Yesterday, Catholics in Anambra state trooped out en massaa to protest against incessant killings, insecurity, injustice, corruption etc in Nigeria.

Watch


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqsIqFD2yKk

[img]http://ireporterstv.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/I-Enjoy-Killing-Anyone-God-Asks-Me-To-Kill-Like-Chickens-%E2%80%93-Abubakar-Shekau.jpg[/img]Last month, we Nigerians received some startling news from the army: Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed some 3,000 people in northern Nigeria over the last four years, “might have died.”
The government has provided no proof of this claim. No corpse has been displayed, and Boko Haram, whose name loosely translates as “Western education is sinful,” has been silent on the matter.
Just a few days ago, Boko Haram militants set up a roadblock in the northern town of Benisheik and shot at least 87 people to death as they were trying to flee.
This would not be the first time we had heard false rumors of his death — there was one in 2009 — and many Nigerians believe the announcement was merely a ruse, designed to provoke Mr. Shekau into making a public appearance or statement, in the hope of flushing him out.
The theory is not so crazy: Boko Haram released a video a few days before the August announcement that purported to show Mr. Shekau, but the government said the man in the video was “an impostor.”
Given that the United States has placed a $7 million bounty on his head — a figure that puts him well up there in the terrorists’ league — there is plenty of incentive to get hold of Mr. Shekau, especially for soldiers in the three states in northern Nigeria where the sect is believed to be holding out, and where a state of emergency was declared a few months ago.
Little is actually known about Mr. Shekau, except for his taste for killing. In a rare video clip released early last year, he said, “I enjoy killing anyone that God commands me to kill — the way I enjoy killing chickens and rams.”
Mr. Shekau’s ascent to power — and the concomitant increase in violence — followed the extrajudicial execution of the sect’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf, by the police in 2009.
This singular event, which was also videotaped, gave Mr. Shekau the excuse he needed to start bombing churches and schools in what quickly became a reign of terror.
But the virulence of his murderous campaign points to a much deeper problem: the power struggle between the largely Islamic north and the largely Christian south.
From independence in 1960 until the return of democracy in 1999, Nigeria was ruled almost exclusively by elites (largely military) from the north, who practically believed that they had a divine right to govern.
By 1999, the elite accepted that its monopoly on power was no longer feasible, and allowed a southerner of its choosing, Olusegun Obasanjo, to emerge as president for two four-year terms, on the understanding that the presidency would return to the north afterward.
A northerner, Umaru Yar’Adua, indeed took over in 2007, but he died in office nearly three years later, and was succeeded by his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, who was supposed to act as a caretaker but then decided to run in 2011.
He initially promised to serve just one full term, but has now reneged and talks about pursuing a second term in the next election, in 2015.
Why does this regional struggle matter? It’s partly a curse of the bonanza of crude oil in the south, the control of which is the raison d’être of our government.
As one northern ruler put it during the oil-price rises of the 1970s, Nigeria’s problem is not money, but how to spend it.
Decades later, Nigeria — the world’s seventh most populous country — is the world’s second-largest importer of Champagne but is unable to deliver more than a few hours of electricity a day.
The southerners who inhabit the oil-producing Niger Delta, which financed the northern elite’s decades-long party, have awakened to the theft of their resources and started demanding greater political representation.
Some have purloined their region’s crude wealth to buy military hardware on the high seas. Unlike Boko Haram, however, these militants are mostly focused on securing autonomy for the delta, not on imposing a radical religious ideology.
By the time Boko Haram started its own, far more ferocious, brand of violence four years ago, the case for a continued northern monopoly on power seemed lost.
That’s why some Nigerians believe that the northern elite quietly tolerated — or even abetted — the sect, as a way to bog down Mr. Jonathan’s government, and to preserve the privileges of political patronage by keeping resources flowing to the north.
Mr. Jonathan himself has accused some leading northern politicians of consorting with Boko Haram. Muhammadu Buhari, a northern leader, former military officer and frequent presidential candidate, who plans to run again in 2015, has declined to condemn the terrorist group and has accused the government of hypocrisy.
Niger Delta militants “were given money, and a training scheme was introduced for their members,” he said, while in contrast, “when Boko Haram emerged, members of the sect were killed.”
This is a ludicrous comparison, but a sad measure of the gulf between the two sides fighting for the soul of this country.
The problem goes beyond Boko Haram, which in any case appears to be splitting into several splinter groups, some expanding their reach beyond Nigeria.
It may have been just such a splinter group that kidnapped members of a French family over the border in Cameroon in February and held them for two months.
As the latest deadly attacks in the north show, it hardly matters whether Mr. Shekau is dead or not. The killings continue, which is why the state of emergency is unlikely to end anytime soon.

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I Enjoy Killing those God Asks Me To Kill Like Chickens – Abubakar Shekau.

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Google launches public beta of Web Designer, a free design tool for creating HTML5 ads and campaigns

Google today launched a new advertising application in beta called Google Web Designer. The company says the tool is for creating “professional-quality design” HTML5 ads and campaigns accessible to everyone from the designer to the dabbler.

HTML5 is widely seen as the standard that everyone on the Web should adopt. In case you didn’t know, Google describes HTML5 as a “universal language for building beautiful, engaging content that can run across desktops, smartphones, and tablets.” It is thus the company’s hope that Google Web Designer will help make HTML5 accessible to people throughout the advertising industry, getting Web developers closer to the goal of “build once, run anywhere.”



Here’s the current feature list for Google Web Designer beta:

Create animated HTML5 creative, with a robust, yet intuitive set of design tools.
View and edit the code behind your designs and see your edits reflected back on the stage automatically.
Build ad creatives seamlessly for DoubleClick and AdMob, or publish them to any generic environment you choose.
Receive updates to the product automatically, without having to re-download the application.
Access all of this entirely for free.
If you prefer the visual version, Google as always has provided multiple YouTube videos to show off the tool. Here’s one of them:follow link below--

socialreader.com
http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/google-launches-public-beta-of-web.html

Google launches public beta of Web Designer, a free design tool for creating HTML5 ads and campaigns

Google today launched a new advertising application in beta called Google Web Designer. The company says the tool is for creating “professional-quality design” HTML5 ads and campaigns accessible to everyone from the designer to the dabbler.

HTML5 is widely seen as the standard that everyone on the Web should adopt. In case you didn’t know, Google describes HTML5 as a “universal language for building beautiful, engaging content that can run across desktops, smartphones, and tablets.” It is thus the company’s hope that Google Web Designer will help make HTML5 accessible to people throughout the advertising industry, getting Web developers closer to the goal of “build once, run anywhere.”



Here’s the current feature list for Google Web Designer beta:

Create animated HTML5 creative, with a robust, yet intuitive set of design tools.
View and edit the code behind your designs and see your edits reflected back on the stage automatically.
Build ad creatives seamlessly for DoubleClick and AdMob, or publish them to any generic environment you choose.
Receive updates to the product automatically, without having to re-download the application.
Access all of this entirely for free.
If you prefer the visual version, Google as always has provided multiple YouTube videos to show off the tool. Here’s one of them:follow link below--

socialreader.com
http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/google-launches-public-beta-of-web.html

China Just Bought 5% Of Ukraine

www.nairaland.com/attachments/1335340_ukraine_jpg6007e3fe626c7680133e998390296a8b

China just made a 50-year deal with the Ukraine in what's being called the largest "land grab" agreement of Eastern Europe. Under this rental agreement, China can use 5 percent of the Ukraine's land for growing crops in order to feed their enormous population. The arable area is comparable in size to Massachusetts.

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http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/china-just-bought-5-of-ukraine.html

China Just Bought 5% Of Ukraine


China just made a 50-year deal with the Ukraine in what's being called the largest "land grab" agreement of Eastern Europe. Under this rental agreement, China can use 5 percent of the Ukraine's land for growing crops in order to feed their enormous population. The arable area is comparable in size to Massachusetts.

socialreader.com
http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/china-just-bought-5-of-ukraine.html

The United Nations Security Council votes on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, at U.N. Headquarters. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict.

