₦airaland Forum

The Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Peter Leslie Carter has reportedly died of heart attack at the Muritala Muhammad International Airport in Lagos.
Carter was reported to have fallen and slumped while arriving Nigeria aboard a Delta Airlines from Atlanta Georgia.


His sudden death temporarily caused uproar at the airport as many feared that he may have died of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease currently ravaging the country.
He was later confirmed to have died of heart attack and his remains taken to an undisclosed hospital where he was officially declared death.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/09/british-envoy-dies-of-heart-attack-at.html

The police in Benin has arrested and detained a 22-year old man, Bestman Momodu, who allegedly killed his father over a missing stick of cigarette.
Bestman who was among 68 suspects paraded for various offences, reportedly killed his father, Zuberu Momodu at Ubiane Aviele town, Etsako West local government area of Edo State, on 16 August 2014.

According to the state Commissioner of Police, Foluso Adebanjo, who paraded the suspected criminals, Bestman stabbed his father with a cutlass machete, following an argument over a missing stick of cigarette in the house.
He added that police have recovered the machete with which the suspect allegedly committed the crime.Speaking to journalists at the State Command Headquarters in Benin, Bestman who confessed to the crime however attributed it to a mistake.
Other suspects were arrested for their alleged involvement in various crimes ranging from armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, illegal possession of firearms, rape, cultism, defilement, unlawful possession of fake product to obtaining money under false pretence and impersonation.
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Items recovered from the suspects included 17 assorted guns, 48 live cartridges, three cars, one Lifan motor cycle, one battle axe and one cutlass.Adebanjo had earlier told journalists that the police would strive to secure lives and property in the state in the “ember months,” noting that “the ember months are the months criminals want to reap where they have not sow.”
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He called on the press and members of the society to partner with police to combat crime by giving useful information to the police.
“We must all work together for a peaceful society. It is not for the police alone”, Adebanjo said.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/09/man-kills-father-over-stick-of-cigarette.html

A man, his two children and two other persons have died after eating dog meat in a village in northern Cross River State, southern Nigeria.
Sources told that the tragedy occurred after the victims ate the meat of a dog that had been sick in the village of Uchenyim, Wanikade, North Ukelle.
The man reportedly killed the dog which was ill and was about to die. But instead of throwing it away, he decided to feast on it with his two sons and other persons.

An eye witness in the area, Ugbem Onawo, said the dog always ate the eggs laid by chickens in the village and one of the villagers allegedly laced the eggs laid by his chicken with Gamalin 20 insecticide.
“The dog ate the eggs and fell ill and when it was about to die the owner quickly killed and prepared it into a delicacy which he, his family and some neigbours ate, ” Onawo, a villager narrated.
The source said though many fell sick after eating the meat, those who died also ate the intestines of the dog where incidentally the poison from the Gamalin 20 is lodged.
According to him, when they became very ill they were taken to the local health centre for medical attention but were confirmed dead on arrival at the health centre.
Frank Ugbem, the councillor representing Wanikade Ward in Yala Local Government Council legislature described the tragedy as painful.
He said he has sent a delegation to console the bereaved families, adding that the dead have been buried.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/09/man-sons-die-after-eating-dog-meat.html

A jilted man, Abiodun Atinuke, has been arrested and charged before Ijeshatedo Magistrates’ Court sitting in Lagos State, western Nigeria, for allegedly hiring assassins to kill his ex-wife.
The 34-year old suspect allegedly hired three men now at large and paid them an undisclosed amount of money to assassinate his ex-wife Eniola for dumping him for another man six months after their marriage.
Antinuke, who hails from Ogun State, married Eniola from Ilorin in Kwara State, but they broke up six months later.


Angered by her action, Atinuke allegedly took suspected assassins to 15, Ogunmokun Street, Mushin, Lagos, where Eniola lives after she left his house and asked them to kill her.
Eniola managed to escape and reported the matter to the police at Olosan Division.
Subsequently, Atinuke was arrested but his accomplices fled.
When interrogated by the police, it was reported that Atinuke did not deny the allegation.
He said trouble started after they got married and Eniola started behaving strangely and was coming home late.
He said he confirmed his suspicion when he caught his wife with her lover.
The suspect said that when he confronted Eniola, instead of showing remorse, she packed out of their matrimonial home and moved into her lover’s house.
Subsequently, Atinuke was charged before the court for conspiracy and conduct likely to breach public peace.
When he was arraigned, he pleaded not guilty.
The presiding magistrate, Mrs. Abegunde Davis, granted him bail in the sum of N50,000 with two sureties in like sum.
However, Atinuke was remanded in prison custody at Kirikiri, Lagos pending when he will perfect his bail conditions. The matter was adjourned till 24 September, 2014.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/09/man-hires-assassins-to-kill-ex-wife.html

A police inspector, attached to a division in Apapa, Lagos, Inspector Danjuma Daniel, on Thursday afternoon died during a fight with his wife.
Metro learnt that the scuffle between Daniel and his wife got so physical that the couple fell from the balcony of their apartment ─ a two-storey building. The couple, it was learnt, was staying at the Ijeh Police Barracks, Obalende, Lagos.


Our correspondent gathered that the police inspector and his wife, identified simply as Ada, who had lived in the barracks for about 10 years, sustained grave injuries from the fall.
It was further gathered that when they were rushed to a nearby hospital, Daniel was said to have been confirmed dead by the medical personnel, while the wife was admitted for treatment.
Our correspondent learnt that Ada, a trader in a nearby market, was discharged from the hospital on Saturday morning.
Speaking with Metro, Daniel’s first son, Emmanuel, said he was informed about his father’s death on the telephone.
Daniel explained that he was staying with an uncle in the Mile 2 area of the state.
He said, “I don’t know what could have caused the fight. I was not at home. Dad and mum have lived in this barracks for about 10 years now.
“We were formerly staying in Nasarawa State where dad initially served. In Lagos, I don’t stay with them, but my two sisters do. Mum has returned from the hospital, and she is back home now, but she cannot talk to anyone for now.”
While the conversation was going on, some neighbours of the couple asked our correspondent to leave the premises, scolding the 17-year-old boy for talking to Metro.
However, it was learnt from a resident that Daniel, an Eggon man from Nasarawa State, had had clashes with his wife before the incident. The source added that the fight on Thursday turned ugly and led to their falling off from the two-storey building.

The Lagos State Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, Lelma Kolle, said he would get back to our correspondent on the matter, but he had yet to do so as of press time.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/09/police-inspector-dies-while-fighting.html

Suspected assassins have killed the Head of Operations, Security Unit, University of Lagos, Mr. Sunday Adejumo.
The 50-year-old was shot dead at a beer parlour on Oyenuga Street in the Akoka area of Lagos on Friday evening.
Our correspondent learnt that Adejumo on the fateful night was in the joint with three of his friends when some strange faces stormed the pub.


