which funnel into the expressway.

For instance, Toll Plaza 1 has an alternative road through Oniru Arch-City David Road-Market and back on the expressway. Dismissing the gale of criticisms that greeted the earlier attempts to introduce tolls on the road, Oforiokuma said infrastructure projects are capital intensive, adding that it is difficult for any government to meet all the infrastructural needs of the people. “It is about time we recognise the need to pay for what we use, infrastructure is not free,” he said.

According to him, the company process transactions in excess of 2 million month, explaining that the highest peak period of traffic flow recorded was in October when the figure hit approximately 8,000 vehicles. He said the delay over the project was caused by demographical challenge in the state.

To make things easy for users of the road, the LCCI chief said facilities like towing vehicle service, ambulance and a good security arrangement have been put in place by his company.

The state governor had earlier in the year explained that the initial resistance to the commencement of toll collection on the Eti-Osa, Lekki-Epe Expressway means that the state would have to part with N4 billion for this year, which could have been used to provide more schools, inner roads, hospitals and social needs in Eti-Osa, Ibeju-Lekki and Epe areas.”

He described the development as a sensible and necessary decision in order to maintain the much-needed and growing investor confidence in the Lagos economy, maintain credit rating and reduce credit risk.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/toll-collection-on-lekki-epe-expressway-begins-dec-18/104106/

Police charge Liato over K2.1bn

By Times Reporter

POLICE in Lusaka have charged and arrested former Labour Minister, Austin Liato, for receiving stolen property.

Mr Liato, who has remained in police custody since Tuesday after turning himself in, will appear in court today. Investigative wings had no knowledge of Mr Liato’s whereabouts since last week when a combined team of officers from the[b] Zambia Police, Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) unearthed K2.1 billion cash from his farm in Mwembeshi area.[/b]

Zambia Police Service spokesperson, Elizabeth Kanjela, confirmed Mr Liato’s arrest in an interview yesterday, saying the charge on the former minister was in accordance with provisions of Section 318 (1) of the Penal Code of the Laws of Zambia.

“Yes the former minister who was detained at Woodlands Police last night, was this afternoon officially arrested and charged with receiving stolen property which is contrary to Section 318 (1) of the Penal Code of the Laws of Zambia. He is expected to appear in court tomorrow,” said Ms Kanjela.

Security wings have been carrying out investigations, including interviewing a number of people, since the discovery of the money which was stashed underground.

Mr Liato was driven to his house in Kalundu soon after reporting at the Task Force offices on Tuesday where officers searched the premises for more than two hours.

The party later drove to Lusaka’s Woodlands Police Station where Mr Liato was detained awaiting charges. On Tuesday, Ms Kanjela had indicated that Mr Liato would only be charged and arrested after further investigations and once it had been established that there was reason for the police to do so.

Mr Liato, who has since been disowned and suspended as national executive committee member by his party, the MMD, arrived at the Task Force offices in the company of his lawyer, Nellie Mutti, Joseph Mulyata, family members and friends.

On Friday last week, a combined team from the Zambia Police Service, ACC and DEC raided Mr Liato’s farm at number 44, Mpampa Settlement Scheme in Mwembeshi area where they conducted an operation and dug out K2.1 billion cash.

http://www.times.co.zm/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3270:police-charge-liato-over-k21bn&catid=46:other-headlines

Zambia’s former labour minister pleads not guilty
2011-12-01 15:13


Lusaka – Zambia’s former labour minister, Austin Liato, pleaded not guilty today to receiving stolen property after authorities found more than $400 000 (R3 266 358) in cash buried on his farm.

His arrest yesterday came one month after Zambia’s newly elected president, Michael Sata, vowed to weed out corruption.

Authorities last week found 2.1 billion kwacha (R3 397 012) in cash buried on his farm, but have given no indication as to how Liato might have obtained the money.

“I understand the charge and I plead not guilty,” Liato told the court today.

He was granted bail of 50 million kwacha and ordered to return to court on December 22.

His appearance caused scuffles at the court as his relatives beat photographers who tried to take his picture.

Since taking office after his September election victory, Sata has moved to strengthen anti-corruption legislation by putting back on the books the offence of abuse of office, which the previous government had repealed.

One of Sata’s first acts was to sack the head of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Godfrey Kayukwa, who had been accused of bungling graft investigations and was perceived as close to former president Rupiah Banda.

- Sapa - AFP

http://www.citypress.co.za/International/News/Zambias-former-labour-minister-pleads-not-guilty-20111201

Former “sheriff of the year” arrested and sent to jail named after him

By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow – 22 hrs ago


Every civil servant wants to experience his or her legacy firsthand--but not the way that onetime Arapahoe Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. has. Sullivan, a nationally renowned law enforcement leader, was arrested on drug charges and is now being detained in the Denver area jail that bears his name.