The vote after two weeks of intense negotiations marked a major breakthrough in the paralysis that has gripped the council since the Syrian uprising began. Russia and China previously vetoed three Western-backed resolutions pressuring President Bashar Assad's regime to end the violence.

"Today's historic resolution is the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council immediately after the vote, but he and others stressed that much more needs to be done to stop the fighting that has left more 100,000 dead.

"A red light for one form of weapons does not mean a green light for others," the U.N. chief said. "This is not a license to kill with conventional weapons."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the "strong, enforceable, precedent-setting" resolution shows that diplomacy can be so powerful "that it can peacefully defuse the worst weapons of war."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the resolution does not automatically impose sanctions on Syria. The resolution calls for consequences if Syria fails to comply, but those will depend on the council passing another resolution in the event of non-compliance. That will give Assad ally Russia the means to stop any punishment from being imposed.

As a sign of the broad support for the resolution, all 15 council members signed on as co-sponsors.

For the first time, the council endorsed the roadmap for a political transition in Syria adopted by key nations in June 2012 and called for an international conference to be convened "as soon as possible" to implement it.

Ban said the target date for a new peace conference in Geneva is mid-November.

Whether the council can remain united to press for an end to the conflict remains to be seen.

"We know despite its clear usefulness, one resolution alone will not save Syria," France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said after the vote.

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari accused unnamed nations of already giving the resolution a negative interpretation and trying to "derail it from its lofty purposes."

And Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been harshly critical of Obama's policy on Syria, dismissed the resolution as "another triumph of hope over reality." It "contains no meaningful or immediate enforcement mechanisms, let alone a threat of the use of force for the Assad regime's non-compliance," they said in a statement that was highly skeptical that Russia would ever approve a threat of force for non-compliance.

The vote came just hours after the world's chemical weapons watchdog adopted a U.S.-Russian plan that lays out benchmarks and timelines for cataloguing, quarantining and ultimately destroying Syria's chemical weapons, their precursors and delivery systems.

The Security Council resolution enshrines the plan approved by Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, making it legally binding.

The agreement allows the start of a mission to rid Syria's regime of its estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal by mid-2014, significantly accelerating a destruction timetable that often takes years to complete.

Kerry said the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile will begin in November and be completed as called for by the middle of next year.

"We expect to have an advance team on the ground (in Syria) next week," OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan told reporters at the organization's headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands immediately after its 41-member executive council approved the plan.

The OPCW plan gives Damascus a week to provide detailed information on its arsenal, including the name and quantity of all chemicals in its stockpile; the type and quantity of munitions that can be used to fire chemical weapons; and the location of weapons, storage facilities and production facilities. All chemical weapons production and mixing equipment should be destroyed no later than Nov. 1.

The Security Council resolution does not assign blame for any chemical attack. Some Western countries had wanted the draft to demand that the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks be referred to the International Criminal Court to be prosecuted for war crimes. Diplomats said this was discussed, but Russia objected.

As a result, the draft says only that the Security Council "expresses its strong conviction that those individuals responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic should be held accountable."

The recent flurry of diplomatic activity followed the Aug. 21 poison gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians in a Damascus suburb, and by President Barack Obama's threat of U.S. strikes in retaliation.

After Kerry said Assad could avert U.S. military action by turning over "every single bit of his chemical weapons" to international control within a week, Russia quickly agreed. Kerry and Lavrov signed an agreement in Geneva on Sept. 13 to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control for later destruction, and Assad's government accepted.

Tough negotiations, primarily between Russia and the United States, followed on how Syria's stockpile would be destroyed.

The U.N. resolution's adoption was assured when the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain — signed off on the text on Thursday.

Russia and the United States had been at odds over the enforcement issue. Russia opposed any reference to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows for military and nonmilitary actions to promote peace and security.

The final resolution states that the Security Council will impose measures under Chapter 7 if Syria fails to comply, but this would require adoption of a second resolution.

It bans Syria from possessing chemical weapons and condemns "in the strongest terms" the use of chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack, and any other use. It also would ban any country from obtaining chemical weapons or the technology or equipment to produce them from Syria.

Kerry stressed that the resolution for the first time makes a determination that "use of chemical weapons anywhere constitutes a threat to international peace and security," which sets a new international norm.

The resolution authorizes the U.N. to send an advance team to assist the OPCW's activities in Syria. It asks Secretary-General Ban to submit recommendations to the Security Council within 10 days of the resolution's adoption on the U.N. role in eliminating Syria's chemical weapons program.

"Syria cannot select or reject the inspectors," Kerry said. "Syria must give those inspectors unfettered access to any and all sites and any and all people."

The resolution requires the council to review compliance with the OPCW's plans within 30 days, and every month after that.

In an indication of the enormity of the task ahead, the OPCW appealed for donations to fund the disarmament, saying it will have to hire new weapons inspectors and chemical experts.

To that end, Britain's foreign minister announced after Friday's vote that the UK would donate $3 million to OPCW Syria Trust fund.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Security Council that China was also prepared to help fund the disarmament mission.

Meanwhile, a group of U.N. inspectors already in Syria investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons said Friday they are probing a total of seven suspected attacks, including in the Damascus suburb where hundreds were killed last month. That number was raised from three sites previously.

The OPCW destruction plan calls on Syria to give inspectors unfettered access to any site suspected of chemical weapons involvement, even if Syria's government did not identify the location. That gives the inspectors unusually broad authority.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Amir Bibawy at the United Nations and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.

More images from this article


China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi , center left, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, center right, vote on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 at U.N. headquarters. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks after the Security Council voted on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, speaks on a phone before a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 at U.N. headquarters. The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nation Bashar Ja'afari, left, listens to members of the Security Council speak after they voted to approve a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons during a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, front right, speaks after a vote on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, at U.N. headquarters. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. Left is China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi , front left,and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius vote on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, at U.N. headquarters. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, center, speaks to Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin before a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 at U.N. headquarters. The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nation Bashar Ja'afari, center, speaks to Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin before a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 at U.N. headquarters. The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

In this image taken from Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013, video obtained from the Sham News Network, Syrian opposition fighters fire at government forces near Daraa customs in Daraa al-Balad, Syria. Russia offered on Thursday to provide troops to guard facilities where Syria's chemical weapons would be destroyed, as U.N. inspectors prepared to continue their probe on the use of such agents in the country's civil war. (AP Photo/Sham News Network via AP video)

President of the Opposition Syrian Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, left, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, center, and American Secretary of State John Kerry attend a Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Syrian people, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

In this Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013 photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks during an interview with Venezuela's state-run Telesur network, in Damascus, Syria. Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that he does not discount the possibility of a U.S. military attack even though threatened action was forestalled when he agreed to give up chemical weapons. (AP Photo/SANA)

In this image taken from Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013, video obtained from the Sham News Network, Syrian opposition fighters fire at government forces near Daraa customs in Daraa al-Balad, Syria. Russia offered on Thursday to provide troops to guard facilities where Syria's chemical weapons would be destroyed, as U.N. inspectors prepared to continue their probe on the use of such agents in the country's civil war. (AP Photo/Sham News Network via AP video)

People talk at the entrance to the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday Sept. 27, 2013. The global chemical weapons watchdog has scheduled a meeting to approve a U.S.-Russian brokered plan to rapidly verify, secure and then destroy Syria's arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents. The 41-nation executive council of the OPCW is meeting late Friday to sign off on the plan that has been hammered out in nearly two weeks of behind-closed doors negotiations. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Spokesman Michael Luhan gives a brief statement outside the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday Sept. 27, 2013. The global chemical weapons watchdog has scheduled a meeting to approve a U.S.-Russian brokered plan to rapidly verify, secure and then destroy Syria's arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents. The 41-nation executive council of the OPCW is meeting late Friday to sign off on the plan that has been hammered out in nearly two weeks of behind-closed doors negotiations. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

A car arrives at the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday Sept. 27, 2013. The global chemical weapons watchdog has scheduled a meeting to approve a U.S.-Russian brokered plan to rapidly verify, secure and then destroy Syria's arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents. The 41-nation executive council of the OPCW is meeting late Friday to sign off on the plan that has been hammered out in nearly two weeks of behind-closed doors negotiations. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

for photos follow here...

