₦airaland Forum

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak – ousted by the military in 2011 – has died in Cairo at the age of 91.

Mubarak spent three decades in office before a popular uprising swept Egypt.

He was found guilty of complicity in the killing of protesters during the revolution. That conviction was overturned and was freed in March 2017.

His death was confirmed by Egyptian state news on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, the Al-Watan website reported that he died at a military hospital.

Mubarak underwent surgery in late January. His son Alaa said on Saturday that Mubarak remained in intensive care.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.

The US has announced it is expanding its curbs on immigration to include six more countries, including Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.

Citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar will now be blocked from obtaining certain types of visas.

People from those countries will still be able to visit the US as tourists.

In 2018 the US issued twice as many immigration visas to Nigeria than to the other five nations combined.

An official said the new measures were the result of failures by the six countries to meet US security and information-sharing standards.

"These countries, for the most part, want to be helpful but for a variety of different reasons simply failed to meet those minimum requirements that we laid out," acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters on Friday.
He said officials would work with the countries on bolstering their security requirements to help them get off the list.

US President Donald Trump first introduced a travel ban in 2017. It currently closes US borders to citizens from seven countries, most of them with Muslim majorities.

In 2018 the US issued more than 8,000 immigration visas to citizens of Nigeria. That same year, just over 2,000 were issued to Sudanese nationals, 290 to Tanzanians, and just 31 to Eritreans.

The US had previously announced a ban on certain types of visas for Eritreans in 2017.

What are the new rules?

The US said it would suspend the issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for nationals of Nigeria, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar.

Sudanese and Tanzanian nationals will no longer be allowed to apply for "diversity visas", which are available by lottery for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.

Mr Wolf said non-immigrant visas given to people for temporary stays - including visitors, those doing business or people seeking medical treatment - would not be impacted by the new rules.

Of the new nationalities facing visa restrictions, Nigerians account for the most immigration to the US.

According to US government statistics, the State Department issued 8,018 immigrant visas to Nigerians in the fiscal year 2018.

Three of the countries facing restrictions - Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria and Sudan - have majority Muslim populations, while Eritrea and Tanzania have sizable Muslim minorities.

What is the travel ban?

Mr Trump signed a controversial travel ban just seven days after taking office in January 2017, arguing it was vital to protect Americans.

The ban initially excluded people from seven majority-Muslim countries but the list was modified following a series of court challenges.

I wonder why member of a group or former group thinks his or her personal problem is the group problem. Just curious.

Stupid OP, this is not Nigeria, find something better to post for attention lol

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran announced Saturday that its military ‘unintentionally’ shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard.

The statement came Saturday morning and blamed “human error” for the shootdown.


The jetliner, a Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, went down on the outskirts of Tehran during takeoff just hours after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at U.S. forces.

Iran had denied for several days that a missile downed the aircraft. But then the U.S. and Canada, citing intelligence, said they believe Iran shot down the aircraft.

The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials.

I have 4 Toyota vehicles that I'm shipping from Georgia to Lagos next month. Can you please give idea on anything else hot cake that I can load in the container for quick sale in Nigeria?
I bought some push lawn mowers, washer and dryer, and some flat screen televisions already. Please, help with idea.
Thank you

And they got nothing in return, right?

Nigerian in U.S. on Visa Gets Life Sentence for Raping 13-Year-Old Girl

Breitbart NewsNovember 20, 2019 7:14 pm

Adedoja Olaniyi Bah, a Nigerian national who was visiting the U.S., was sentenced to three life sentences as well as an additional 76 years in prison — the maximum sentence in Georgia — for raping a 13-year-old girl on July 15, 2017, in Douglas County, Georgia.

According to prosecutors, Bah chased his young victim into a wooded area before punching her and throwing her down to the ground. Then, prosecutors said Bah held the girl down as he raped her and told her that if she resisted, he would murder her.

After the rape, the 13-year-old girl fled to a nearby apartment for help as Bah walked back to his car and drove off. A month later, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office arrested Bah.

Surveillance footage showed Bah chasing the girl into the wooded area, and DNA evidence put the Nigerian national at the scene of the rape.

Bah was able to enter the U.S. on either a B-1 or B-2 business and tourist visa after living in Japan. At trial, Bah asked that he be returned to Nigeria, but the judge denied his plea.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

The idiot that copied this story from another site jumped into conclusion. Fabiola sounds Nigerian, but it is Hispanic name, but he knows Nigerians believe everything they see in the Internet lol

Can you please let me know what American made appliances work in Nigeria? I'm planning on shipping laundry washer and dryer, stove/ oven, refrigerator and other stuff.
Thank you.