Local news station CBS4 began an investigation of Sullivan last month on a tip that he had agreed to meet a male informant, providing drugs in exchange for sex. He was subsequently arrested by the South Metro Drug Task Force and is currently being held on a $250,000 bond.

And in an incredible twist of fate, Sullivan now cooling his heels at The Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. Detention Facility, named in his honor.

"The allegations of criminal behavior involving Pat Sullivan are extraordinarily disturbing," said Grayson Robinson, Arapahoe County's current sheriff. "While the arrest of the former sheriff is very troubling, no one, and particularly a former peace officer, is above the law. This is the most shocking thing I've ever been involved with."

Sullivan, 68, has been retired for nine years, but had been serving as director of safety and security for Cherry Creek Schools.

"This is a very sad time for the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office and our community," Robinson said. The CBS4 report also found that for several years Sullivan has posted bond for multiple suspects held in drug cases at jail facilities across the state.

As recently as 2008, Sullivan was an active participant in state and local methamphetamine task forces, helping Colorado draft a plan to deal with the surge in meth-related crime.

In 1995 President Bill Clinton named Sullivan to the National Commission on Crime Prevention and Control. According to a 1995 White House news release, Sullivan was a consultant to U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime and served on two advisory councils affiliated with the Department of Justice.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/former-sheriff-arrested-sent-jail-named-him-153854700.html

CCECC gets approval to source for $500m loan to finance Abuja light rail project
On November 30, 2011 · In News , Tweet
By Favour Nnabugwu

Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, has given Chinese construction firm, CCECC, the go ahead to source for $500million loan in their country to finance Abuja light rail project which is being delayed by lack of funds.

CCECC’s Project Manager, Engr. Charles Chang, lamented that lack of fund was the cause of the major delay in completing the project, stressing, however, that his firm was committed to the job.

Chang told the Minister who was represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Project Monitoring and Evaluation, Hon. Ahmed Wadada, at the project site in Abuja yesterday, that the project was very important to the government.

He explained that diplomatic processes had so far been responsible for the delay in sourcing for the $500million from his home country, adding that the firm would return to site and speed up work as soon as they got the funds.

The Chinese firm had only been able complete 26 culverts of the 96 agreed in the contract, while only 35 kilometres of 65km had already been completed.

Wadada also said the FCTA was committed to the early completion of the project, in line with President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda.

Senator Smart Adeyemi, Senate Committee on FCT, had during a recent tour of the project site, said: “I am very satisfied with the level of progress on the sight, and hopefully, the project will take off on schedule.

“Our people have suffered in an attempt to get to work. As representatives of the people, it is our duty to ensure that we alleviate the sufferings of the poor masses and this light rail is one of the measures government is working out to address that.”

He said the committee had directed the FCT administration to revoke the licence granted six transport operators who, after collecting the licence, failed to deliver.

He said “there are competent operators that have the resources to deliver, and we think there is no reason why some people would be granted licences and they would not perform. The committee would not tolerate that type of situation and we have told the officials in charge.”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/11/ccecc-gets-approval-to-source-for-500m-loan-to-finance-abuja-light-rail-project/

ICPC members sworn in without chairman •He has questions to answer -Jonathan •How his inauguration was differed •President warns NDDC members against pilfering funds

Written by Taiwo Adisa and Leon Usigbe, Abuja
Wednesday, 30 November 2011


AS exclusively reported by the Nigerian Tribune, on Tuesday, President Goodluck Jonathan, on Tuesday, failed to swear in the designated chairman of the Board of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr Francis Elechi, because of pressure from concerned Nigerians, who are kicking against his appointment for the position.

At the scheduled ceremony  for the new chairman and members of the commission at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Jonathan shocked his audience by revealing that Elechi, though not dropped, would not be sworn in until allegations raised against him by unnamed callers to the president were investigated.

While the president swore in the members of the board and announced the appointment of one of them, Mr Nta Ekpo, as acting chairman, he explained that Elechi, who is from Rivers State could not be sworn in as a result of “disturbing calls,” he received.

Jonathan said “the chairman couldn’t follow the oath taking this morning, (yesterday) because from Wednesday last week, I started receiving disturbing calls and reports. And [for] a body like INEC, ICPC and EFCC, the president should be very careful about the opinions of people.”

According to him, “a minister can come in and go the next day, but INEC, EFCC and ICPC, you cannot gamble with them, and that is why when we were to inaugurate

the board of INEC, the same thing happened. There were protests that there were some PDP members. To make sure that people had a proper perception of INEC and to make sure that the perception is correct, we dropped those people.”



The president was quick to point out that Elechi had not been dropped, even before he was sworn in. He explained that he needed to be sure that the appropriate person had been appointed.

“I am not saying we are going to drop the chairman, but we are going to look into the reports we have and re-confirm,” he said, adding, “we do not do anything that will bring any stain to any of these bodies, no matter how painful [the tension] is to anybody.