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/un-votes-to-eliminate-syrias-chemical.html

That NBC had doctored a 911 call for the purposes of making George Zimmerman look like a bigot was a shocking revelation. Yet cut-and-paste propaganda is a common media tactic, and I'm not sure anyone is victimized by it more than Pope Francis.
You've probably read the headlines. "Pope Francis urges global leaders to end 'tyranny' of money," "Pope Francis's stunning blow to conservatives," "Pope Francis assures atheists: You don't have to believe in God to go to heaven," "Pope Says Church Is 'Obsessed' With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control"; rinse, wash and repeat. Yet these headlines range from delusion to, possibly, deception. By and large, he said, she said is not what the pope said.
Let's start with the recent big news, the Jesuit magazine interview with Pope Francis called that "stunning blow to conservatives." The stunned (and stunted) journalist who wrote that line, the Guardian's Andrew Brown, used a Francis "quotation" prevalent throughout the media. To wit: "It is not necessary to talk about... abortion, gay marriage and [contraception] all the time." Now, it's not surprising Brown didn't provide a link to the actual interview. Because not only is his cut-and-paste job missing an ellipsis (between "and" and "all the time", it's an elliptical formulation that omits 58 words -- and 58 miles of meaning.
After saying he hadn't talked about abortion, marriage and contraception much, here's what the pope actually stated: "The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time [emphasis added]." The media didn't omit the italicized words merely for brevity's sake. When Francis said that the teaching is "clear" and he's a "son of the church," he is reaffirming doctrine and his fidelity to it. He's saying that the teachings in question are definitive, set in stone, and that he is loyal to mother Church as any good "son" is to his mother.
Ironically, the pope, whom Catholics believe is Christ's representative on Earth, is receiving the same treatment Jesus himself did. Many liberals make their case for homosexual behavior by saying that Christ was silent on it. Of course, Jesus didn't say anything about pedophilia, either; this doesn't mean He would have tolerated it. Likewise, it's as silly to think that dogma is null and void unless continually espoused as it is to assume that a law is no longer on the books just because legislators don't talk about it constantly.
Of course, one could still find fault with Francis's comments. While "all the time" was surely just a manner of speaking, in reality I hear far too little sermonizing at Mass about the moral teachings in question. Instead there's much nebulous talk about "love." And while love is wonderful, I'd point out that a good physician makes the correct diagnosis and treats what the patient has, not what he doesn't have. There is no powerful social movement whose placards state "Down with Love!" and "Give Hate a Chance!" As far as abortion and marriage go, however, the left has sought (and largely succeeded) in changing a tried-and-true status quo, and traditionalists' talk about these issues is simply responses commensurate with the left's cultural-attack talk. We don't hose people down indiscriminately; we simply try to douse as many fires as the cultural pyromaniacs light.
Having said all this, the main difference between Pope Francis and his two predecessors is one of style, emphasis and tactics, not dogma. Dogma cannot be changed.
One problem between the pope and secular world involves communication breakdown: terms and phrases have different connotations, and sometimes different meanings, to a devout Catholic than to a modernist. Consider, for example, Francis's July remark about homosexual priests, "[W]ho am I to judge?" This was widely viewed as deviation from Catholic doctrine, but the pope averred otherwise in the Jesuit interview, explaining, "I said what the catechism says." But what long-held Catholic doctrine did Francis's comment reflect?
The catechism states that while homosexual behavior is gravely sinful, homosexual tendencies are not (the catechism labels them "disordered". This is simply common sense. A person generally doesn't ask for the feelings he has, and they often result from early childhood influences over which he has no control. His responsibility lies in whether or not he chooses to act upon those feelings.
This brings us to the rub: when the pope says "homosexual," he thinks of a person with the tendency, but takes for granted that a priest so burdened will strive to live a celibate life. When secularists hear the word, however, they generally think of a person engaging in homosexuality. Thus, while Francis was saying he wouldn't "judge" a person bearing the homosexual cross nobly, the secular world heard, "I won't judge the behavior."
This misunderstanding is easy to fathom. "Who am I to judge?" has become a code-phrase meaning, "There's nothing wrong with homosexual acts." But the pope is not of our culture; he's a South American, and I suspect he didn't understand the code-phrase and how it's interpreted by secular Western ears.
But some "interpretations" of the pope's words are, damnably, much farther afield. Consider the Independent's headline: Pope Francis assures atheists: You don't have to believe in God to go to heaven." Not surprisingly, this paper also suddenly forgot how to use the hyperlink feature in its reportage (what the pope actually wrote).
But Francis never said "You don't have to believe in God to go to heaven."
In fact, he never used the word "Heaven" in what was a 2688-word letter even once.
What the pope said that the media is spinning was, "God's mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience." The Independent also quotes the pope as saying, "Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience." Perhaps the paper has a (much) different translation from the Italian, but I find that line nowhere in the letter. Anyway, the letter is actually quite good on balance. As for insight into what Francis meant, space constraints here preclude deep theological expositions, but The Telegraph's Tim Stanley provides a decent explanation here.
Yet the Telegraph also had its Independent-of-truth moment when publishing, "Pope Francis urges global leaders to end 'tyranny' of money," which, as you could guess by now, also omits a link to the pope's actual words. The paper writes, "He [the pope] said free-market capitalism had created a 'tyranny'.... [That is,][u]nchecked capitalism had created 'a new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny', said the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio."
The reality?
Francis never used the phrase "tyranny of money" or the term "free-market capitalism."
In fact, he never mentioned "capitalism" or the "free market" even once.
The pope's actual theme in what in this case was a speech, was that financiers, politicians and economists should cultivate a God-centered ethics, and Francis used the word "ethics" or "ethical" eight times and "God" four times in a speech that took mere minutes to deliver. And author of the Telegraph article, Nick Squires? He used the word "ethical" just once... in passing.
He didn't mention "God" at all.
And while he didn't present his cut-and-paste, add-and-subtract, mix-and-match formulations as direct Francis quotations, many readers would either assume they were or, in the least, wouldn't figure that he had "Zimmermanned" the pope. But it's not surprising the media is reluctant to report on a God-centered ethics.
They, apparently, are sorely lacking in it themselves.
Yet there are many reasons why media distort the pope's words. First, they'll do anything for eyeball-grabbing headlines. Second, Catholic theology has been forged over 2000 years, is very deep, and thus doesn't lend itself to sound-bite presentation. More significantly, it cannot be understood by sound-bite commentators with 15-second attention spans who, sadly, interpret things knee-jerk style via the prism of their own prejudices. Third and in keeping with this, liberals exist in a realm of rationalization, anyway, and thus can truly convince themselves that their feelings-derived "sense" of someone's meaning is gospel. The fourth factor is simple.
Leftists are dishonest.
Yet even many well-meaning people don't understand the Church. For one thing, there's the aforementioned factor: the secular and devout Catholic worlds often speak different languages, with words and phrases holding different meanings. As for doctrine, the Church isn't some journalist with hormone-imbalance-induced mood swings. Defined doctrine (dogma) cannot change, and new doctrines won't be forged with reporters. What a pope says in an interview doesn't change doctrine any more than what a president says in an interview changes American law.
But then there is a more insidious reason for the media's papal spin. Not only do the militant secularists assume the Church will eventually "get with the times" and embrace its agenda (it feels so obviously correct, you see), but they know if they can break the Catholic Church -- if they can get its imprimatur -- cultural domination is theirs. And, hey, if you can't break it, fake it. With image being "reality," making the low-info masses believe the Church has "seen the light" may be sufficiently demoralizing.
The last significant factor is one I'd like my Christian brethren to consider very, very seriously. By creating the illusion that the Church is abandoning certain unchanging moral principles, the media can widen the rift between the Church and some traditionalist Protestants. Beware the divide-and-conquer devils among us.
Having said all this, Pope Francis certainly gives the media much grist for the mill. One issue is his gregariousness -- he said he loves being around people -- and he talks to anyone and everyone about anything and everything. This is dangerous for any public figure. Moreover, while the pope is orthodox, and in that sense neither liberal nor conservative, Catholic doctrine doesn't address every issue and all its nuance. And given that Francis's instincts are, it seems to me, somewhat modernistic, I'm not confident in his pronouncements on matters beyond doctrine (or in his sense of priority). I think his grasp of economics is especially suspect.
And while the pope's tactic of stressing Christ's love and salvation message to the exclusion of certain moral doctrines is well-intended, I don't believe it will work. The militant secularists aren't interested in conciliation or compromise, but in the complete and utter destruction of Christianity. They take no prisoners.
So say your prayers; they're needed now more than ever. And I will say that Pope Francis may inspire me to expand my prayer life. For the first time ever I may start praying for laryngitis.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/pope-francis-said-what-actually-no-he.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/pope_francis_said_what_actually_no_he_didnt.html

SEE HOW IT WORKS....