Nigerians accept everything and copycat most bad things that their forefather will curse at them for. So, the so called yeyebrities are not only engaging in fraudulent activities, unclothedness, drunkenness, support for gays/lesbians, and other sad behaviors, but now are engaging in Halloween? Most of them have no history of that devilish event, but embraced it. They will look back later and regret their actions.

WHATEVER SOME DUMB NIGERIANS ACCOMPLISHED IN LIFE MUST BE PUBLISIZED. WHAT KIND OF BRAIN DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE FORGETTING THEY HAVE VILLAGE PEOPLE. OH, I GUESS IT'S ANOTHER WAY OF OPPRESSING THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE THE PRIVILEDGE, #OPPRESSOR, #DUMB. THAT'S A VEHICLE A 16 YEAR-OLD IS DRIVING TO HIGH SCHOOL HERE, LOL.

NIGERIANS MAKE MONEY IN NIGERIA AND SPEND IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

What did they do to stop it?

The idiot just introduced it to Nigerians.

Based on the information provided, you seem to be insecure for one reason; You are way too older than her and you're scared of not being able to keep up with her and eventually losing her to a younger guy. That's life.

Chris Brown is one of the most useless guys in America that no one wants to associate with since he beats up Rihanna, but another man's garbage is another man's luxury,lol

I like that courage that the owners of the shops actually fought back.

By ALICE CHAMBERS, Sep 11, 2019

Jayesh Patel was stopped as he was trying to board a flight to New York at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi by the Central Industrial Security Force. Disguised in glasses, make-up, a turban and a dyed beard, he made it through initial security checks and past immigration officials, a spokesperson for the Central Industrial Security Force told news agency IANS.

“He was planning to go to the U.S. for a job. But his profile was such that he would not have gotten a visa easily,” a senior police officer told local media. “With a fake name - Amrik Singh, a fake address, he managed to get a passport and a U.S. visa. We've never seen a similar case at the Delhi airport before," he added.

Riding through the airport in a wheelchair, Patel aroused suspicion at a second security check when he refused to get up saying he was too old. He reportedly refused to make eye contact during the exchange.

"[The Security Force] was suspicious about him as his voice didn't match his age. Despite grey hair, his skin seemed to be quite young as there were hardly any wrinkles on his face," a spokesperson told local news outlets.

Patel reportedly hired an agent who got him the documents and arranged for him to be made-up to look like an 81-year-old in a hotel in Delhi, according to local media. Patel agreed to pay the agent once he had arrived in the U.S.

The security force tweeted that they had arrested the man for impersonation and carrying dual passports, before handing him over to the Delhi police.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/32-year-man-india-pretends-81-us/story?id=65533836

By CHARLES JACOBS, September 4, 2019 

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Black Slavery Exists Today in Muslim-Dominated African Nations, but No One’s Talking About It

YouTube screenshot/iabolishslaverynow

Emancipated slaves sit under a shade tree in southern Sudan.

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By CHARLES JACOBSSeptember 4, 2019 • 7 Comments

Charles Jacobs

Today, an estimated 529,000 to 869,000 black men, women, and children are still slaves. They are bought, owned, sold, and traded by Arab and Muslim masters in five African countries. This statistic estimates those enslaved in Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, and Sudan. It excludes Nigeria, for which there are no tangible estimates.

Western human rights organizations and the mainstream media are practically and painfully silent on this matter. It does not fit with their focus on Western white sin. Here is a brief survey of this quasi-taboo topic.

Sudan

In Sudan, slavery remains a painful vestige of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). That’s when the Arab Muslim government in the north of the country declared a jihad upon the black, largely Christian south. They killed perhaps 2.5 million people and enslaved as many as 200,000.

Slaves rescued by grassroots abolitionists tell horrific stories. Abduction. Beatings. Forced conversion to Islam. Grueling labor. Female genital mutilation. Malnutrition. Rape.

Slaves rescued by grassroots abolitionists tell horrific stories.

The war ended in 2005. Black South Sudan became the world’s newest nation on July 9, 2011. Still, many black slaves remain the property of Arab masters across the new border in the north. The exact number is not known. As of 2006, James Aguer Alic, a former Sudanese government minister, estimated that it could be as high as 35,000.