“So the chairman is not taking his oath of office today, the SGF [Secretary to the Government of the Federation] will formally write a letter. But Nta Ekpo will act until we sort out the issue of the chairman. He will get a letter from the secretary of the government once we leave here.”


[b]Jonathan, who also swore in an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)  commissioner from Ebonyi State, Lawrence Nwuruku, congratulated the new appointees on their appointment and on  their new responsibilities, saying that “both ICPC and INEC are extremely sensitive bodies that you are not only watched by Nigerians but also by the whole international community.”

He stressed that as a result of their new positions they had ceased to be ordinary people as the searchlight would now be beamed on their actions.

“The moment you travel out of this country, they will be beaming searchlight on you. That is the cross all of us have to carry until you leave the board. For INEC, we welcome you on board. I charge you to work with the chairman to ensure that subsequent elections are even better than what we had in April this year,” the president remarked.

Jonathan reminded them of the sensitive nature of their assignments and  buttressed his point by saying “I remember after the elections when I travelled out, some of the world leaders, who chatted with me said, ‘Jonathan, we are very happy with the elections you conducted in Nigeria, but the remaining thing is corruption.’”

He added that “yes, we have done well in election, but until the monster called corruption is dealt with in this country, we will still not get our appropriate place in the comity of nations. So, ICPC and EFCC are all bodies that must work day and night. That is why we took pains to select you. We believe that you will work very hard to complement what the EFCC is doing to bring down corruption.

“Please, that is the only thing that you will do that Nigerians, both at home and abroad, will be able to move with dignity and pride wherever they go.”[/b]


Members of the board of ICPC sworn in were:  Ekpo Nta; Alhaji Ado Bayero; Julie Onum Nwariku; Professor Olu Aina and Isa Ozi Salami.



However, what happe-ned to Elechi confirmed the story in the Nigerian Tri-bune of Tuesday, which indicated that his inaugu-ration ws threatened.

Sources had said on Monday that a number of intelligence groups had indicated that Elechi was a politically exposed person (PEP).

It was learnt that Elechi was excused by security men at the gate of the Presidential Villa and was asked to come back later in the day.

It was, however, confir-med on Tuesday that the government, in suspending Elechi’s inauguration, liste-ned to submissions of local and international anti-graft insiders who probed into his personality.

Sources confirmed that the new enquiry ordered by the president would be carried out by top security chiefs who will be provided the barometers.

Meanwhile, President Jonathan has warned mem-bers of the newly constituted board of Niger Delta Deve-lopment Commission (NDDC) against stealing its funds to further their indi-vidual political ambitions.

Speaking at the inaugu-ration of the board in the State House, on Tuesday, he advised them to learn from the mistakes of their prede-cessors and avoid playing politics with their jobs.

According to him, “the past board was camping all kinds of criminals in hotels in the name of helping politicians. If I hear that, I will be very angry with you.

“Before this time, any-body who gets into NDDC wants to be governor of a state. I am beginning to see fight between actors in the NDDC and their states. This time round, we feel that we have to select people who we don’t know their political interests, because we want people who will go and develop the place.

“The day you feel you want to be the governor of your state or a senator, please let us know early enough, so that you can leave NDDC and pursue your political career. You can’t combine the two, because it is a sensitive body.”

He warned that “I don’t want to hear of NDDC camping political thugs in Hotel Presidential in Port Harcourt or any other hotels in Port Harcourt. It has happened over the period and I will no longer accept it.”

Jonathan reminded them that Niger Delta issues were not just Nigerian issues, but issues of global interest, with high expectations.

In his remark, the chair-man of the new board, Dr Tarilah Tebepah, assured President Jonathan that its members would work together as a team, to meet the expectations of Nigerians, especially the people of the Niger Delta.

Other members of the board are Mr Edward Orubo; Dr Christian A. Obo; Dr Ibitamuno Aminigo; Chief Solomon Ogba; Mr L.E.J. Konboye; Mr Imaobong Johnson; Mr Edikan Eshett and Mr Aloysius Nwagboso.

The board also has Mr Omogbemi Oladele; Mr Peter Ezeobi; Mr Dominic Aqua Edem; Mr Osabon Imaru; Mr Joe Jakpa; Senator Garba Yakubu Lado; Rima Sha-wulu Kwewum; Senator Tunde Ogbeha; Minister of State (Finance) and Minister of Environment as members.


http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/front-page-news/32070-icpc-members-sworn-in-without-chairman-he-has-questions-to-answer-jonathan-how-his-inauguration-was-differed-president-warns-nddc-members-against-pilfering-funds

2 NY students surrender in exam cheating scandal
APBy FRANK ELTMAN | AP – 9 hrs ago

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — T[b]he last of 20 students accused in a college entrance exam cheating ring in an affluent New York suburb surrendered to authorities on Monday.[/b]

Michael Pomerantz, 18, and an unidentified teenager turned themselves into Nassau County prosecutors before being taken to district court for arraignment. Pomerantz is one of five current or former students at Great Neck-area public and private high schools charged with accepting payments of between $500 and $3,600 to impersonate other students on SAT and ACT college entrance exams.