The small hopping insect Issus coleoptratus uses toothed gears (magnified above with an electron microscope) to precisely synchronize the kicks of its hind legs as it jumps forward. All images courtesy of Malcom Burrows

To the best of our knowledge, the mechanical gear—evenly-sized teeth cut into two different rotating surfaces to lock them together as they turn—was invented sometime around 300 B.C.E. by Greek mechanics who lived in Alexandria. In the centuries since, the simple concept has become a keystone of modern technology, enabling all sorts of machinery and vehicles, including cars and bicycles.

As it turns out, though, a three-millimeter long hopping insect known as Issus coleoptratus beat us to this invention. Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton, a pair of biologists from the University of Cambridge in the U.K., discovered that juveniles of the species have an intricate gearing system that locks their back legs together, allowing both appendages to rotate at the exact same instant, causing the tiny creatures jump forward.


The gears are located on the top segment of each of the insect’s hind legs

The finding, which was published today in Science, is believed to be the first functional gearing system ever discovered in nature. Insects from the Issus genus, which are commonly called “planthoppers,” are found throughout Europe and North Africa. Burrows and Sutton used electron microscopes and high-speed video capture to discover the existence of the gearing and figure out its exact function.

The reason for the gearing, they say, is coordination: To jump, both of the insect’s hind legs must push forward at the exact same time. Because they both swing laterally, if one were extended a fraction of a second earlier than the other, it’d push the insect off course to the right or left, instead of jumping straight forward.

The gearing is an elegant solution. The researchers’ high-speed videos showed that the creatures, who jump at speeds as high as 8.7 miles per hour, cocked their back legs in a jumping position, then pushed forward, with each moving within 30 microseconds (that’s 30 millionths of a second) of the other.

gear-jumping

The finely toothed gears in their legs allow this to happen. “In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t,” Burrows said in a press statement.

The gears are located at the top of the insects’ hind legs (on segments known as trochantera) and include 10 to 12 tapered teeth, each about 80 micrometers wide (or 80 millionths of a meter). In all the Issus hoppers studied, the same number of teeth were present on each hind leg, and the gears locked together neatly. The teeth even have filleted curves at the base, a design incorporated into human-made mechanical gears because it reduces wear over time.

To confirm that the gears performed this function, the researchers performed a neat (albeit morbid) trick with some dead Issus. They manually cocked their legs back in a jumping position, then electrically stimulated the main jumping muscle in one leg so that the leg extended. Because it was rotationally locked by the gears, the other non-stimulated leg moved as well, and the dead insect jumped forward.

The main mystery is the fact that adults of the same insect species don’t have any gearing—as the juveniles grow up and their skin molts away, they fail to regrow these gear teeth, and the adult legs are synchronized by an alternate mechanism (a series of protrusions extend from both hind legs, and push the other leg into action).

Burrows and Sutton hypothesize that this could be explained by the fragility of the gearing: if one tooth breaks, it limits the effectiveness of the design. This isn’t such a big problem for the juveniles, who repeatedly molt and grow new gears before adulthood, but for the mature Issus, replacing the teeth would be impossible—hence the alternate arrangement.

There have been gear-like structures previously found on other animals (like the spiny turtle or the wheel bug), but they’re purely ornamental. This seems to be the first natural design that mechanically functions like our geared systems.

“We usually think of gears as something that we see in human designed machinery, but we’ve found that that is only because we didn’t look hard enough,” Sutton said. “These gears are not designed; they are evolved—representing high speed and precision machinery evolved for synchronisation in the animal world.”
https://socialreader.com/me/content/wVlBN?_p=full-frontpage[7]

CLICK HERE FOR MORE... http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/this-insect-has-only-mechanical-gears.html