Mauritania

In Mauritania, the very structure of society reinforces slavery. Over the centuries a cruel class system has evolved. The lighter-skinned Arabs (beydanes) and Arabized Berbers rule over the black former slaves. Those slaves have been forcibly Arabized over time (haratin). The free blacks in the south who refuse Arabization and call themselves “Negro-Africans” and the black chattel slave class (abid) are at the bottom. The country is entirely Muslim. Islam theoretically forbids the enslavement of one Muslim by another. However, in this case, Arab racism supersedes adherence to the Shari‘ah (Islamic law).

In 1993, a U.S. State Department report estimated that between 30,000 and 90,000 blacks lived as slaves owned by private masters. In 2012, a CNN investigation estimated that the number could be as high as 340,000 to 680,000.

No slave markets exist in Mauritania. All slaves are born in masters’ households. Pregnancy occurs from the master’s insemination of black slave women, or through mandated “breeding” of slave couples. In the absence of open markets, slaves change hands quietly in individual sales. They’re also traded as substitutes for money in the settling of gambling debts. They can even be rented.

Algeria and Libya

Sub-Saharan Africans fleeing violence and poverty for Europe are enslaved by Algerian and Libyan Arabs as they try to cross the Mediterranean. Today, according to the Global Slavery Index, around 106,000 black Africans are estimated to be enslaved in Algeria.

Migrant women, but also children (both male and female), risk being forced into sexual slavery. Men perform unskilled labor. Those who avoid slavery are also subjected to virulent Arab racism. This was recently confirmed by a recent New York Times report. This further marginalizes the already destitute.

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Africans hoping for a better life in Europe also travel to Libya to be trafficked across the Mediterranean, often to Italy. Once there, some are enslaved by local Arabs and traffickers. As of 2016, according to the U.N., there are between 700,000 and 1 million black African migrants in Libya. The Global Slavery Index estimates many as 48,000 of them live as slaves of some nature. Survivors report torture, sex trafficking and slavery. Some are even forced to become prostitutes only after they have reached their destinations.

The slave trade in Libya became international news when CNN obtained video of an actual slave auction in 2017.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, the long-running civil war between the Muslim majority and the 40% Christian minority involves the enslavement of Christian Nigerians. The taking of Christian slaves has become a source of compensation for Islamic fighters.

The recent rise of jihad organizations like ISIS affiliate Boko Haram has been the main source of contemporary slave raids. The most infamous incident of a slave raid was Boko Haram’s abduction of 276 Christian schoolgirls. It happened in the town of Chibok on April 14, 2014. It inspired Michelle Obama’s “#BringBackOurGirls” hashtag. Most slaves are young girls, kidnapped and kept as the concubines of the Islamic soldiers. Some of those prefer to become suicide bombers to escape the life of a sex slave.

Though the U.S. State Department’s 2018 human rights report on Nigeria mentions that the number of slaves captured and owned by Boko Haram terrorists today could be in the thousands, the full number is as of now “unknown.”

 
Charles Jacobs is President of the American Anti-Slavery Group, whose work can be seen on www.iabolish.org.

KRISTA MAHR and SAM OLUKOYA, Associated Press•September 5, 2019

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has closed its diplomatic missions in Nigeria, underscoring the growing strain between Africa's two largest economies after the latest wave of xenophobic violence in South Africa, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said Thursday.

The department said that while there had been "no direct physical threat" to any diplomats or staff, the situation remained "somewhat unpredictable" and there were sufficient safety concerns to close the offices in Lagos and Abuja on Tuesday.

On Sunday, violent mobs began looting and setting fire to foreign-owned businesses in several areas of Johannesburg and the South African capitol Pretoria. At least 10 people died, including two foreigners, scores of shops have been looted and burned, and more than 400 people have been arrested in connection with the violence since Sunday.

South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa condemned the attacks.

"Over the past few days, our country has been deeply traumatized by acts of violence and criminality directed against foreign nationals and our own citizens," he said in a video statement on Thursday. "There can be no excuse for the attacks on the homes and businesses of foreign nationals, just as there can be no excuse for xenophobia or any other form of intolerance."

Outbreaks of violence against Nigerians and citizens of other African nations have regularly erupted in South Africa in recent years, with some South Africans accusing foreigners of peddling illegal drugs or taking jobs when the official unemployment figure stands at nearly 30%.

The latest wave incensed Nigerian citizens and officials alike, with Nigeria's Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama calling the latest attacks "sickening."

Nigeria subsequently recalled its High Commissioner to South Africa and boycotted a meeting of the World Economic Forum on Africa that is underway in Cape Town this week.