They were said to have headed straight for their target where he sat and hit him in the chest, before firing shots at him.
The gunshots were said to have caused confusion in the area.
Metro learnt that the deceased died some minutes later because he could not get help on time.
When our correspondent visited Akoka on Saturday, he observed that the area was quiet, while the beer parlour was locked.
A resident, who did not identify himself, said the owner of the drinking house had been arrested and was being interrogated at the Bariga Police Station.
He said, “The incident happened around 8.30pm on Friday. We suddenly heard gunshots and we all rushed into our different houses because we did not know what exactly happened.
“It was later we learnt that one of those in the beer parlour was killed.
“It was not a robbery because they did not steal anything or injure anybody else. Immediately they killed him, they left.”
A source, who pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent that Adejumo might have been killed by suspected cultists.
He said, “When the gang got in, they went to where he was sitting. They had different weapons, ranging from cutlasses to guns.
“One of them went to him, hit him in the chest and he fell down. He then brought out a gun and shot him point blank.
“On the table where he was drinking with his friends were a pay slip, his ATM cards and his car key.”
Our correspondent learnt from another source that the men wanted to go away with the deceased’s ash coloured Pathfinder, marked, Lagos APP 404 CM, but could not.
“We don’t know exactly what their intention was. But there were blood stains on the car and the car key also had blood stains. We suspected they wanted to drive it away, but abandoned it when they saw it was not responding,” he said.
Another police source told Metro that the corpse of the deceased was taken to the police station late in the night from where it was taken to the Yaba mortuary.
It was learnt that Adejomo’s car and that of one of his friends with whom he went to the pub, were taken away by the police.
Our correspondent gathered that his three friends were also being interrogated.
A source said, “Since he had been going out to drink, he had never gone out with these friends. So, they are also suspects . Although one of them claimed to be injured during the incident, there may be more to it than meets the eye.”
The Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, Lelma Kolle, confirmed the incident.
He added that the Bariga Divisional Police Officer led his men to the scene where they found the deceased in a pool of blood.
He said, “Investigations revealed that the man parked his car a distance away from where he was drinking. The police also discovered that there was a blood stain on the car and the car key was found within the vicinity, also with blood stains. This can only mean that after they killed him, they attempted to go away with his car. They actually succeeded in opening the car because there were blood stains on the car seat. But the car did not move because of the security system in it.
“The owner of the bar has been arrested and he has made statements. We cannot categorically say whether this was a robbery or an assassination plot. The matter is still under investigation.”
Our correspondent called UNILAG, and a former registrar of the institution, Mr. Olu Sodimu said the school would call back.
However, an official of the university in the information department confirmed the shooting.
The official, who pleaded anonymity, said, “We heard that he went to a party with some of his friends and there were gunshots. He was one of the people hit during the incident. That was what we heard. We are not aware that he died. I am just hearing that from you and I will have to confirm that information by making calls.”

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/09/assassins-kill-unilag-security-chief-at.html

Boko Haram gunmen have killed scores of residents in a Nigerian town on the border with Cameroon that they captured in recent raids, witnesses told AFP on Saturday.
The militants seized Gamboru Ngala earlier this week after taking over military and police facilities in a fierce gun battle which forced thousands of residents across the border into Cameroon.


The residents fled to Fotokol for fear of attack by the Islamists, despite being told they were only after security personnel and local vigilantes.
“They are now killing people like chickens,” said Sidi Kyarimi, a Gamboru resident who fled to Fotokol on Friday. “They started by selective killings and later went on a killing spree.”
Among those killed included the town’s highest Muslim cleric and the head of its traders’ union, he said.
“They threaten to kill anybody who refuses to leave the town. They say we don’t belong,” he added.
The insurgents were roaming the streets of the town carrying guns and machetes, shooting and hacking to death residents, said Yusuf Sanda, who also fled to Fotokol.
“They have been breaking into homes and shops and looting them,” he said.
“Initially they said we were free to stay or leave but now they are saying all residents should leave the town because it is now an Islamic Caliphate.”
Sanda said he escaped to Fotokol by wading through the shallow river on the border because it was too dangerous to walk the streets with the insurgents on the prowl.
Boko Haram has in recent weeks seized territory in northern Borno state near the border with Cameroon in an apparent move to carve out a state for themselves.
In a video obtained by AFP last weekend, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declared the town of Gwoza, which his men captured earlier this month, as part of an Islamic caliphate.
Boko Haram now controls at least three districts in Borno state and at least one each in Yobe and Adamawa states.
The military has maintained that Nigeria’s sovereignty is intact and denied reports that soldiers fled the Boko Haram assault in Gamboru Ngala into Cameroon.
Borno, Yobe and Adamawa have been under a state of emergency since May last year but despite some initial gains, the military has been unable to stem increasing violence, particularly in remote regions.
Madagali, a predominantly Christian town in the north of Adamawa state, was the latest to fall in the hands of Boko Haram after they chased out troops. Scores of Christians were killed in the town and many Christian women were allegedly forced to convert to Islam and marry insurgents, according to the spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Maiduguri.
“Christian men were caught and beheaded, the women were forced to become Muslim and were taken as wives to the terrorists,” Father Gideon Obasogie alleged.
“The houses of Christians that have fled are now occupied by the Haramists. Their cars are used by the terrorists. Strict Sharia law had been promulgated”, he added in an emailed statement.
There was no independent confirmation of Obasogie’s claims due to poor phone networks in the remote region and the mass exodus of residents.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/islamic-caliphate-where-boko-haram-kill.html

We can confirm that 10 persons died early today when a Port Harcourt-bound passenger boat sank,” National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) co-ordinator Onimode Bandele told AFP.
“Rescue efforts are ongoing and the agency is already working with other bodies and security agencies in the rescue efforts.”
The chairman of Bonny local government council, Adonye Wilcox, also confirmed the accident, which he said occurred at 7:45 am (0645 GMT).

“Information available… indicates that the boat hit an object on the way and sank,” he said.
“Local divers have rescued 17 persons, including four members of the National Youth Service Corps, while 10 persons died as a result of the accident”.
A search was being conducted for the eight people unaccounted for, Wilcox added.
Boat accidents in Nigeria occur frequently and are often caused by overloading, poor vessel maintainance, speeding and poor lighting.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/at-least-10-die-as-boat-capsizes-in.html

A police inspector and his wife fell from the balcony of their apartment on the second floor of a two-storey building during a fight at Ijeh Police Barracks in Obalende, Lagos State, western Nigeria.
It was gathered that when the incident occurred on Thursday afternoon, neighbours rushed the couple to a police hospital at Ikoyi, Lagos, where the doctors on duty confirmed the officer dead due to the serious head injuries he sustained, while doctors are battling to save his widow who is still in an intensive care unit.
Residents confirmed the incident to our correspondent when he visited the couple’s residence on block 2, Flat 26, at the barracks.