A longtime critic of the testing system notes that Nassau County is one of the few municipalities to file criminal charges in a school cheating scandal.

Pomerantz was facing felony charges including scheming to defraud, falsifying business records and criminal impersonation. He pleaded not guilty and was released without bail. His next court date was scheduled for Jan. 5. His attorney did not immediately respond to a call for comment.

Pomerantz and the other four face up to four years in prison if convicted.

Fifteen other students, including one who surrendered Monday, are facing undisclosed misdemeanor charges for having others stand in for them and take the college exams. Prosecutors say they are barred from identifying those 15 because they are being prosecuted as juveniles. Authorities say they can't even contact the students' colleges to inform them of the cheating allegations because of privacy laws.

Also Monday, a spokesman for District Attorney Kathleen Rice said that the case against[b] Samuel Eshaghoff, 19, the first of the five students arrested as alleged impostors[/b], was postponed Monday pending a possible grand jury investigation. The spokesman, John Byrne, would not elaborate.

Eshaghoff, a student at Emory University in Atlanta, has pleaded not guilty.

The scandal, which erupted in September, has prompted a review by a state Senate subcommittee on higher education. The panel held a hearing last month where it received assurances from The College Board and Educational Testing Service that a review of security procedures surrounding the tests was under way.

The ETS, which administers the SAT on behalf of the Princeton, N.J.-based College Board, said former FBI director Louis Freeh has been retained to offer recommendations on enhanced security. There was no indication on when recommendations would be made.

Bernard Kaplan, principal at Great Neck North High School is among those suggesting that digital photographs of each student be taken when they arrive to take the exams. Great Neck North is where the scandal first surfaced in the spring after faculty members looked into rumors that students had paid someone to take the SAT for them.

Authorities were particularly dubious after hearing that Eshaghoff allegedly stood in for a female student on one of the exams.

In testimony before the Senate subcommittee last month, Kaplan noted that all proctors require of a student arriving to take a test is a photo ID, "which any fifth grader with a computer can make." He also argues that the current system that allows students to take the SAT at a location other than their "home" school should be abolished.

He said the students implicated in the scandal all went to schools where they would not be recognized by faculty to take the exams. He said about 150 students who don't attend Great Neck North went to the school on a Saturday in the spring for an SAT exam.

"The others all had some sort of picture ID, but anyone of those could be completely made up or forged, and we would have no way of knowing and neither does ETS. The proctors take a look, it says Joe Schmoe from Hoover High School with his picture and that's that.

"It is ridiculously easy to take the test for someone else."

Defense attorneys for some of the students have questioned whether the courts are the proper venue for students suspected in the cheating scandal. FairTest, a group critical of standardized testing, "is aware of no other current case in which a district attorney is pursuing criminal charges," said spokesman Bob Schaeffer. He cited a 1992 case in Maryland, where a student was sentenced to six months for having a friend substitute for him on an SAT exam.

A spokesman for District Attorney Thomas Spota in neighboring Suffolk County, on Long Island, confirmed that the prosecutor sent a letter Monday to school administrators in that county seeking any information on suspected cheating, although there was no immediate information that students there had participated in any schemes.

Rice, the Nassau County prosecutor, argues that the students need to be dealt with in the criminal judicial system.

"Educating our children means more than teaching them facts and figures. It means teaching them honesty, integrity and a sense of fair play," she said last week. "The young men and women arrested today instead chose to scam the system and victimize their own friends and classmates, and for that they find themselves in handcuffs."

http://news.yahoo.com/2-ny-students-surrender-exam-cheating-scandal-154422631.html

[flash=600,600]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDisMlwlSgk[/flash]

Office Of Sierra Leone’s Vice-President Caught In Illegal Timber Business

November 23, 2011

Journalists working for Al Jazeera English have uncovered corruption in the office of Sierra Leone’s Vice-President, Samuel Sumana. The detailed undercover investigation features in the documentary Timber!, broadcast at 22h30 GMT on Wednesday 23 November 2011 as part of Al Jazeera’s Africa Investigates series.

A 2006 European Union report identified logging as the leading cause of environmental degradation in Sierra Leone. According to the Sierra Leone Forestry Ministry, unless immediate action is taken against logging, all of the country’s forests – as well as the many endangered animal and plant species they support – could disappear by 2018. The President, His Excellency Ernest Bai Koroma, has made no secret of his concern about logging and his desire that it should cease. The government of Sierra Leone has officially outlawed the practice several times.