Nigerian airline Air Peace also offered to fly Nigerians wanting to leave South Africa back home, free of charge, on Friday.

South-African owned businesses in Nigeria have faced a wave of retaliatory violence, with branches of South African telecommunications giant MTN and supermarket chain Shoprite attacked and looted in several Nigerian cities.

Nigerian police say security measures have been stepped up for foreign missions, foreigners and their businesses across Nigeria.

South Africa's International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor said on Thursday that Nigeria needs to address the fact that some Nigerians are, in fact, involved in criminal activities in South Africa.

"Ensuring such kind persons don't come to our country would be of great assistance to our nation," Pandor told local news station eNCA.

Reuters: By Chijioke Ohuocha and Nqobile Dludla, September 4, 2019

ABUJA/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African companies MTN and Shoprite closed stores in Nigeria on Wednesday in the face of attacks targeting their premises in retaliation to similar violence in their home country.

Nigeria's vice president is also boycotting an economic forum in Cape Town on boosting intra-African trade, the country's foreign minister said, after days of rioting in South Africa aimed at foreign-owned businesses.

At a Shoprite supermarket on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital Abuja, hundreds of protesters tried to break into the premises, throwing stones, setting fire to tires and nearly overwhelming police protecting the site.

After police fired a barrage of teargas at the crowd, they dispersed, according to a Reuters witness.

The Nigerian division of telecom operator MTN said on Wednesday morning it would shut all stores and service centers in the country until further notice.

"The safety and security of our customers, staff and partners is our primary concern," MTN Nigeria said in a statement. "MTN condemns any acts of violence, prejudice and xenophobia."

Nigeria is MTN's biggest market, with 58 million users in 2018 and accounts for a third of the South African group's core profit.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama on Wednesday implored people to stop attacking these businesses.

"These businesses, Shoprite, MTN and others, yes, they are South African," he said at a press briefing.

"But these are subsidiaries in Nigeria owned by Nigerians. So, as attacks are made against Shoprite and other such institutions, it is actually the property owned by Nigerians within Nigeria and the people working there are Nigerians."


"XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE"

Shoprite said several stores in South Africa, Nigeria and Zambia were closed and extensive damage had been done to several supermarkets over the past 24 hours.

"The retailer is highly concerned about the acts of xenophobic violence against foreign nationals," the grocer added in its statement.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told officials and business leaders on Wednesday that he was committed to quelling attacks on foreigners.

The latest wave of unrest in South Africa has raised fears of a recurrence of violence in 2015 aimed at foreigners and in which at least seven people were killed. Before that, some 60 people were killed in a wave of unrest around the country in 2008.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said on Tuesday he was urgently sending a special envoy to meet with Ramaphosa to secure the "safety of (Nigerian citizens') lives and property".

Additionally, Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo won't be going to the World Economic Forum's Africa summit in South Africa, Onyeama said at his briefing. Osinbajo was slated to attend.

"Clearly with this climate, he and Mr. President have agreed that he should not go," Onyeama said.

Nigeria is also considering recalling its ambassador to South Africa, he said.

South African police have yet to pinpoint what prompted the violence, which began on Sunday when protesters armed with makeshift weapons roamed the streets of Pretoria's business district, pelting shops with rocks and petrol bombs and running off with goods.

The police have arrested almost 300 people and confirmed several deaths after the riots.


(Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha, Afolabi Sotunde, Alexis Akwagyiram, Camillus Eboh and Felix Onuah in Abuja and Nqobile Dludla in Johannesburg; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Louise Heavens/Deepa Babington and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Nigeria said on Wednesday it would boycott an Africa economic summit in Cape Town, intensifying a diplomatic row after a series of deadly attacks on foreigners in South African cities.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attends the opening day of the International Labour Organization's annual labour conference in Geneva, Switzerland June 10, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

The withdrawal of Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo from the World Economic Forum gathering has cast a cloud over initiatives to boost intra-African trade. He was scheduled to address a panel on universal energy access on Thursday.

The rioting has killed at least five people in Johannesburg and Pretoria in recent days, and on Wednesday South African companies MTN and Shoprite closed stores in Nigeria after retaliatory attacks on their premises.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, on a charm offensive to attract $100 billion of new investment, tried to limit fallout from the violence, which has rekindled memories of previous deadly attacks on foreigners that also led to reprisals on South African businesses abroad.

Police have made almost 300 arrests, while people across the continent have protested and voiced their anger on social media.