The residents said the couple, while fighting, dragged each other to the balcony of their apartment and when the fight became intense, they lost balance and fell from the building.
However, neighbours could not ascertain the cause of the fight.
gathered that the remains of the deceased has been deposited in a morgue in the state, while a source confirmed to our correspondent that the wife was still unconscious when he visited the hospital.
Efforts made to speak with the PPRO of the Lagos State Police Command, DSP Ngozi Braide, on the incident proved futile at press time.
Although the identity of the Inspector could not be ascertained, he was said to come from Nasarawa State, while his wife is from the eastern part of the country.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/police-inspector-plunges-to-death.html

The adultery scandal that has rocked the family of Nigeria’s popular clergyman, Pastor Chris Oyakholome, has resulted in a divorce suit filed by his wife, Pastor Anita.
Pastor Oyakhilome, the founder and president of the Believers Love World, better known as Christ Embassy, and the management of his church had earlier discredited speculations that he was having serious marital challenges with his wife, who is the church’s vice president.
His church is one of the biggest in Nigeria with branches scattered across the country. He is considered one of the richest pastors in Nigeria and co-authors the church’s Rhapsody of Realities with Anita.


But TheCable, an online news medium based in Lagos, western Nigeria, is reporting that Anita has filed for divorce accusing her husband of ‘unreasonable behaviour and adultery’ as well as other reasons.
“The divorce case, with Suit No FD14D01650, was filed on April 9, 2014 at Divorce Section A, Central Family Court, First Avenue House, High Holborn, London, UK, on Anita’s behalf by Attwaters Jameson Hill Solicitors, a full-service law firm with expertise in commercial law and a strong consumer focus in family, wills and estate, personal injury law and medical negligence,” the medium said adding that
Their marriage produced two female children, Sharon and Charlyn.
As news of a possible divorce spread, the church had reportedly told its members not to support those spreading the ‘rumour’. The church also believed that Anita was angry because she thinks she has been relegated by her husband, who has maintained the allegations against him are untrue.
It was learnt that embattled Chris Oyakhilome was served with the court papers during a recent visit to the UK.
When the crisis began, according TheCable, the church starved Anita, who oversees the London branch of the church and other branches in Europe of funds.
But she is reportedly not perturbed even though she had complained about of lack of funds. She reportedly recently announced she was sowing a ‘seed’ with of $1 million at a fund raising event.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/anita-pastor-oyakhilomes-wife-files-for.html

Authorities of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Niger State, northcentral Nigeria, have thrown 281 fake corps members out of the orientation camp.
Mr. Steven Ehoda-adi, the state’s coordinator of NYSC, disclosed this Tuesday while speaking to journalists shortly after the closing ceremony of the 2014 Batch B orientation exercise in Paiko.
He said the 281 fake corps members identified at the state orientation camp were sent out of the camp after they failed to present their call-up letters.
Ehoda-adi said those affected had nothing to show as having qualified for admission into the camp.


According to him, some of them said they lost their letters when they were attacked by armed robbers on their way to Minna, others claimed to have misplaced them, while some presented photocopies of the letters which he said was not acceptable.
Only 3,259 batch B corps members on Tuesday successfully completed their three weeks orientation in the state.
Also, another 230 corps members comprising pregnant and nursing mothers were disallowed from taking part in the normal routine during the three weeks orientation exercise.
Declaring the orientation camp closed, Governor Mua’zu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State said despite the insecurity in the country occasioned by the activities of the Boko Haram, the unity of the country was not negotiable.
He said though insurgency was threatening the relative peace in some parts of the country, the activities of the Boko Haram sects would soon be brought to an end.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/281-fake-nysc-members-sacked-from-camp.html

An American man died last weekend in Syria while fighting for ISIS, the latest evidence of the reach of a terror group that's become increasingly powerful and feared in the eyes of Americans.
Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, died in a battle between rival extremist groups in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria's once-bustling commercial capital and largest city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the conflict.
The man's uncle, Ken McCain, said that his nephew had gone to fight as a jihadi and that the U.S. State Department told the family Monday about the death.
Like U.S. officials, the group characterized McCain as an ISIS fighter and said he was killed battling al-Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-linked organization that the U.S. government has blacklisted as a foreign terror organization. Westerners with ISIS a 'growing threat'
Kean: "Appalled" at lack of ISIS knowledge
McCain was not the first American to fight alongside militants in Syria. Attorney General Eric Holder estimated this summer that there are 7,000 foreign fighters in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern nation. "Dozens of Americans, perhaps up to 100," are among those who have tried to join various militant groups there, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN.
U.S.: Jihadi in suicide bombing video grew up in Florida
Nor was McCain the first of these American militants to die in Syria. Islamists touted the role of a 22-year-old man -- identified by State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki as Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who grew up and went to school in Florida -- in a northern Syria suicide bombing conducted in coordination with al-Nusra Front.
Yet McCain's death takes on added significance, perhaps urgency, given that he's believed to be the first American killed while fighting with ISIS.
Until now, Washington largely has limited its involvement in Syria to diplomatic efforts and supporting "moderate opposition," as described by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey and others, that is fighting to unseat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
That's the same goal as ISIS, which aims to rule a caliphate, known as the Islamic State, spanning Iraq and Syria.
Even so, the United States initiated airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq this month and signaled that it might next go after the group inside Syria. And it has begun gathering intelligence on ISIS in Syria, potentially ahead of more airstrikes there.
ISIS has threatened to kill more Americans if the U.S. continues to go after it. But the fact McCain was among its ranks adds another fear: That the group includes other Americans who, rather than dying on the battlefield, might inflict harm stateside.
"There's real concern that they could take what they've learned ... come back home and conduct terror attacks," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told CNN. "So I think (McCain) is a stark reminder of the inside threat that foreign fighters (in ISIS) can pose."
Official: Obama weighing options against ISIS in Syria
Who was Douglas McCain?
Little was immediately known publicly about McCain's life, beyond how it ended.
He attended San Diego City College, though its spokesman Jack Beresford would not say when McCain attended, for how long or for what purpose.
Several years ago, according to his uncle, McCain converted from Christianity to Islam -- the first step on his journey to Syria.
The family wasn't alarmed by his conversion, but his Facebook posts sympathetic to ISIS got their attention. When they last heard from him several months ago, McCain said he was traveling to Turkey, according to his uncle. The fact that McCain became a jihadi left his family "devastated" and "just as surprised as the country," said Ken McCain, who lives in Minnesota.
He described the nephew he knew as "a good person, loved his family, loved his mother, loved his faith" -- the latter being a reference to the Christianity he practiced before his conversion.
U.S. counterterrorism investigators had been looking into McCain's activities for some time before his death, one U.S. official said.
He was on a list of Americans who are believed to have joined militant groups and who would be stopped and subjected to additional scrutiny if he traveled, according to the official.
Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, who had top roles in the State and Defense Departments in President George W. Bush's administration, said he expects more stories like McCain's.
"The ability to travel into these countries demonstrates how porous the borders are," Kimmitt said. "I think we need to understand that there's going to be more of this rather than less of this."
California man arrested, wanted to join ISIS
Fears over Westerners in terror groups
Syria's civil war has been brewing for three years. In the absence of a unified rebel front, many groups -- some moderate, some more secular, some extremist -- have tried to fill the void.
Much of the time, they've battled al-Assad's forces, though there has also been infighting among them.
Among these rebel groups, one has emerged recently in the public's consciousness: ISIS. That's as much due to its brazenness and viciousness as to its success. The general command for al Qaeda -- itself responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- went so far as to disown ISIS and blame it for "the enormity of the disaster that afflicted the Jihad in Syria."
Who is ISIS?
Yet the group has thrived.
It has taken more and more territory in Iraq and Syria, sometimes overrunning government forces while terrorizing civilians. ISIS's stature grew even more internationally with the recent beheading of American journalist James Foley, a killing it videotaped and then put online.
"They are beyond just a terrorist group," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week. "They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess.
"This is beyond anything we have seen, and we must prepare for everything."
These preparations include tracking Westerners like McCain. In addition to whatever they might do against allies and civilians in the Middle East, U.S. officials worry that they could bring their groups' brand of terror back home.
Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said last month that getting intelligence on such Americans who fight in Syria and making sure they don't bring that right back home is "a top priority."
"We have increased our capacity, we have increased our tracking, we have increased our coordination," Psaki said. "... This is a threat that we take seriously enough to put it at the front and center of our agenda.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/death-of-american-fighting-for-isis.html