Emmy award-winning Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura discovered illegal felling of rare hard wood in several parts of the country. In a number of meetings with illegal loggers, Samura posed as a businessman interested in illegal timber exporting. Despite laws prohibiting felling of trees without license, he found illicit logging taking place in all the forest areas he visited. He also met local officials all too willing to supply him with illegal wood. In one instance a local Paramount Chief not only offered to sell him several tons of illegally cut wood, but also to introduce Samura to high level contacts within the Sierra Leonean government to help him breach the ban on timber exports.

In the second half of the investigation, Samura’s colleague, the multiple-award-winning Ghanaian journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, visited the Vice-President’s office undercover. Anas and a colleague, againposing as businessmen, met with His Excellency The Vice-President Samuel Sumana and two of his friends, who claimed to be official advisors.

Later the two men, Alex Mansaray and Momoh Konte, sought and accepted cash payments from the ‘businessmen’, which they claimed would help secure the Vice-President’s support for a timber export business that the undercover reporters wished to establish.

Vice-President Sumana later admitted to Al Jazeera that he knew the men but said their claims to be his advisors were false and that he hadn’t received any money solicited by them on his behalf.

Of one attempt by Alex Monsaray to extract $50,000 from the undercover team, Vice-President Sumana said, “Alex was acting solely on his own accord without any prior discussion with me.”

His statement did not explain how Mansaray and Konte came to be using his office to secure bribes in the first place.

Commenting on the outcome of the investigation, Samura said, “As in many parts of Africa, timber has become the new diamonds. The country’s forests are at risk of being completely wiped out. For unscrupulous foreign investors their ultimate goal is getting their wood and making maximum profit. For the corrupt Sierra Leoneans, it’s about lining their pockets without any care for the future consequences for the innocent people who will have to pay the price.”

Timber! is the third of six investigations in the Africa Investigates series that puts flesh on Al Jazeera’s ambition to give voice to the voiceless. In a world-first, Africa Investigates gives some of Africa’s best journalists the opportunity to pursue high-level investigative targets across the continent – using their unique perspective and local knowledge to put corruption, exploitation and abuse under the spotlight.

http://vibeghana.com/2011/11/23/office-of-sierra-leones-vice-president-caught-in-illegal-timber-business/

22 November 2011 Last updated at 19:49 GMT

Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai breaks wedding taboo

By Brian Hungwe BBC Africa, Harare
Morgan Tsvangirai hinted to his supporters at a rally over the weekend that a wedding was on the cards

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has broken a local taboo and married in November.

Culturally it is feared a November wedding will bring a couple bad luck.

But the PM wed businesswoman Locadia Tembo in a traditional ceremony on Monday, paying a bride price of $36,000 (£23,000) and 10 cows.

His first wife, Susan, died when they were involved in a car crash not long after he had joined President Robert Mugabe in a unity government in 2009.

The two leaders signed a coalition pact following the previous year's disputed elections, which were marred by widespread violence.

White wedding request
The first hint that Mr Tsvangirai was thinking of tying the knot came at a weekend rally of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in Chitungwiza, just outside the capital, Harare.

The MDC leader, 59, joked with the crowd that journalists were always writing about him having girlfriends.

Why Zimbabweans won’t wed in November
"But can a bachelor be denied that right?" he asked to a roar of laughter and applause.

Ms Tembo, 39, is a commodity trader and sister of an MP in Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party - a source of controversy among some in the MDC.

But most MDC supporters seem happy for their leader, saying that with elections tentatively set for next year, a presidential candidate will benefit from having the help of a wife and companion on the campaign trail.

On the streets of Harare there were dissenting views, however, with some people concerned about the issue of a November wedding, which is considered a bad omen amongst Zimbabwe's majority Shona group - of which Mr Tsvangirai is a member.

"As an elder he should have led by example - they are the ones that are telling us not to marry in November," one man told the BBC.

After paying the bride price, known as lobola, to Ms Tembo's relatives at the traditional ceremony in Christon Bank, about 25km (15 miles) north of Harare, Mr Tsvangirai reportedly requested a white wedding to follow the traditional ceremony.

It is this celebration that may adhere more to Zimbabwean tradition, with indications that it will be held over the Christmas holidays.

Jameson Timba, a minister of state in the prime minister's office, told the BBC that Mr Tsvangirai would "make an appropriate announcement on his marriage plans at the right time".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15845597

Businessman slaps Indian minister over inflation and corruption

November 24, 2011 |  8:25 am   

REPORTING FROM NEW DELHI -- It was the slap heard around India.

An angry Delhi businessman hauled off and cuffed India’s septuagenarian agriculture minister on the cheek Thursday, sending hyperactive news programs into overdrive.