Laminated documents are invalid in the US.

Any reason you're blocking the identity of a scammer?
I smell lies

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's multiple security problems have created a crisis that requires urgent attention and could lead to instability in other African countries if it is not addressed, a United Nations rapporteur said on Monday.

Security forces in Africa's most populous country are trying to tackle a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, banditry in the northwest and bloody clashes between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities over dwindling arable land in central states.

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Nigeria was a "pressure cooker of internal conflict".

"The overall situation I have found is one of extreme concern," she told a news conference in the capital, Abuja, where she presented her preliminary findings following a 12-day visit to the country.

Callamard said the police and military had shown an excessive use of lethal force across the West African country which, combined with a lack of effective investigations and meaningful prosecution, caused a lack of accountability.

She said the country required changes in the judiciary, police and military to stop people resorting to violence in the absence of justice.

"The lack of accountability is on such a scale that pretending this is nothing short of a crisis will be a major mistake. If ignored, its ripple effect will spread in the sub-region given the country's important role in the continent," she said.

Spokesman for the ministries of justice, military and police did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on Callamard's findings.

The Islamist insurgency waged by Boko Haram began in northeast Nigeria in 2009 but has spread to parts of neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger where members of the group and militants allied to Islamic State carry out attacks.

The rapporteur also condemned what she said was the "arbitrary deprivation of life" and the excessive use of lethal force in the case of processions held by banned Shi'ite Muslim group the Islamic Movement in Nigeria.

Callamard said the move to ban the group appeared be based on what the authorities thought IMN could become rather than its actions. She said she had not been presented with any evidence to suggest the group was weaponized and posed a threat to the country.

(Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram and Camillus Eboh; Editing by Peter Cooney)

A woman sent her online admirer $200,000. Feds say he didn't exist and she was among the victims in a worldwide scam
By Faith Karimi, CNN
Updated Aug 23, 2019
(CNN) - In March 2016, a man claiming to be a US Army captain stationed in Syria reached out to a Japanese woman on an international site for digital pen pals.
Within weeks, their relationship grew into an internet romance with the man sending daily emails in English that she translated via Google. The man who called himself Terry Garcia asked for money -- lots of it -- from the woman identified as FK in federal court documents. Over 10 months, she sent him a total of $200,000 that she borrowed from friends, her ex-husband and other relatives to make her love interest happy.
But in reality, Garcia did not exist. It was all an international online scam ran by two Nigerian men in the Los Angeles area with the help of associates in their home country and other nations, federal officials say.
And Thursday, US prosecutors charged 80 people -- mostly Nigerians -- in the widespread conspiracy that defrauded at least $6 million from businesses and vulnerable elderly women.
Of those, 17 people have been arrested in the US so far and federal investigators are trying to track down the rest in Nigeria and other nations.
"We believe this is one of the largest cases of its kind in US history," US Attorney Nick Hanna said.
A plan to smuggle diamonds
The whirlwind online romance between FK and Garcia was all conducted on a Yahoo email address with no phone calls. Garcia told FK he wasn't allowed to use a phone in Syria, according to federal authorities.
Demands for money started after he told her he'd found a bag of diamonds in Syria and needed her help to smuggle it out of the war-torn nation. He said he was injured and could not do it himself -- and introduced her to associates he said would help facilitate the transfer, court documents allege. One said he was a Red Cross diplomat who could get the diamonds shipped to FK, court documents show.
Shortly after, another man who claimed to work for a shipping company asked FK for money to ensure the package was not inspected at customs, the complaint alleges. Requests for additional money kept coming, with the fraudsters citing different reasons each time on why the package was stuck at customs.
"FK estimates that she made 35 to 40 payments over the 10 months that she had a relationship with Garcia. During that time, the fraudster(s) emailed her as many as 10 to 15 times each day, and Garcia was asking her to make the payments, so she kept paying to accounts in Turkey, the UK and the US," the federal criminal complaint says.
The loss of money has left FK angry and depressed, authorities said. "She began crying when discussing the way that these losses have affected her," the criminal complaint says.
17 arrested and dozens on the run
The scams were not just limited to romance, Hanna said. They included business schemes where fraudsters hack escrow company email systems, impersonate employees and direct payments that funnel money back to themselves.
"In some cases, the victims thought they were communicating with US servicemen stationed overseas, when in fact, they were emailing with con men," Hanna said. "Some of the victims in this case lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in this way."
Of the 80 people charged, federal authorities arrested 14 people mostly in Los Angeles, the local US Attorney's Office said Thursday. At least three other defendants were already in custody. The remaining suspects live in other countries, mainly in Nigeria, and investigators said they'll work with the respective governments to extradite them.
How the scam worked
Investigators detailed an intricate scam traced to two key suspects who oversaw the fraudulent transfer of at least $6 million and the attempted theft of an additional $40 million.
Once co-conspirators based in Nigeria, the United States and other countries persuaded victims to send money under false pretenses, the two Nigerian men who lived in Southern California coordinated the receipt of funds, the indictment says.
The two men provided bank and money-service accounts that received funds obtained from victims and also ran the extensive money-laundering network, the complaint alleges.
The two men were arrested Thursday. All defendants will face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and aggravated identity theft. Some also will face fraud and money laundering charges.
Paul Delacourt of the FBI's Los Angeles warned people to be careful as romance scams escalate nationwide. The Federal Trade Commission has said scams that prey on vulnerable people cost Americans more money than any other fraud reported to the agency last year. More than 21,000 people were conned into sending $143 million in such schemes in 2018 alone, it reported.
"Billions of dollars are lost annually, and we urge citizens to be aware of these sophisticated financial schemes to protect themselves or their businesses from becoming unsuspecting victims," Delacourt said.
TM & © 2019 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
A WarnerMedia Company.
All Rights Reserved.