A quarantine team for Ebola
Nigeria said Tuesday that resumption of classes in all public and private schools will be delayed by a month to put in place “preventive measures” against the Ebola virus, which has claimed five lives in Lagos.
“All primary and secondary schools in private and public sectors are to remain closed until Monday, October 13,” Education Minister Ibrahim Shekarau said while addressing a meeting of senior teachers in the country.
“This is to ensure that adequate preventive measures are put in place before students resume,” he said.
Students across the country had been scheduled to resume classes on September 15.

Earlier Tuesday, the federal health ministry said that two more people had been released from isolation after recovering from Ebola, leaving only one living patient with the disease in the country.
The ministry said Nigeria has recorded 13 confirmed cases of Ebola, including the Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who brought the virus to the economic capital Lagos on July 20 and died five days later.
Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu announced that the total number discharged is now seven.
“Two of the treated patients, a male doctor and a female nurse were discharged yesterday evening, 25th August, 2014, having satisfied the criteria for discharge,” he told reporters in Abuja.

Onyebuchi Chukwu, Minister of Health
The only patient in the country who currently has Ebola is the wife of a doctor who treated Sawyer, he added.

“She is stable but still on treatment at the isolation ward in Lagos,” Chukwu said.
The World Health Organization said last week that it was encouraged by the situation in Nigeria, given that all of the confirmed cases came from a single chain of transmission.
The deadliest-ever outbreak of the virus has killed more than 1,400 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the start of the year.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/ebola-fg-postpones-school-resumption-by.html

man believed to be the tallest on the planet at 8ft 4 inches has died aged 44.
Leonid Stadnyk, who was said to be too shy to measured for the Guinness World record books, was 21 inches taller than lanky England footballer Peter Crouch.
The peasant farmer, from the Ukrainian village of Podoliantsy, died yesterday from a brain haemorrhage after health problems.

Of his size, Leonid had said: "To me, my height is a curse, a punishment from God, not something to celebrate. What sin I have committed, I do not know. All my life I have dreamed of being just like everyone else. "

He added: "I don't want or need the fame that this would bring so I have no desire to be in this Guinness book."
He was scared to commit to women "because I don't want to inflict my problems on a wife. I think it would not be fair on her", he said.
His astonishing rise to fame began at 12, when a benign brain tumour over-stimulated his body's production of a growth hormone.
At one point, his condition, called giganticism, left him growing at the rate of roughly a foot every three years.
He wore size 27 shoes (in UK sizes) for feet that measured almost 18 inches in length while his palms were more than a foot in diameter.But unable to independently verify his measurements, Guinness instead officially listed Xi Shin at fractionally under 7ft 9 inches as the world's tallest man.
"We have contacted Stadnyk, but he seems like a very shy guy," said a Guinness World Records spokeswoman. "He doesn't want us around. So we have to stick to what we have."
Talking about life, he explained how his height prevented him following his desired career.
"I was trained as a vet and loved my work," he said.
"But gradually I found that I couldn't get the shoes I needed in winter to protect me from the frostbite. I just couldn't keep on with this work."
He took over the family smallholding.
"Stooping from my height to pull up the weeds is not easy, I can tell you. It puts a lot of strain on my back," he said.
"I know I'm the tallest man but at the same I often feel one of the most helpless. This life is for smaller people."
Once he went to Germany on a rare trip outside Ukraine.
"It was like another planet - I am glad I saw it but felt a bit like an alien there."
There was no bed big enough: he had to sleep on a billiard table.
His neighbours knew him as a kind a generous man, always ready to help.
One, Bronyslave, said he was "the most unselfish, diligent man of a pure soul."

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/worlds-tallest-man-at-8ft-4-inches-dies.html

oko Haram on Tuesday attempted to blow up a bridge on the Nigerian border with Cameroun after overrunning a town and sending residents and soldiers fleeing, police and locals said.
A Cameroun police officer stationed in the far north town of Fotokol told AFP that the militants tried to destroy the bridge, which serves as the border crossing with Gamboru Ngala in Nigeria.
Boko Haram stormed Gamboru Ngala early on Monday and by evening had taken over the police station, a military barracks and vocational training centre, where they had based themselves, locals said.
Three children were reportedly injured by flying shrapnel when explosives were detonated, possibly by firing from the Cameroun side of the border, they added.