Video of the incident showed the irate businessman, Harvinder Singh, giving Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar the whack as he attended a literary event. “They are all thieves,” Singh yells. “I will rip them apart.” Then as security guards grab him, he takes out a kirpan, the small knife carried by adherents of the Sikh religion, and threatens to slit his own wrists in protest. Pawar appeared to lose his balance, but quickly regained his footing before heading out of the hall.

Singh, who was subsequently arrested, said he’d come with the intention of landing the slap and was angry about rising prices and corruption. Four days earlier, he’d been questioned and released after kicking octogenarian former telecom minister Sukh Ram outside the court where he was sentenced in a corruption case.

Pawar later said the incident was silly and he didn’t make much of it.

While analysts and ordinary citizens decried the use of violence, some said it underscored the growing frustration Indians feel at price rises, weak government and a wave of corruption scandals. These have surfaced in the telecommunications, sports, real estate and mining sectors in recent months, purportedly amounting to billions of dollars.

“The reality is, people on the street welcome this,” said Abeer Vajpayee, founder of a small media production company. “In India, the general perception is that all leaders are corrupt, and you need to elect the least corrupt out of the bunch of thieves.”
Asked about Thursday’s incident, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare responded: “Only one slap?” to laughter, before clarifying later that hitting people was wrong.

A spokesman for the principal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party condemned the attack on Pawar before adding that the government wasn’t doing enough to stem price increases in gasoline and food.

“I don’t think it’s the right way to behave; violence begets violence,” said Debkanya Dhar Vyavaharkar, a Mumbai-based employee at a publicity firm. “But a lot of people are angry. People are throwing shoes at politicians, this is the latest of these.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/11/indian-minister-slapped-by-businessman-over-inflation-corruption.html

Photo: Indian Harvinder Singh looks out from inside a vehicle after being detained by policemen in New Delhi after slapping India's agriculture minister Sharad Pawar in the face, apparently to draw attention to corruption and rising prices. Credit: Associated Press

Yeah!

Anyone with an update on this?

Babasessy:
Initially, people in the ever-busy axis thought members of Boko Haram were on the rampage.

Describing the incident, a source told the Nigerian Compass: “It was a very loud explosion aboard the ship.

http://www.nigeriancompass.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8288:one-dead-as-explosion-rocks-lagos-&catid=54:nigeria-today&Itemid=594

It was a very loud explosion which shook the building (directly opposite the ship) I was in at the time of the incident. Many of the occupants of the building thought it was a Boko Haram attack.

Babasessy:
The incident occurred aboard a ship on Marina waters that is being worked on by an electric welder.

A  few minutes after the blast, the ever-busy CMS Bus Stop, extending to Ajah Motor Park, was deserted by commuters and motorists.

These our journalists sef!

Shouldn't that be "was?"

That place is Leventis Bus Stop not Ajah! Ajah is kilometers away!

Babasessy:
The incident occurred aboard a ship on Marina waters that is being worked on by an electric welder.

The explosion threw shrapnel that injured many people and damaged four cars at the car park of UBA.

The vehicles damaged in the incident included three Honda Civics with registration numbers, NQ 557KJA, LA510AAA, HT 478 EKY and a Hyundai vehicle.

Oke-Osayintolu , the GM of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA)  claimed  on radio last night that no vehicles were damaged.

You should have heard him boasting about how his men to contained the situation.

The guy is FULL of hype. 

When the building collapse at Maryland occurred, he claimed (on a radio programme I listened to) that his men were at the building and evacuated the occupants before the building came down whereas the occupants insist that they had left the building on their own before the emergency team arrived.

He was also recently enmeshed in a controversy with those displaced last year by the overflow of Ogun River.

Someone should please call the guy to order.

Most of the major newspapers have refrained from publishing the names of the senator and former ambassador.

The State Security Service (SSS), yesterday paraded the man who claimed to be the spokesperson of the deadly Boke Haram sect, Ali Sanda Umar Konduga (A.K.A Usman Al-Zawahiri) with the suspect alleging that a serving Senator and an Ambassador were financiers of Boko Haram activities.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/11/boko-haram-spokesman-fingers-senator-ambassador-as-sponsors/

A man who confessed to be a spokesman of Boko Haram has said politicians are funding the activities of the group, according to the State Security Service (SSS).
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/politicians-funding-us-says-boko-haram-spokesman/103363/

Ogar said his arrest confirmed the position of the SSS that some of the Boko Haram extremists had political patronage and sponsorship.

She said that Konduga confessed during investigation that he was recruited by a party stalwart in Maiduguri, and that it was the politician who gave him the pseudonym ``Usman Al-Zawahiri''.
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5748280-146/boko_haram_spokesman_arrested__.csp

Parading the suspect at its headquarters in Abuja yesterday, the SSS Deputy Director of Public Relations, Marilyn Ogar, said that the agency, in the course of its investigations, established that some of the Boko Haram extremists allegedly enjoyed patronage from some high networth individuals, including members of the National Assembly.              .