Two gay Lagos women head home after dining at a popular restaurant on the city’s upscale Victoria Island. International Business Times/Cameron Barnes
LAGOS, Nigeria -- Life in Nigeria, one of the world’s most anti-gay nations, according to a recent study, is a daily struggle for Adeola (which is not his real name), a closeted, working-class homosexual man living on the outskirts of the nation’s small, central capital, Abuja.
Adeola has been called names, insulted and ostracized over assumptions about his sexuality, so he shields his true self in fear that coming out would only attract more intense abuse.
Meanwhile, some young, wealthy gay Nigerians who spend most of their time in the louche, Westernized Victoria Island section of Lagos -- the massive, modernizing megalopolis on Nigeria’s southwestern coast -- are able to live a quasiopen life despite the virulent homophobia that rules in much of the rest of the country.
For Adeola, a portly man in his 30s who earns a modest living as a cook at a catering company in Abuja, that life of openness is difficult to imagine.
Adeola said he worries about discrimination every time he walks out the door, especially in light of a law passed this year that, should it be signed by President Goodluck Jonathan, would make the sheer act of being gay punishable by as long as 14 years in prison.
“It’s extremely difficult because everyone sees you as abnormal,” Adeola said while running errands at an Abuja shopping center. “Everything has to be in secret.”
Adeola’s fears are supported by statistical evidence: A study of 39 nations published by the Pew Research Center in June deemed Nigeria the least-accepting nation of the lot for gays, with 98 percent of survey respondents saying society should not accept homosexuality, inching out ultraconservative Jordan by a single percentage point.
An Accepting Bubble
Six upper-class gay professionals who met with the International Business Times at a Victoria Island restaurant last week say that because they mostly stay within that neighborhood’s fairly tolerant bubble, they are largely able to avoid Adeola’s constant state of fear. Still, they, like everyone else interviewed for this story, asked to be assigned pseudonyms because of the harsh penalties that can result from being identified as gay in the press.
“I’ve been very fortunate in Lagos because I’ve been around people who understand these things, who are accommodating, who understand, are very enlightened and don’t judge,” said Olawale, the owner of a high-end baking company, between sips of his Long Island iced tea.
Fatima, a Lagos content manager, has had a somewhat different experience. Although she grew up in the sprawling city, she attended private school on Victoria Island and was isolated from the poverty and chaos of the mainland during her youth. But after going to a London university, she returned to her home country and said she was shocked when she visited a friend’s home on Lagos mainland for the first time. It was her first exposure to what locals call “the real Nigeria.”
Fatima is not gay per se -- she describes her sexuality as “fluid” and said she is open to relationships with men or women -- but she mostly dates women. She said her first real lesbian experience was when she was 18 and in London, where she fell in love with a Trinidadian girl: “great skin, great hair, very pretty, great cook.”
The relationship didn’t work out, but it was obvious to her then that her sexuality didn’t fit neatly in the “straight” box. Over the years, she has repeatedly attempted to talk to her parents and siblings about her relationships, but found them unwilling to have an open conversation about her orientation or her love life.
“I think it’s easy hanging out with your friends, but it’s more difficult with your family. I’m not really close to my family because of it,” she said. “Not because they’ve done anything mean to me, but because I fear that they would. I’ve had friends whose parents kicked them out or disowned them because they told them they were gay.”
Criminalizing Homosexuality
Being gay in Nigeria has long meant hiding in the shadows of society, but fear and anxiety among most members of the nation’s gay community have grown markedly since May 30, when the Nigerian Senate OK’d a bill making the simple act of being homosexual a crime punishable by as long as 14 years in prison.
Jonathan has not yet signed or vetoed the bill -- which was previously passed by the Nigerian House of Representatives -- nor has he sent a clear signal of which side he will eventually take on the controversial measure.
The bill, coupled with legal restrictions on gay marriage, is actually lenient compared with the situation faced by gays in the Muslim-dominated north of the nation, where Shariah Islamic law makes homosexuality a capital offense punishable in some areas by stoning to death.
Even though the measure is not yet officially on the books, it has already had a chilling effect on gay life in Nigeria, according to Aisha, a lesbian friend of Fatima’s.
“Prior to the law, there was a sort of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing going on,” Aisha said. “It was frowned upon -- just don’t do anything in anyone’s face.” But now, she said, there is a widely held, albeit premature, belief that “it’s illegal and it carries a sentence” of more than a dozen years behind bars, which further intimidates Nigeria’s gay population.
Although Fatima considers Abuja to be “like gay central of Nigeria,” the place she said she would go to “hook up with a girl, several girls, in one weekend,” that side of gay life isn’t accessible to many homosexual residents of the capital who aren’t as well-heeled as her.
Adeola said that due to the discrimination he faces in Abuja, he uses underground channels and word-of-mouth to find other gay people to interact with or date. “It’s just about networking. Someone you’re sure is gay introduces you to someone else who is, who introduces you to someone else who is, and so on,” he said.
Still, Adeola has been threatened and insulted on numerous occasions. “I have lots of name-calling, but no violence. They call me feminine names. For instance, if your name is Oliver, they’ll call you Olivia,” he explained.
Kingsley, a straight friend of Adeola’s who has witnessed anti-gay discrimination of others firsthand in Abuja and surrounding areas, said that such sentiments are sadly quite common in Nigeria. Although he is not gay, he did not want his real name to be used because he associates with gay people.
“There are people like me who accept them, but then there are lots of people who once they find out someone is gay, they refuse to have any kind of contact with them,” Kingsley explained as we sat in his sedan, waiting out one of Abuja’s notorious “go-slow” traffic jams. “Name-calling happens a lot. They will make fun of the person, say things like ‘This guy’s homo,’ stuff like that, ‘gay.’”
And Kingsley said the fear of being tormented for their sexuality infiltrates the social lives of his gay friends. “They don’t stay in groups, they’d rather remain not mixing with other gay people, because they don’t want other people to be able to say, ‘Those guys are gay,’” he said.
Fear Of The Unknown
Kingsley is rare among straight Nigerians in that he has a well-developed sense of the nuances of human sexuality, and he has chosen to understand and accept the gay community rather than deride it for its otherness.
A large proportion of Nigerians draw their intolerance of homosexuality from religious and cultural traditions ranging from fundamental Christian and Islamic teachings to centuries-old tribal norms. But even some highly educated, fairly secular and otherwise progressive Nigerians simply consider homosexuality to be transgressive or against nature, and therefore refuse to accept it.
Typical is Azu, a well-traveled, affluent Lagos businesswoman who simply doesn’t believe that a person can be born gay. “Every woman or man is born to be attracted to the opposite sex, but I don’t know, if maybe there’s a change in [gay people’s] brains somehow, there has to be a reason,” she posited over drinks. “Being gay is something that develops in a later stage of your life, but whether we believe it or not, all girls are attracted to men growing up.”
Azu said she has had several gay friends over the course of her life and that she does to this day, but she still describes gay individuals in condescending terms that illustrate her views on their sexual orientation. “I haven’t met that many gay people, but I find the guys a bit stranger than the girls because it’s hard to comprehend a guy acting like a woman. ... For gay guys, it’s a bit more crazy when they go ‘Eh’ or how they eat,” she said. “I had a gay friend who used five times as much makeup as I did, but I liked him because he was like a puppy dog.”
Aisha said people often question her “decision” to be gay, and that she believes their attitudes represent a critical misunderstanding of the nature of homosexuality. She said she was deeply disturbed when a colleague at the governmental office where she works who is not aware of her sexuality said in a discussion once, “Gays should all be killed,” but that such violent remarks are rare in her world, where casual ignorance is much more common.
“One guy said, ‘I don’t mind when two ugly girls get together, but I mind when two beautiful girls do,’” Aisha said. “A lot of people feel like it’s a personal offense if you don’t accept a man’s advance, no matter if you’re gay or straight, because the penis is God’s gift to humankind.”
Hope Amid The Despair
Persecution of gay Nigerians still leads to violence on a fairly regular basis, particularly in the country’s more rural states. In January, four men were arrested, stripped naked and paraded along a public street in Imo State on suspicion that they were homosexual, as noted by OnlineNigeria News. And in August, an Ogun State man was brutally beaten for allegedly being gay, as reported by the same site.
And the laws aimed at criminalizing gayness and same-sex marriage threaten to codify a new paradigm of heightened intimidation and marginalization for the nation’s gay residents.
But for urban Nigerians with enough money, there are some hopeful signs in the face of so much discrimination and misunderstanding.
Kingsley said that in Abuja “things are getting better” as people in the urban center appear to be less concerned with persecuting gays. “You’re OK until the authorities catch you in the act of sleeping with or making out with the same sex,” he said. “Only then will they go after you. It’s only certain individuals who actually bother you or discriminate against you.”
Aisha pointed to another promising trend, in which Abuja and certain parts of Lagos can be much safer for moneyed gays than elsewhere in the country, although limitations exist and endure. “Abuja is the gay capital of Nigeria for the rich kids, but you can’t just go into the market totally out. You’ll get discriminated against and they’ll act out,” she said, adding that in more distant, isolated areas of the country, “there’s widespread ignorance. If you go to the poor areas, someone will do something about their hate.”
And a small but growing number of openly gay activists speak out regularly in support of gay rights in Nigeria without being slammed with lengthy prison terms, although they are still often harassed and attacked by individuals for their outspokenness, according to the Voice of America.
Fatima said that, despite all the challenges, life as a homosexual Nigerian can approach normality for members of her economic class.
“If you’re economically independent, you can be fine being gay in Nigeria,” she said. “If I walk into a restaurant and say, ‘Shut it down, I’m having dinner with my girlfriend,’ they’re not going to say, ‘Oh, 14 years.’ Money talks.”
https://socialreader.com/me/content/xpVlN?_p=full-frontpage[8]

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/gay-life-in-nigeria-one-of-worlds-most.html