Nigeria’s military in Abuja on Monday denied reports that more than 450 soldiers had crossed into Cameroun, claiming that it was a “tactical manoeuvre” as they pursued the militants.
The authorities in Cameroun said the troops fought a rear-guard battle in Gamboru Ngala before withdrawing as they were out-numbered. They spent the evening at a Fotokol customs post. Boko Haram has in recent weeks switched tactics from hit-and-run attacks to attempting to seize and hold territory and have proclaimed one captured town, Gwoza, as part of an “Islamic caliphate”.
Assessing how much territory the militants now hold is impossible but residents have said the Islamists now control at least one town in Yobe state — Buni Yadi — as well as Gwoza and Gamboru Ngala in neighbouring Borno.
In Adamawa, which has also been under a state of emergency since May last year, a local government official said scores of gunmen stormed the town of Madagali on Saturday, forcing out soldiers and taking over government buildings.
Local government chairman Maina Ularamu said the insurgents advanced from Gwoza, some 23 kilometres (14 miles) away, and took several villages in between.
“Boko Haram are now in control of Madagali and many villages in the area which have been deserted by residents for fear of attack by the insurgents,” he added.
Troops were chased out of the town of Gulak, the administrative headquarters for the region some 20 kilometres away from Madagali.
The Islamists arrived from Gwoza via Liman Kara, where they took over a police training college last week, Ularamu said.
“For now they are not killing residents but people are living in fear considering the carnage they carried out in Gwoza, despite giving assurances to residents they were not going to harm them,” he said.
On Monday, six people were killed in the village of Kafin Hausa while a church was burnt down in Sabon Garin Hyanbula on Sunday.
“People have been sneaking out from Madagali to avoid possible attack by the Boko Haram gunmen,” Ularamu said

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/boko-haram-attempts-to-blow-nigeria.html

A 19 year old man, Arogundade Opeyemi has been arrested for defiling a three year old girl in a church.

In a statement released by the Oyo State Police Command, Arogundade was alleged to have had carnal knowledge of the daughter of his neighbour inside the church at Kuola area of Apata, Ibadan, Oyo State on the 2nd of August 2014. Continue with the rest of the story as reported by the Nation Newspaper.

According to the police, the suspect took the girl to the church located very close to the house at about 8:00 pm on the fateful day under the pretense of playing with her as usual. The Police statement reads as follows:

“The suspect laid the little girl on the floor in the church, tore her pant and had unlawful carnal knowledge of her. Immediately he perpetrated the act, he ran away, leaving the crying girl on the floor of the church. When her mother heard her outcry, she rushed out to inquire from her daughter what had happened and she gesticulated by touching her private part and mentioning the suspect’s name,” state Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Olabisi Clet-Ilobanafor, said in the statement.

The Police Public Relations Officer PPRO, disclosed that medical report confirmed that the girl’s hymen has been broken, adding that there was an area of trauma on the vulva, which confirms the defilement.

“Detectives hunted for the suspect and he was eventually arrested.

“The suspect has been arraigned in a magistrate court for an offense of defilement which is contrary to and punishable under section 218 of the criminal code cap 38 vol. 11 Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria 2000,” the statement added.

Hearing on the case has now been fixed for the 12th of September, 2014 in Ibadan.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/this-is-bad-19-year-old-man-rapes-three.html

Germany celebrates with the championship trophy
Germany have won the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup for a record-equalling third time after a hard-fought 1-0 win over Nigeria at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
Lena Petermann scored the title-winning goal eight minutes into extra time to settle a match that, like the semi-final against France, had seen the Germans outplayed for long stretches. For the second match in succession, though, the Europeans’ will to win shone through, as did the quality of goalkeeper Meike Kamper – again named player of the match.
This clash of styles and football cultures was always expected to produce an open, engaging final, and so it proved. Nigeria quickly gained a foothold and went on to dominate the first half, creating the better and more numerous chances. An inability to convert those chances was their only failing, and the most guilty party was tournament top scorer Asisat Oshoala.
The in-form striker, who had scored four times in the semi-final win over Korea DPR, was lively throughout but missed her first golden opportunity after 22 minutes. In fairness, she created the opening out of nothing, robbing Margarita Gidion, outpacing the German defence and rounding Kamper in a stunning display of speed and strength. She could not, however, find the finishing touch, managing only to shoot into the side-netting from an acute angle. Nigeria poses for a photo with their silver medals
With Nigeria’s superior physical attributes a telling factor on the big Olympic Stadium pitch, it wasn’t long before more chances arrived, with Oshoala again given a sight of goal seven minutes before the break. Again, though, her sights were out, with the ball flashing wide after Chiwendo Ihezuo had done well to snatch possession from Rebecca Knaak at the byline and cut the ball back.
These were nonetheless worrying times for Germany, whose best effort had come from a Lina Magull free-kick comfortably saved by Sandra Chiichii. But Maren Meinert’s side began the second half brightly, with Theresa Panfil and Lena Petermann combining to tee up Sara Daebritz for a powerful left-foot shot that skidded into the arms of Chiichii.
Oshoala remained a constant source of danger, though, and she again came to life three minutes later, jinking in from the left wing past two German defenders. All that was lacking was the final touch, with the No4′s first effort striking a team-mate before the rebound was sliced high and wide.
Asisat Oshoala (R) poses with the Golden Boot trophy while Pauline Bremer (C) and Sara Daebritz (L) of Germany pose with their silver and bronze boot trophies
However, missing chances wasn’t restricted to Oshoala and Nigeria. Germany also spurned their opportunities, with Pauline Bremer stealing in unmarked on a Sara Dabritz free-kick only to head wastefully wide. The Super Falconets then had to call on the bravery of their keeper, with Chiichii racing from her line to dive at the feet of Lena Petermann, picking up a bruised jaw in the process.
Play still tended to rage towards the other end, though, and with five minutes remaining Nigeria had the ball in the net only for their celebrations to be cut short by the assistant referee’s flag. That left extra time to settle this pulsating affair and, after Oshoala had again gone close for Nigeria, it was Germany who found a breakthrough.
Petermann scored it, slotting home from six yards, but the plaudits went to the energetic Bremer, who had robbed left-back Gladys Abasi before driving towards the byline and delivering the perfect cutback.
Nigeria, who had given so much to the match, proved unable to respond. Germany saw out the remaining minutes with a degree of comfort and can now savour the familiar feeling of being crowned champions of the world.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/defiant-falconets-lose-to-germany-again.html

The MTV Video Music Awards will take place on Sunday night and as usual, it’s bound to see some controversial performances.
But things took a sour turn for Nicki Minaj on Friday when a 6ft long snake apparently bit one of her dancers.
TMZ reports that the singer was rehearsing her latest song Anaconda and a snake was part of the planned performance at the upcoming ceremony.