Ogar, however, declined to mention the name of the lawmaker said to hail from Borno State. She also parried questions on whether the Service had begun move to invite the parliamentarian for interrogations.
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68338:sss-arrests-boko-harams-spokesman-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559



[size=14pt]Let's hope this does not turn into another comedy show (a la NDLEA-Baba Suwe)![/size]

[quote author=kj_hova link=topic=808354.msg9608458#msg9608458 date=1321965551]Why does our security operatives always deploy "CRIME FIGHTERS" approach to these matters?
And why do NL posters always take to "WINCH WEY CRY NA IM KILL PIKIN WEY DIE" when addressing matters of Intel and security?[/quote]Classic!

Northern ACN moves to split party

And I am expecting someone to link this to OBJ and/or GEJ very soon. . .

Beaf:
Beaf looks into crystal ball, throws the gnarled cowries unto the chalk marks and studies the divine configuration. . .

Out of the shrouded mists forms a dreamy vision:
A split within ACN, the Middle Belt and North find living with Tinubu's sectional / ethnically bigoted politics impossible.
The party is rent down the middle! In the SW, the throbbing heartland of ACN opportunities for freedom from tyranny are spotted; half the SW ACN drifts into marriage with Bafarawa for protection; battles rage, blood spills, ACN in the SW splits. The Tinubu faction and the [b]'national' faction.[/b]It is an energy sapping battle that ends in entropy and decay.

Not a vision. A dream indeed!

Most of the major newspapers have refrained from publishing the names of the senator and former ambassador.

The State Security Service (SSS), yesterday paraded the man who claimed to be the spokesperson of the deadly Boke Haram sect, Ali Sanda Umar Konduga (A.K.A Usman Al-Zawahiri) with the suspect alleging that a serving Senator and an Ambassador were financiers of Boko Haram activities.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/11/boko-haram-spokesman-fingers-senator-ambassador-as-sponsors/

A man who confessed to be a spokesman of Boko Haram has said politicians are funding the activities of the group, according to the State Security Service (SSS).
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/politicians-funding-us-says-boko-haram-spokesman/103363/

Ogar said his arrest confirmed the position of the SSS that some of the Boko Haram extremists had political patronage and sponsorship.

She said that Konduga confessed during investigation that he was recruited by a party stalwart in Maiduguri, and that it was the politician who gave him the pseudonym ``Usman Al-Zawahiri''.
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5748280-146/boko_haram_spokesman_arrested__.csp

Parading the suspect at its headquarters in Abuja yesterday, the SSS Deputy Director of Public Relations, Marilyn Ogar, said that the agency, in the course of its investigations, established that some of the Boko Haram extremists allegedly enjoyed patronage from some high networth individuals, including members of the National Assembly.             .

Ogar, however, declined to mention the name of the lawmaker said to hail from Borno State. She also parried questions on whether the Service had begun move to invite the parliamentarian for interrogations.
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68338:sss-arrests-boko-harams-spokesman-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559



[size=14pt]Let's hope this does not turn into another comedy show (a la NDLEA-Baba Suwe)![/size]

honeric01:
I think ACN and CPC should be regionally strong and 1 year before 2015, they should come together, form a very strong alliance and then take the country by force. one thing they should not do is take any ex-member of pdp into their folds, pdp is good with sending spies around other parties to make them weak and indecisive.

On paper, this is brilliant.

The reality however is what we saw (or didn't see) happen between ACN and CPC just before the last elections.

The two parties are too ego-ful to get together!

http://tribune.com.ng/sun/index.php/front-page-articles/3262-tinubu-lied-on-acncpc-alliance-bafarawa-as-acn-leaders-storm-ibadan-for-ajimobi-adewusi-soji-akanbi-absent-lam-shameless-alao-akala

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/02/how-personal-ambition-ruined-acncpc-planned-alliance/

johnie:
They also described as undemocratic a situation whereby they are not consulted to make inputs that affects the party, even when they constitute the highest voting power.

Is this true?

Northern ACN moves to split party
BY CHIMEZIE ENYIOCHA

November 21, 2011 06:13PM


Following what they perceived as discrimination against them by the national leadership, the 19 northern state chapters of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), have threatened to form a splinter faction of the party if the current trend was not addressed.

NEXT gathered that the decision by the northern chapters of the party was not unconnected with the recent exit of former governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa from the party based on similar reasons.

The state chairmen of the party who met over the weekend expressed sadness over how the national leadership of the party sidelines them in some major decisions as well as starving them of funds to run the secretariats. They also described as undemocratic a situation whereby they are not consulted to make inputs that affects the party, even when they constitute the highest voting power.

A chieftain of the party, who spoke to NEXT on this matter and didn’t want his name mentioned, said the decision to form a faction within the ACN was borne out of the fact that the northern state chapters of the party were being schemed out of major activities carried out by the national leadership.