The First Law of Thermodynamics states, quite simply, that energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another. In business terms, this natural law can also apply: do a company wrong and someday that company may come back to bite you on the butt later.
That will never be the official reason why search engine Google is moving all of its Oracle MySQL relational database systems to MySQL's forked descendant MariaDB, but even the unintentional, karmic implications against Oracle are blindingly obvious.
After all, Oracle has spent a lot of time and legal effort over the past few years establishing that Google had committed copyright infringement by copying portions of Java code into Google's Android operating system. including 37 application programming interfaces that tap into the Java programming language. That case was ruled in Google's favor in Federal court, but is still in appeal. And Google apparently has a long memory.
The revelation that Google was dumping MySQL for the MariaDB database came from Google Senior Systems Engineer Jeremy Cole in a presentation at the Extremely Large Databases conference at Stanford University this week.
According to The Register, Cole revealed during the presentation that Google was working with the MariaDB Foundation to patch and update MariaDB 10.0 and get it ready for Google to migrate thousands of MySQL instances to MariaDB.
"We're running primarily on [MySQL] 5.1 which is a little outdated, and so we're moving to MariaDB 10.0 at the moment," Cole said…
Google later confirmed the plan in a statement to The Register:
Google's MySQL team is in the process of moving internal users of MySQL at Google from MySQL 5.1 to MariaDB 10.0. Google's MySQL team and the SkySQL MariaDB team are looking forward to working together to advance the reliability and feature set of MariaDB.
The work to make this migration apparently began at the beginning of the year, but outward signs of the plan didn't get noticed until last month, when it was noticed that Google was assigning a full-time engineer to work at the MariaDB Foundation.
See also: MySQL Vs. MariaDB: Power Plays By Expanding Communities
At the time of this move, speculation focused on Google trying to strengthen MariaDB in order to keep diversity within the MySQL community alive. Since Oracle gained control of the MySQL database in 2010 when it purchased Sun Microsystems, the MySQL database community has had to contend with an Oracle that admittedly was putting in some solid technical work to the popular open-source database, but letting very few contributions from outside Oracle into the MySQL codebase.
This frustrated users of MySQL who wanted to see their changes placed into the main line of MySQL development (known as the "trunk" as well, and not have every technical change within MySQL dependent on the whims of Oracle.
Bullet points on Cole's slides from his presentation laid out his (and apparently Google's) position on Oracle MySQL:
Continuing to do good development, but often without much public visibility until release.
Ignores bugs, feedback, communication from community
This lack of community participation was a big part of the reason why MySQL creator Monty Widenius forked the MariaDB project away from MySQL in the first place: to give MySQL users a version of the MySQL database where many could contribute.
According to Cole, Google will specifically be migrating to an in-house branch of MariaDB 10.0, which incorporates Google-specific changes and will be the equivalent of MySQL 5.6. This is not a true fork, though, as it will still maintain a code-sharing relationship with the MariaDB trunk. Cole told the audience that Google was going this way so they could still maintain absolute control over the development of the MariaDB branch.
These are all perfectly valid reasons for Google to move away from MySQL, which has seen a steadily increasing declination across all of its user base since Oracle took the project over.
Even though it's easy to suggest that this mass migration from MySQL to MariaDB is some sort of comeuppance for Oracle, the truth probably lies in the history of Oracle's handling of the MySQL community to date—Oracle has made its bed of spikes with the MySQL community, and now it has to lie in it. And this mass migration of thousands of MySQL servers will make a lot of current and future MySQL customers take a good, hard look at alternatives like MariaDB.

http://readwrite.com/2013/09/14/google-waves-goodbye-to-mysql-in-favor-of-mariadb

CLICK HERE FOR MORE... http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/google-waves-goodbye-to-mysql-in-favor.html

Today a great protest is taking place in the Catallan region of Spain. According to the polls, 52 per cent of the people from that region wish to break off from Spain and to establish a new European sovereign state.
Later this year, the people of Scotland are having their own referendum to determine whether or not they will stay in the United Kingdom and, again, from the polls, it is very clear that the majority of Scots wish to have their own new sovereign state and that the Scottish Nationalist Party enjoys massive support. Nobody in either Spain or the United Kingdom has insulted those people or labelled them as ‘’ethnic jingoists’’ or ‘’primitive tribalists’’ for wanting to break off from the greater whole and establish their own country.
Fani-Kayode
Fani-Kayode
This is because everyone respects the right of the various ethnic groups and nationalities within their wider nation to exercise their right of self-determination which is an integral and fundamental aspect of international law. Exercising that right does not turn them into villains and does not make them any less patriotic than their compatriots who do not share their views. It just means that they have a different perspective and that they believe, as many believed before Malaysia and Singapore broke up, that the interests of their various peoples are better served when and if they go their separate ways.
They opted to be friendly neighbours rather than to be compelled to remain within the same territory against their collective will. As we in Nigeria approach the 100-year anniversary of our 1914 Lugardian amalglamation and, as the 2015 elections are fast approaching with both the northern region and the south-south zone desperate to take or to hold on to power at any cost respectively, we need to begin to ask ourselves some basic and fundamental questions about our future. For example, is our interest better served by remaining as one nation or is it time for those nationalities that wish to leave the federation in a peaceful and orderly way, as a result of a legitimate and honest referendum, be alllowed to go?
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
If the breaking up of larger countries into smaller and more viable ones is good enough for India (which broke into three), the Sudan (which broke into two), Czekhoslovakia (which broke into two), Yugoslavia (which broke into 5), the Soviet Union (which broke into 15) and numerous other countries over the years, why is it not good enough for us? Again, why should those that believe that Nigeria ought to break up be subjected to so much suspicion, ridicule, contempt and insults from those that do not share their views?
Some of the questions that need to be answered are as follows- firstly, is our union working? Secondly, is our marriage a good one and is it a happy one as well? Are we satisfied with what has essentially become a country that has been turned into nothing more than (with apologies to Chief Bode George) ‘’Turn by Turn Nigeria?’’ where each ethnic group simply looks forward to enjoying its time to control the federation and all the nation’s resources from an all powerful centre? Are we not meant to be far more than this? Is this what the founding fathers of our nation envisaged?
More than anything else the recent igbo/yoruba debate over the issue of the status of Lagos state and the deportation of a handful of igbo destitute back to the east has proved to me that we as a people are very different from one another and that our interests may be better served if we are no longer bound together as one. I dare to voice this opinion even though many Yoruba share it but will not say so publiclly.
Is it not time for us to begin to accept the bitter truth that our marriage is uncomfortable and unhappy and that it may not have been made in heaven or ordained by God? Is it not clear that each region or each nationality ought to be able to develop at its own pace? Is it not time for us to have a confederation of nationalities in Nigeria and to restructure the country drastically to give maximum autonomy to the various regions and nationalities or indeed is it not time to just break up and go our separate ways?
DIFFERENCES Many may disagree but one thing that I believe that we can at least agree on is that perhaps it is time for us to be courageous enough to begin to talk about these issues openly and debate them. We must not sweep our differences under the carpet and ignore them as if they do not exist but instead we must find the courage and muster the resolve to acknowledge them and understand them. As far as I am concerned, this is the challenge of our time and these are the questions that need to be answered.
Whatever happens in 2015 and whoever wins, whether it be a northerner or Goodluck Jonathan of the south-south, I see blood on the horizon and I see disaster approaching. Stark promises from notable players such as ‘’there will be bloodshed if Goodluck is not re-elected’’ do not help and are not encouraging. There are equally strident and bellicose murmurings from the other side as well and some have threatened that if there is a repeat performance of the massive rigging that the North witnessed in the presidential election of 2011 anywhere in the country in 2015, ’’Nigeria will burn’’ whilst another key player said that ‘’both the dog and the baboon shall be soaked in blood’’.
2015 AS KEG OF GUN POWDER
These words must be taken very seriously indeed and they reflect the thinking and mindset of millions of people from both sides of the political and regional divide. Worste still, whether we like to admit it or not, religion has now become a major factor in our politics with Christians being told in their churches that it is their solemn duty to support a Christian presidential candidate and Muslims being told in their mosques that it is theirs to support a Muslim. We are sitting on a keg of gunpowder and, in my view, 2015 really will be the year of make or break for Nigeria. Sadly, in my humble opinion, it is far closer to ‘’break’’ than it is to ’’make’’.
If we wish to avoid the road to Kigali, we must change our mindset and make the necessary concessions that we need to make. We must begin to think outside of the box and be far more innovative and adventurous. For example, why is it a must in the minds of some that the PDP must field a Christian as it’s presidential candidate and why are some in the APC of the view that the party must field a northern Muslim as its own?
These hard and fast fixed positions are most unhelpful and the right thing and proper thing to do is to completely discard them and attempt to find a presidential candidate that is a Nigerian before being a northerner, a southerner, a Christian or a Muslim. And thankfully there are quite a few of such people around in the new generation if only the system will be far-sighted and enlightened enough to allow them to emerge and run. Failing that we must open up the space now and consider the unpleasant assertion that the premium that a united Nigeria attracts may not be worth paying simply because we are getting nothing but failure after failure and sorrow after sorrow as our consistent return.
I do not have all the answers and neither do I claim that I do. Indeed I may well be wrong which is why I would be interested in hearing the views of others and particularly those from the younger generation who may see things very differently. Whichever way it goes and regardless of what we all think, let us not allow this debate to be driven by the uninformed or ignorance, pettiness, hate and acrimony. Let us not insult one another or act as if any tribe or nationality are a collection of angels whilst others are nothing but demons. Let us join issues and exchange ideas in a civil, restrained and decent manner without hurling insults at one another or allowing our emotions to becloud our thinking.
At the end of the day, we all want the same thing- namely, to put in place a system that is in the best interest of the Nigerian people and to empower a new leadership that will allow them to achieve their full potentials? That is the objective and that alone. Over to you.
*Fani Kayode was a Minister of Aviation