+4
Rehearsal gone wrong: Nicki Minaj's dancer apparently got bitten by a snake during a run-through for Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards on Friday. She is pictured here in May

Nicki Minaj pouts for the camera at LIQUID Memorial Day bash The website claims the dancer was rushed to hospital after being bitten and is currently receiving medical treatment.
It is believed the snake was an anaconda. The non-venomous reptiles can still cause dangerous infections by spreading bacteria.
It is unknown if the snake will still be used in the performance, but TMZ reports it was taken away from the run-through in a container after biting Nicki’s dancer. New song: The singer was rehearsing her performance of Anaconda when the alleged incident occurred

The 31-year-old would not be the first star to appear on stage with a snake at the VMAs.
Britney Spears’ 2001 performance of I’m A Slave 4 U is still famous after she kicked off the song with a yellow python wrapped around her neck.
The VMAs is no stranger to risqué antics on stage, from Britney and Madonna’s liplock in 2003 to Miley Cyrus’ infamous twerking session with Robin Thicke in 2013. Scary: It is believed the snake was an anaconda. They are not venomous but can cause infections by spreading bacteria

Nicki debuted the very raunchy video for Anaconda earlier this week, and no doubt has been planning a performance that's just as shocking.
Anaconda is Nicki's second single from her upcoming album The Pinkprint, which still does not have a release date.
The record's first track, Pills N Potions, was released in May. Famous performance: Britney Spears had a python wrapped around her neck while singing I'm A Slave 4 U at the 2001 VMAs

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/nicki-minajs-dancer-gets-attacked-by.html

Albert Ebosse
Camerounian football player Albert Ebosse died Saturday after he was hit by a projectile thrown from the stands following his team’s loss in the Algerian football championship, APS news agency reported.
Ebosse, who was 24, was declared dead after he was rushed to a hospital at Tizi Ouzou, east of the capital Algiers, where the match took place..

He scored the lone goal for his club JS Kabylie in the home match in what turned out to be a 2-1 defeat against USM Alger, on the second day of the tournament.
Fans had started throwing objects from the stands inside the Tizi Ouzou stadium after the match as the players were returning to their changing room.

Ebosse joined JS Kabylie in 2013, and was best scorer in the 2013-2014 championship.
The Algerian interior ministry ordered an investigation to search for the culprit.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/cameroun-striker-ebosse-dead-after-hit.html

Assumption No. 1: Tiger Woods is going to save us
It's called the "browning of America." Google the phrase and you'll get 18 million hits. By 2050, most of the nation's citizens are expected to be people of color, according to the Pew Research Center.
Dig beneath the Google links and one can detect an emerging assumption: Racial flashpoints like Ferguson will fade in the future because no single race will be dominant. You could call it the Tiger Woods effect. The New American will claim multiple racial origins like Woods, the pro golfer. Demographic change will accomplish what a thousand national conversations on race could never do: lesson the sting of racial conflict.
A dramatic increase in interracial marriages will change the racial landscape as more people cross racial and ethnic lines to marry. But that change won't be a cure-all, says Rory Kramer, a sociology and criminology professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

He says racial progress is not inevitable with the browning of America.
"I don't want to deny the optimism," Kramer says. "I deny the assumption that it will happen without effort."
There's too much profit in it for the racial grifters and the media for anyone to try to heal us. We never talk about how far we've come.
John Nolte, a conservative columnist for Breitbart.com, on the prospect of racial harmony.
So does research from a prominent American sociologist. Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone," says his studies of multiracial neighborhoods in America show that more diversity initially erodes community.
In his 2007 paper, "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century," Putnam says members of multiracial communities initially tend to expect the worst, distrust neighbors and withdraw.
"Residents of all races tend to 'hunker down,' " Putnam writes. "Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer."
If Americans want to live in a tranquil country that's free of racial conflict they would have to change their character and history, another scholar says.
They would have to become like Iceland.
There are no Fergusons there. The United Nations commissioned a report last year that concluded its citizens are among the most contented in the world.
Iceland is so free of conflict that the nation was shocked last year when a police officer shot a man to death. It was the first time police had killed anyone in Iceland in 70 years. Most police in Iceland don't carry guns.
But that happiness comes at a price, says Lisa Corrigan, director of the Gender Studies Program at the University of Arkansas, who cites the Iceland comparison. Iceland has one of the most homogeneous populations in the world -- everyone looks the same. And they deliberately keep it that way.
"Iceland is one of the happiest places in the world," Corrigan says.
Corrigan doesn't accept the notion that most white people will welcome the browning of a country that she says was built on white male supremacy.
"It's going to get worse before it gets better," she says, "because power is shifting and white people think that their whiteness is property to be defended."
Assumption No. 2: We'll always have democracy
Some observers have reduced the events in Ferguson to race and class divisions, but there are others who say the protests are ultimately a question about whether democracy can work.
The political makeup of Ferguson has been well-documented. Two-thirds of the city's population is black. The mayor and police chief are white; as are five of the six city council members. There are three blacks out of 53 people in its police department.
Many Americans love the concept of the melting pot, the notion that every ethnic group eventually becomes a part of the country's mainstream. Yet some scholars say you can't have harmony in a multiracial community until hard choices are made about power: what group gets what and how.
Kramer, the Villanova professor, quotes the 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass to make his point. Why are people in Iceland so happy? Some say because there are few racial differences.
"Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and it never will."
Because people tend not to share power, there will be more Fergusons in America's future: isolated communities ignored by leaders and harassed by heavily armed police forces, says Charles Gallagher, a sociology professor at LaSalle University in Pennsylvania.