He said, “ACN is not owned by one person or zone, if it is regarded as a national party, the conduct and activities of members should exemplify such.”

But in a situation whereby a particular zone or individual tries to hijack the party or dictate the policies or programmes, such will spell doom for the party.

Although Bafarawa held a meeting with the northern state chairmen of the party, the former presidential candidate of Democratic People’s Party did not disclose the party he was decamping to, just as this medium gathered that he may likely form a new party which he intends to woo the aggrieved ACN members.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5748253-146/story.csp

Given the recent hoopla about the National Honours List, consider this . . .
---------------------

Labour donors '10,000 times more likely to receive knighthood'
By TIM SHIPMAN, Daily Mail
Last updated at 19:11 21 July 2006

Labour has sold honours for as little as £50,000 according to a new study which has been sent to Scotland Yard detectives probing the cash for honours scandal.

It also reported donors are 1,657 times more likely to receive an honour than those who have not given money to the party, a staggering 7,000 times more likely to get a peerage and 10,000 times more likely to get a knighthood than any other member of the public.

The report by the right of centre think tank the Bow Group found that anyone handing £50,000 to Labour had a better than 50-50 chance of receiving an MBE, OBE, CBE, knighthood or peerage.

That compares with one in every 2,857 members of the population as a whole who are recognised for their public service. The report found that peerages are for sale for around £1million a piece. It accuses Tony Blair and his chief henchmen of a 'blatant abuse' of the honours system that is 'bebasing' politics.

The study of Labour donations since 2001 shows that one in ten major Labour donors has received a peerage, one in four a knighthood and one in seven a CBE.

More damning is a clear correlation between the size of the donation given and the importance of the honour. Most donors awarded or nominated for peerages over the past five years gave between £1million and £2million. The Bow Group study found that a knighthood 'cost' £750,000 and a CBE £675,000, while the average for a peerage was £1,065,000.

That figure does not include the Sciernce Minister Lord Sainsbury, Labour's biggest donor, who has given the party more than £16m since 2001 when new laws made it necessary to register donations with the Electoral Commission.

The results suggest that Mr Blair is charging half as much for a peerage as David Lloyd George, the former Liberal Prime Minister who notoriously had a price list for the sale honours. Adjusted for inflation, Lloyd George sold peerages for £1.9m.

His bag man Maundy Gregory is the only person convicted under the 1925 Act outlawing the sale of honours, under which Mr Blair is expected to face questions later this summer.

His chief fundraiser Lord Levy has already been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives probing how four millionaires who made secret loans to Labour were then nominated for peerages shortly afterwards.

Sir Gulam Noon, Sir David Garrard, Barry Townsley and Dr Chai Patel had their nominations rejected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission when the financial transactions came to light.

The report's author Chris Philp said he yesterday sent the dossier to John Yates, the Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner, who is in charge of the cash for peerages probe, which is also considering possible conspiracy charges against No 10 officials. He said: "It is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Labour Party has been selling honours, including places in the House of Lords.

"This practice is utterly reprehensible. It debases and devalues the honours system, most recipients of which are genuinely deserving. It undermines the integrity of public life.

"It corrupts the independence and stature of the House of Lords. And it suggests a level of dishonesty and venality amongst our leaders that calls into question their fitness to govern honestly and in the interests of all in society.

"This blatant abuse of the honours system is symptomatic of Labour?s general lack of concern for standards in public life. This is especially surprising given that Blair came to office promising to be "whiter than white".'

The Bow Group report recommends that "distribution of Honours should be placed in the hands of an Independent Honours Commission, who apply published criteria."

Anti-sleaze campaigner and Tory MP David Davies said: "This latest evidence makes it blindingly obvious that the government have been selling peerages to the highest bidder. The only surprise is that they don't publish a price list and stick it on the Internet."

The Labour Party and Downing Street have repeatedly denied selling peerages. In an interview last week Mr Blair said: "Nobody in the Labour Party to my knowledge has sold honours or sold peerages."

He claims he is entitled to nominate Labour supporters as 'working peers' to bolster his party's position in the Lords. Lord Levy is also under fire after it emerged that his former secretary was awarded the MBE for working for charities he heads.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: "It takes approximately two seconds to see through this rehashed so called research - actually a set of statistically misleading inferences - undertaken by a Tory think tank."

CHANCE OF GETTING AN HONOUR
Labour donor over £50,000
Peerage 9.76 per cent
Knighthood 24.39 per cent
CBE 14.63 per cent
OBE 9.76 per cent
Total 58.54 per cent
Member of the public
Peerage 0.001 per cent
Knighthood 0.002 per cent
CBE 0.009 per cent
OBE 0.022 per cent

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-397018/Labour-donors-10-000-times-likely-receive-knighthood.html

Good for him!