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/09/nigeria-to-break-or-not-to-break

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/nigeria-to-break-or-not-to-break.html

The police have arrested a jilted man for allegedly conspiring with seven other men to gang-rape his estranged lover, a 28-year old woman (name withheld) in Lagos State, southwest Nigeria.
The man was identified as Stephen Obi. He was charged with conspiracy and rape before Ejigbo Magistrate’s court, while seven of his accomplices are still on the run.
Some of the seven men on the run are still threatening to kill the lady if she continues to pursue the matter.
The 23-year old Obi claimed he works with a brewing firm in Lagos and hails from Umuahia in Abia State, while the victim is from Imo State, southeast Nigeria.
The relationship between the lovers allegedly went sour after the woman asked Obi to marry her.
Obi allegedly told the lady that he was not ready to marry her because she was five years older than him, and wanted the relationship to continue.
The victim refused and said since he was not ready to marry her, she was no longer interested in the relationship.
On the day the lady was allegedly gang-raped, Obi reportedly invited her to Baba Olopa Street, Adexson, in Igando to settle their differences.
She obliged him and went. She said when she entered his room, seven of his friends came in and they locked the room and started beating her and asked her to strip.
She said they cut her finger with blade and used a white handkerchief to clean the blood that came out and told her she was under oath with them.
She said they told her that she would die if she revealed what happened to anybody.
According to her, “Obi then brought out condoms and gave them to the seven men who started raping me in turns.”
She said after they were satisfied, they allowed her to go.
On getting home, she said she told her father what happened and they went to Igando Police Division and reported the matter and Obi was arrested and charged in court.
But the other seven men escaped before they could be arrested.
She said she was still shocked over what they did to her and that they are still calling her phone threatening to kill her if she continues with her legal actions.
“I am scared, they are calling me with these phone numbers: 08102117847, 07037458340, threatening to kill me and I don’t know what to do now,” she lamented.
When the matter came up on Wednesday, Obi pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge preferred against him.
The prosecutor, Mr Nicholas Atumonye, presented the doctor’s report before the court which indicated that the victim was sexually abused.
The presiding Magistrate, Mr M.B. Folami said after going through the doctor’s report that Obi should be remanded in prison custody at Kirikiri.
The next mention of the case will be on September 23 this year.

ireporterstv.co

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/man-and-7-friends-take-turns-in-raping.html

Syria: Pope warns Barack Obama that military strike would be 'futile'
The Pope has warned US president Barack Obama that targeting Syria with military strikes would be a "futile pursuit".

In a sharply-worded intervention in the debate on the Syrian conflict, Pope Francis also accused world leaders of having stood by and allowed a "senseless massacre" to unfold in the country.
The Pope wrote in a letter, delivered to Vladimir Putin but addressed to all the G20 leaders meeting: "To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution."
He added: "Rather, let there be a renewed commitment to seek, with courage and determination, a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiation of the parties, unanimously supported by the international community.
"Moreover, all governments have the moral duty to do everything possible to ensure humanitarian assistance to those suffering because of the conflict, both within and beyond the country's borders."
The widespread killings in Syria had spiralled due to a lack of interest from the world, he said. "It is regrettable that, from the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, one-sided interests have prevailed and in fact hindered the search for a solution that would have avoided the senseless massacre now unfolding."
The Russian conference, he warned, needed to focus on Syria. "The leaders of the G20 cannot remain indifferent to the dramatic situation of the beloved Syrian people which has lasted far too long, and even risks bringing greater suffering to a region bitterly tested by strife and needful of peace."
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi yesterday denied claims made by the Argentinian newspaper Clarin that the Pope had contacted President Assad of Syria, urging him to halt attacks in Syria.
Foreign ambassadors were summoned to a briefing by Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign secretary, on Thursday, on the Pope's appeals to halt hostilities in Syria.
The Pope's push for a peaceful solution in Syria includes a four-hour vigil to be held in St Peter's Square on Saturday evening. The Vatican will station 50 confessors around the square. Bishops' conferences around the world have announced local vigils.
An official at the Vatican's justice and peace office warned earlier this week that military action in Syria could spark a world war. In a tweet this week, the Pope wrote: "War never again! Never again war!"
The Pope, who is a Jesuit, has been backed in his criticism of a military strike on Syria by the head of the Jesuits, Father Adolfo Nicolas.
In an interview with the Independent Catholic News, posted on September 4, Father Nicolas said a strike would be "an abuse of power".
"I cannot understand who gave the United States or France the right to act against a country in a way that will certainly increase the suffering of the citizens of that country, who, by the way, have already suffered beyond measure," he said.
In a stinging attack on the White House, he said: "The US has to stop acting and reacting like the big boy of the neighbourhood of the world. This leads inevitably to abuse, harassment and bullying of the weaker members of the community.
"We, Jesuits, support 100 per cent the Holy Father and wish with all our hearts that the threatened attack on Syria does not take place."

telegraph.co.uk

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Apple rumor roundup: iPhone 5C, gold iPhone, Apple TV and China

We're less than 24 hours away from Apple's "special event" Tuesday at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. It's slated to be a smaller event than usual, but with a twist: There's another media event scheduled for Beijing just nine hours later.
Here's a rundown on the latest rumors:
Full Coverage: Apple iPhone event
Gold iPhone: It may sound trivial, but gold, or "champagne" as some have called it, is one of the most popular after-market colors for iPhone cases. If Apple does introduce a gold iPhone, it will be only the third official color for the main iPhone, joining the classic black and white.
iPhone 5C: This is the so-called cheap or lower-cost phone that is aimed at new smartphone buyers and emerging markets. Rather than a metal case, it's expected to be plastic and come in an array of colors. The critical point: How much will it cost?
iPhone 5S: This is the new high-end smartphone. The rumors don't point to too many thrilling, breakthrough type features. Possibly a fingerprint scanner for security, a faster processor. It's the off-year refresh, after all. It's the iPhone 6 next year that ought be the real revelation.
China Mobile: There have been a number of reports that the company will announce a deal with China Mobile that will allow the carrier to sell the iPhone to its 700 million subscribers. Such a deal might well trump anything else Apple has to say Tuesday.
Bye-bye, iPhone 5: With the new iPhone 5C and 5S, Apple is expected to stop selling the iPhone 5, which was released last year. That would be the shortest life span of any iPhone yet. And it will also likely kill off the iPhone 4, which has remained surprisingly popular as a free option offered by carriers in the U.S.
Apple Wallet: There's some talk that Apple has a new mobile payment service up its sleeve. This feels like a bit of a long shot.
Apple TV: Rumors flared up again that Apple would announce something related to Apple TV when a tech blog reported on import documents that seemed to indicate such a device. It's tantalizing, as Apple has been increasing the amount of content available on its current $99 Apple TV set-top box. And it's been more than a year since the device was updated. But for the moment, this seems to be Tuesday's least likely to be announcement.

chicagotribune.com

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Abuja Court Jails an Actress for Stealing
Nancy Ndukwe, a 26 year old actress from Jikwoyi Abuja was sentenced by Abuja Senior Magistrates’ Court on Friday after she was convicted of stealing an iPad, an iPhone and jewellery.
The prosecution told the court that the matter was reported at the Lugbe Police Station by one Faith Njoku of Kapuwa Village, Lugbe, Abuja on September 2.
It further claimed that Nancy Ndukwe visited her friend Njoku on the above-mentioned date and stole her IPad, IPhone and jewellery, all valued at N190,000.
On behalf of the prosecution, Cpl. Paul Anigbo gave the value of each of the items as reported by the complainant: IPad – N100,000; IPhone – N50,000 and jewellery – N40,000.