The op is an idiot who thinks he can fool everyone else. I live in the US and this is a normal question you ask people. How can some idiot tells you otherwise and you believe it seems trying to impose it on everyone else. Fools everywhere.

It is now a great accomplishment for a 2-year old boy to kill a snake, wake up fools.

It's funny how dumb people go on the social media to blame the victims or dead relatives/friends after the fact. Only in Nigeria,lol

By Hannah Sparks/ July 17, 2019 | 9:31am


The eerie FaceApp photo filter, which uses AI to digitally age your face, has gone viral, with millions on social media sharing their sagging simulacrum, including celebs such as Drake, the Jonas Brothers and Kevin Hart.

However, experts warn that the free “old age filter,” created in 2017 by developers at Wireless Lab in St. Petersburg, Russia, poses security concerns that may give them access to your personal information and identity.

The Russian app is one of the most downloaded across the globe, with fans on social media using the hashtag #faceappchallenge to share their results. The tool augments your face to look double or triple your current age — with wrinkles, sagging and yellowed teeth — and also allows you to look younger, swap genders and try out a beard.

But be warned: FaceApp, which you grant permission to access your photo gallery, also includes in their Terms and Conditions that they have the right to modify, reproduce and publish any of the images you process through its AI.

That means that your face could end up being commercialized — or worse.

UK-based Digitas strategist James Whatley said on Twitter, “You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable… royalty-free… license to use, adapt, publish, distribute your user content… in all media formats… when you post or otherwise share.”

That means they can also use your real name, your username or “any likeness provided” in any format without notifying, much less paying, you. They can retain that material as long as they want, even after you delete the app, and you won’t be able to stop them. Even those who set their Apple iOS photo permissions to “never,” as Tech Crunch points out, are not protected against the terms.

Security expert Ariel Hochstadt told Daily Mail that hackers, who are not infrequently agents of the Russian government, can log the websites visited and “the activities they perform in those websites,” though they might not know the identity of the person being tracked.

But when we also give them access to our phone’s camera, they can “secretly record” someone — who could be a targeted or prosecuted member of society, says Hochstadt, such as “a young gay person.” Now the hackers (and Russian government by proxy) can cross-reference your face and phone information with the websites you’re using.

Hochstadt continues, “They also know who this image is, with the huge database they created of Facebook accounts and faces, and the data they have on that person is both private and accurate to the name, city and other details found on Facebook.”

Even if hackers aren’t exactly working with the Russian government, says Hochstadt, “With so many breaches, they can get information and hack cameras that are out there, and be able to create a database of people all over the world, with information these people didn’t imagine is collected on them.”

Eventually, technology expert Steve Sammartino believes, your face will also be used to access even more critical private information, such as banking credentials.

“Your face is now a form of copyright where you need to be really careful who you give permission to access your biometric data,” he tells journalist Ben Fordham. “If you start using that willy-nilly, in the future when we’re using our face to access things, like our money and credit cards, then what we’ve done is we’ve handed the keys to others.”

And so what? Does his father or grandfather know how to send text messages? He or any members of his Family would never achieve what that achieved in life and after his death anyway. Fool.