The nation won't have a vibrant middle class because of persistent income inequality; it will primarily be the rich and poor, he says. The poor won't vote because they're too disenchanted, and politicians will ignore the concerns of most Americans because wealthy people control politics, Gallagher says.
"I see us looking more and more like Latin America," he says.
The courts could intervene on behalf of racial minorities and the poor. The citizens of Ferguson could, for example pressure their city leaders to place more blacks in their police force.
Yet the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has changed the legal landscape to make such efforts more difficult, Gallagher says. The court has consistently ruled against any diversity efforts hinting at racial preferences.
"This particular court is hostile to the idea of using race in any situation to honestly address ongoing inequalities," Gallagher says.
Racial minorities who feel like they're excluded won't find much empathy from ordinary white Americans either, says Kramer, the Villanova professor. He says many whites operate under this assumption: If they gain, I lose.
There are two ways to change a democracy. One is to change its leaders and the other is its people. And the people are changing.
Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
That assumption, he says, is played out in Southern states that refuse to accept Obamacare, in the rise of voter ID laws and in the political version of white flight -- where predominantly white communities break away from their counties to incorporate their own cities when too many minorities move into nearby neighborhoods.
He says American democracy was called a "noble experiment" for a reason: People didn't know if democracy, let alone a multiethnic democracy, would work.
Democracy in America could look more like how protesters describe Ferguson: a place where government maintains the façade of a democracy, but doesn't function like one.
"People don't realize that we're still in the experimental stage," Kramer says. "My fear is that we're not going to actually gain true democracy."
Assumption No. 3: It's always about race
Some see another type of frightening scenario for America based on Ferguson. To them, it's premature to say that Darren Wilson, the Ferguson officer who shot Michael Brown to death, was motivated by racism.
They see Ferguson as a stage for the rise of "racial grifters."
That's the term John Nolte, a columnist for Breitbart.com, uses to describe leaders who rallied to the side of black protesters in Ferguson.
"They go into these areas and scream racism before the facts are out and all of a sudden, there's a racial issue," he says. "They grift on race to profit from it, like Al Sharpton."
Nolte rejects the notion that some white Americans fear the nation becoming a majority brown country. He says he was one of a handful of whites who lived in a Latino community in Los Angeles for years, and he never had a problem. His wife is Latina, and his extended family has people of all races.
He says he's "pro-miscegenation," a term he borrows from his late friend, Andrew Breitbart, because ultimately "people are people."
"The American people get along very well," Nolte says. "It's only when you have situations like you have in Ferguson -- and the racial grifters move in and the media moves to back them up -- that things turn into what they do."
Nolte says there's a hidden motive behind the furor in racial flashpoints like Ferguson, and that media organizations like CNN are complicit.
He says the furor over the black teenager Trayvon Martin's death in Florida took place just before the last presidential election. The uproar over Ferguson is taking place just before this year's midterm elections.
"If these things aren't happening every few months, if we start to heal and look past racial divisions, the Democrats lose 25% of the black or Hispanic vote and they're done as a national party." White and black protesters clash in Ferguson during demonstrations that have divided the nation.
The country won't get past its racial divisions anytime soon because it's the only way Democrats can win, he says.
"There's too much profit in it for the racial grifters and the media for anyone to try to heal us," he says. "We never talk about how far we've come."
Racial divisions will remain a permanent part of America's future as long as the media tells black people that the criminal justice system is stacked against them, says Ben Shapiro, author of "Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America."
According to a 2013 report released by the Missouri attorney general, African-Americans are highly over-represented in crime statistics. They accounted for 93% of arrests after traffic stops, 92% of searches and 86% of traffic stops in Ferguson.
"The cure is not to tell people that the criminal justice system is stacked against them; the cure is to minimize criminal activity and identify lawbreaking officers and prosecute them," says Shaprio, who is also editor-in-chief at the online magazine TruthRevolt.
Shapiro says he is more concerned about another way America may decline in the future: the erosion of values like hard work, marriage and education.
"The reality is that if you want to escape poverty, you only have to make a couple of decisions: Finish school, don't have a baby out of wedlock and get a job -- that's it," he says.
Assumption No. 4: We need to get past our racial differences
Whenever a racial flashpoint erupts in America, weary people on both sides of the issue tend to ask the same questions:
When are we going to get past race? Why can't we all just be Americans? Can't we all just get along?
But what if we shouldn't just get along? What if the constant conflict among different races and points of view is, in some ways, good for America?
That's the perspective of Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Carnevale is an authority on affirmative action in higher education and an economist.
He says society can't have diversity without disruption and that scholars know from research that "from that tension comes great creativity."
The trick is to harness that tension for good, Carnevale says.
"If you have only white men sitting in a room making decisions, you get low-quality decisions and very little change," he says. "If you include a woman and a minority in that room, the whole process changes. You get more quality and innovation."
He says America is a successful country partly because its citizens never stop arguing. Those clashes force people to think, abandon what no longer works and innovate.
"Quiet, peaceful communities rarely invent things," Carnevale says. "The Romans failed because they kept marrying each other and they all looked the same. Their habits became set. There was no challenge to the elites."
Protests like those in Ferguson will continue because many whites still believe that "what happens to somebody is about them, and is not about the circumstances in which they live."
Yet eventually there will be a "third wave" of racial minorities, Carnevale says. And those people will bring a different sensibility to the way we regard race and class.
"There are two ways to change a democracy," he says. One is to change its leaders and the other is to change its people.
"And the people are changing."