The prosecutor said that the police discovered all the stolen items in the convict’s possession adding that the offence contravened the provisions of Section 287 of the Penal Code.
The convict pleaded guilty to the charge but begged the court for mercy.
“I stole the items due to frustration. I have a one-year-old son to cater for. I am sorry and I promise not to do such again,” Nancy Ndukwe said.
The Magistrate, Mr. Celestine Odo sentenced the convict for two months imprisonment ar a payment of a fine of N6000.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/abuja-court-jails-actress-for-stealing.html

Nancy Ndukwe, a 26 year old actress from Jikwoyi Abuja was sentenced by Abuja Senior Magistrates’ Court on Friday after she was convicted of stealing an iPad, an iPhone and jewellery.
The prosecution told the court that the matter was reported at the Lugbe Police Station by one Faith Njoku of Kapuwa Village, Lugbe, Abuja on September 2.
It further claimed that Nancy Ndukwe visited her friend Njoku on the above-mentioned date and stole her IPad, IPhone and jewellery, all valued at N190,000.
On behalf of the prosecution, Cpl. Paul Anigbo gave the value of each of the items as reported by the complainant: IPad – N100,000; IPhone – N50,000 and jewellery – N40,000.


The prosecutor said that the police discovered all the stolen items in the convict’s possession adding that the offence contravened the provisions of Section 287 of the Penal Code.
The convict pleaded guilty to the charge but begged the court for mercy.
“I stole the items due to frustration. I have a one-year-old son to cater for. I am sorry and I promise not to do such again,” Nancy Ndukwe said.
The Magistrate, Mr. Celestine Odo sentenced the convict for two months imprisonment ar a payment of a fine of N6000.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/abuja-court-jails-actress-for-stealing.html

Bride Aged 8 Dies after Sleeping With Her 40 Year Old Husband on Their Wedding Night.
An eight year old bride in Yemen died from internal injuries on her wedding night, bleeding to death after deep vaginal tearing caused by sex with her 40 year old husband.
The girl, identified only by the name Rawan, died in Hardh in the governorate of Hajjah in northwestern Yemen, according to a report issued by UPI on Sunday, Sept. 8.
Activists in the region want to put an end to the practice of marrying young girls, and have called for police to arrest the girl’s husband and family.
Nevertheless, the forced marriage of child brides in Yemen remains a socially accepted custom in many rural areas.
Indeed, the practice has deep cultural and religious roots, and is widespread in Yemen.


A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed after some conservative lawmakers called it un-Islamic.
In particular, a prominent Islamic cleric, Abdulmajeed al-Zindani, issued a fatwa in support of the practice, declaring supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates, and ultimately leading a successful campaign against legislation that would prevent adult men from marrying children.
The issue of Yemen’s child bride problem made headlines three years ago when an 8-year-old girl went to court, demanding a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s.
The girl eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice. However, they have so far been unsuccessful.
Currently the law states that parents should decide when a daughter marries. Unfortunately, reports indicate more than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/bride-aged-8-dies-after-sleeping-with.html

Bride Aged 8 Dies after Sleeping With Her 40 Year Old Husband on Their Wedding Night.
An eight year old bride in Yemen died from internal injuries on her wedding night, bleeding to death after deep vaginal tearing caused by sex with her 40 year old husband.
The girl, identified only by the name Rawan, died in Hardh in the governorate of Hajjah in northwestern Yemen, according to a report issued by UPI on Sunday, Sept. 8.
Activists in the region want to put an end to the practice of marrying young girls, and have called for police to arrest the girl’s husband and family.
Nevertheless, the forced marriage of child brides in Yemen remains a socially accepted custom in many rural areas.
Indeed, the practice has deep cultural and religious roots, and is widespread in Yemen.


A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed after some conservative lawmakers called it un-Islamic.
In particular, a prominent Islamic cleric, Abdulmajeed al-Zindani, issued a fatwa in support of the practice, declaring supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates, and ultimately leading a successful campaign against legislation that would prevent adult men from marrying children.
The issue of Yemen’s child bride problem made headlines three years ago when an 8-year-old girl went to court, demanding a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s.
The girl eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice. However, they have so far been unsuccessful.
Currently the law states that parents should decide when a daughter marries. Unfortunately, reports indicate more than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/bride-aged-8-dies-after-sleeping-with.html

Bride Aged 8 Dies after Sleeping With Her 40 Year Old Husband on Their Wedding Night.
An eight year old bride in Yemen died from internal injuries on her wedding night, bleeding to death after deep vaginal tearing caused by sex with her 40 year old husband.
The girl, identified only by the name Rawan, died in Hardh in the governorate of Hajjah in northwestern Yemen, according to a report issued by UPI on Sunday, Sept. 8.
Activists in the region want to put an end to the practice of marrying young girls, and have called for police to arrest the girl’s husband and family.
Nevertheless, the forced marriage of child brides in Yemen remains a socially accepted custom in many rural areas.
Indeed, the practice has deep cultural and religious roots, and is widespread in Yemen.


A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed after some conservative lawmakers called it un-Islamic.
In particular, a prominent Islamic cleric, Abdulmajeed al-Zindani, issued a fatwa in support of the practice, declaring supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates, and ultimately leading a successful campaign against legislation that would prevent adult men from marrying children.
The issue of Yemen’s child bride problem made headlines three years ago when an 8-year-old girl went to court, demanding a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s.
The girl eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice. However, they have so far been unsuccessful.
Currently the law states that parents should decide when a daughter marries. Unfortunately, reports indicate more than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/bride-aged-8-dies-after-sleeping-with.html

A 34-year-old Emmanuel Joseph has been arrested by the police at Elemoro Division, Ibeju Lekki, Lagos, southwest Nigeria, after he battered a labourer for allegedly refusing to give him a N3,000 bribe.
PHOTO: "Soldier" Brutally Batters Man Over N3k BribeAfter investigation by Corporal Raymond Udoeka and his team, it became known that the incident occurred at Hi-Tech yard, Eko Akete, Awoyaya, Ibeju Lekki and the suspect was arrested.
A suspected fake soldier was charged before a Tinubu Magistrate’s court, Lagos on a five-count charge of felony to wit, assault occasioning harm, stealing and impersonation.
The severely injured victim, James Ihonde, a native of Benin City, Edo State, southsouth Nigeria, who now is at hospital, told the police about what had happened: “I went to Hi-Tech yard to eat in a canteen and I met a man in military uniform with his friend inside the canteen. I requested for food from the owner of the canteen.
“Suddenly the man in the military uniform barked at me and said I have no respect for the Nigerian Army and that I was supposed to salute him, a military man, before requesting for food inside the canteen.
He later said I must pay him and his colleague the sum of N3,000 as bribe before I could eat food in the canteen.
Immediately I replied that he has no right to challenge me inside the canteen, the man and his friend descended on me and beat me with military belt and wood.
They stripped me naked and inflicted injuries on my two eyes and parts of my body.
They stole my handset, the N4,000 in my pocket and the sum of N6,000 belonging to the owner of the canteen.
They later demanded for the sum of N3,000 from me as bribe before they could allow me to go and treat myself.
Residents in the area contributed the money and gave it to them before they abandoned me and left the scene.”
After the incident, the police officers traced the suspect to a beer parlour and arrested one of them.
During interrogation, Emmanuel Joseph, the arrested suspect, confessed to the crime and denied being a military officer.
When asked about the military camouflage uniform he was wearing, Joseph said that he wears the uniform to cheat members of the public because he was jobless.
“I am not a soldier. I wear the military camouflage to harass and intimidate people and dispossess them of their belongings to survive since I am jobless.
I learnt the military tactics when I attended a military secondary school in Akure, Ondo State. I regret my actions,” he allegedly told the police.
The offences the suspect committed, said the prosecutor, Supol A. C. Orji, contravened sections 409, 171,285 and 77a of the criminal laws of Lagos State, 2011.
The accused pleaded not guilty to the charge and the Magistrate, Mrs. S. K Matepo, admitted him on bail in the sum of N50,000 with two sureties in like sum.
The matter was adjourned till 24 September, 2013 for mention, while the defendant was taken to Ikoyi Prisons pending when he will fulfil the bail conditions.

http://newsinfok..com/2013/09/soldier-brutally-batters-man-over-n3k.html
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