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/how-ferguson-could-be-americas-future.html

Panic: Palestinians run for safety after the strike, as smoke rises from what used to be a house
Israel's latest round of attacks on Gaza entered its 47th day today, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to 'intensify' the air assault after an Israeli boy was killed yesterday in a mortar attack by Hamas militants.
Two Palestinian children were killed today, along with three adults from the same family. They join the more than 2,090 people killed in Gaza since attacks began in July. Close to 500 of those were children.


Israel has registered 68 casualties, 64 of them soldiers killed in Gaza after the Israeli Defence Force invaded the territory.
Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel. Talks for a long-lasting truce have so far proven fruitless, with each side blaming the other every time temporary ceasefires have collapsed. 'Hamas will pay a heavy price for this': The site where Hamas mortar fire hit the Israeli agricultural community of Nahal Oz, close to the border with the Gaza Strip, killing a four-year-old Israeli boy
Responding to the death of a four-year-old Israeli boy in a village close to the Gaza border hit by Hamas rocket fire yesterday, Mr Netanyahu vowed the group, which runs Gaza, would pay a 'heavy price'.
'Netanyahu sends his condolences to the family of the 4 year old boy that was killed this afternoon by a mortar round fired by Hamas,' his spokesman Ofir Gendelman wrote on Twitter.
'PM: Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack. IDF & ISA will intensify ops against Hamas until the goal of #ProtectiveEdge is achieved.'
Today Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas announced Egypt is to invite Israeli and Palestinian delegations to Cairo to resume peace talks, while Hamas pledged to support a Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court.
'Egypt is going to invite delegates to return to the negotiating table to consider a long-term truce,' Mr Abbas said after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Deadly: Since the collapse of the ceasefire at least 17 Palestinians have died in Israeli attacks
A previous round of truce talks collapsed on Tuesday, shattering nine days of calm. Since then at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the UN figures released yesterday and reports in today.
HAMAS EXECUTES 18 PALESTINIANS FOR ALLEGED COLLABORATION
Hamas-led gunmen in Gaza yesterday executed 18 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.
The Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian rights group, said there were two women among those killed.
Masked militants dressed in black executed seven suspected collaborators, shooting the hooded and bound victims in a busy square outside a mosque.
The deaths followed the killing of 11 alleged informers at an abandoned police station.
The crackdown on suspected collaborators followed the killing of three of Hamas's most senior military commanders in an Israeli air strike on Thursday, an attack that required precise on-the-ground intelligence on their whereabouts.
The number of Palestinians forced to flee their homes has also continued to rise. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 460,000 Gazans - more than a quarter of the entire population of the strip - have now been displaced.
Eighty-four UN-run schools in the territory are now sheltering 292,000 people, and numbers were expected to exceed 300,000 soon. The rest have been housed with host families.
The United Nations Relief Works Agency, which provides assistance and protection to Palestinian refugees, yesterday warned it was reaching the limits of its abilities.
'With the military escalation in its 46th day and world attention turning towards other crises, the intensity of hostilities has reverted to the early days of the operation,' the agency said in a statement.
'Unlike at the beginning of the escalation, however, aerial bombardments occur during the daytime and west of the former buffer zone, where all of UNRWA shelters are located and where the majority of the Gaza population lives ...
'In response to this unprecedented escalation, UNRWA is essentially providing support to the entire population of the Gaza Strip.' Damage: A man inspects the living room of a house destroyed by the Israeli air strike that killed five people
Fears grew of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as two Hamas officials today revealed the group has signed a pledge to back any Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Such a step could expose Israel - as well as Hamas - to war crimes investigations. Israel strongly opposes the involvement of the ICC.
Palestinian President Abbas has debated for months whether to join the court, a step that would transform his relations with Israel from tense to openly hostile and could also strain his ties with the United States.
The decision by Hamas to sign a document in support of a court bid removes a major obstacle, though it's not clear if Mr Abbas now will go ahead.
A hesitant Mr Abbas has said he would not make any decision without the written backing of all Palestinian factions. Last month, he obtained such support from all factions in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Hamas, which is not a PLO member, had said it would study the idea. Its decision to support the court option came after almost seven weeks of a deadly cross-border war with Israel and several failed cease-fire efforts. +21
Destruction: Four girls watch as men pick through what remains of a house that was struck last night
Since July 8, Gaza militants have fired more than 3,800 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, while Israel launched about 5,000 air strikes at Gaza, Israel's military said.
Israel has said it has targeted sites linked to militants, including rocket launchers and weapons. But UN and Palestinian officials say three-quarters of those killed in Gaza have been civilians.
On Saturday, an air strike on a house in central Gaza killed two women, two children and a man, according to medics at the Red Crescent. Six strikes also hit a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza, causing severe damage and wounding at least five people, Gaza police said.
Since the start of the Gaza war, Mr Abbas has come under growing domestic pressure to pave the way for a possible war crimes investigation of Israel. Last month, he told senior PLO officials and leaders of smaller political groups he would only go ahead if Hamas supports the bid.
If Mr Abbas were to turn to the court, Hamas could be investigated for indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel since 2000. Israel could come under scrutiny for its actions in the current Gaza war as well as decades of settlement building on illegally occupied territories. Accountability: Israel opposed the move, which means both both sides could be investigated for war crimes
Izzat Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said today that Hamas was not concerned about becoming a target of a war crimes investigation and urged Abbas to act 'as soon as possible.'
'We are under occupation, under daily attack and our fighters are defending their people,' he said in a phone interview from Qatar.
'These rockets are meant to stop Israeli attacks and it is well known that Israel initiated this war and previous wars.'
However, it is not clear if such arguments would hold up in court. After the last major round of Israel-Hamas fighting more than five years ago, a UN fact-finding team said both Israel and Hamas violated the rules of war by targeting civilians - Hamas by firing unguided rockets at Israel and Israel by using its high-tech, guided weaponry to wreak destruction in Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated urban areas.
Hamas' decision to back a court bid came after meetings on Thursday and Friday in Qatar between Mr Abbas and the top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader who participated in the meetings, wrote on his Facebook page early this morning that 'Hamas has signed the paper' of support Abbas had requested. Abu Marzouk's post was also reported on Hamas news websites.
There was no comment from Mr Abbas's aides. The past: A Palestinian man searches for his belongings amid the ruins of his house after it was destroyed
A senior Palestinian official has said Mr Abbas likely would wait for the findings of a UN-appointed commission of inquiry into possible Gaza war crimes - due by March - before turning to the court. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss internal deliberations with reporters.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined comment. Israel opposes involving the court, arguing that Israel and the Palestinians should deal with any issues directly.
A former International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, told The Associated Press earlier this week that he believes drawing the court into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be a positive step.
'I think the ICC could contribute to a solution' of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.
He noted that the court, established in 2002, would only get involved if it determined that the two sides are not conducting their own credible investigations of alleged war crimes.
Turning to the International Criminal Court became an option for Abbas in 2012, after the U.N. General Assembly recognised 'Palestine' in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands captured by Israel in 1967, as a non-member observer state.
The upgrade to a state opened the door to requesting the court's jurisdiction in Palestine.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/missiles-rain-down-on-gaza-strip.html

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested two suspected human parts dealers who allegedly bought and sold human skulls in parts of Ogun and Lagos states.
The suspects, Muritala Mustapha and Sunday Oluyeba, were arrested by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, of the command after a tip-off.

It was further learnt that 42-year old Mustapha was arrested last Saturday, August 16, with two human heads in his house in the Ojumele area of Sagamu, Ogun State. He confessed to have obtained them from his 44-year old friend, Oluyeba who was apprehended on Monday in the same area.
Oluyeba also told SARS operatives that he got the skulls from one herbalist, simply identified Baba Ibeji, who the police said, was still at large.

The suspects with human skulls
During interrogation, the suspects, who were also herbalists, confessed that they bought the human skulls for N30,000 and used them to treat their patients.
Mustapha said the human parts could be used for the treatment of pregnant women having delivery problem.
“I started out as a native doctor in 1992. That was after my secondary school education. I was treating ailments such as diabetes, stroke, and hypertension. I treated barren women too. I knew Oluyeba about three years ago. He is also a native doctor. We paid N30,000 to obtain the human skulls from Baba Ibeji.
“I normally used the skulls to treat pregnant women who had problem with child delivery. We would grind these parts and mix them with some soap. That was all. On this particular occasion, I did not know I was being followed by a police informant. It was at the point of another purchase that they arrested me.”
Mustapha, a father of one, added that there are other native doctors and traditional chiefs in his area who buy human parts for healing.

On his own part, Oluyeba, however, claimed to have bought the human parts for a friend and not for his use.
“Yes, I collected money to get the human parts, but it was not for my own use. I am a native doctor, but I use only herbs and soap. I knew Baba Ibeji as a human parts seller and I had warned him on several occasions to desist from the evil trade, but he refused.
“I am married with three children. I cannot use human parts for any concoction. This is an embarrassment caused by my friends.”

Meanwhile, Baba Ibeji’s wife, identified as Adenike, said her husband was not a responsible man at home.
The 35-year-old mother of two said, “I only know him as a native doctor. I am his second wife. I sell provisions, and he does hunting and native medicine. He does not have money. He does not take care of his family. He has not given us money for the past three months. So, I doubt if he is into such things. Otherwise, we should be wealthy.”

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/herbalists-buy-human-skulls-for-n30k.html

ATLANTA (AP) — After nearly three weeks of treatment, the two American aid workers who were infected with the deadly Ebola virus in Africa have been discharged from an Atlanta hospital, officials said Thursday.

Their release poses no public health risk, Dr. Bruce Ribner of Emory University Hospital stressed. Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, and Nancy Writebol, 59, show no evidence of Ebola, and generally patients do not relapse and are not contagious once they've recovered, said Ribner, director of the hospital's infectious disease unit.
At a news conference, Brantly, who walked in holding hands with his wife, said, "Today is a miraculous day."
"I am thrilled to be alive, to be well, and to be reunited with my family," said Brantly, who was released Thursday. Nancy Writebol, 59, was released Tuesday, and her husband said in statement emailed by aid group SIM that that she was free of the virus but in a weakened condition and was recuperating at an undisclosed location.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/2-american-ebola-patients-released-from.html

Both were infected while working at a missionary clinic outside Liberia's capital. Brantly said he and his family first got word of the outbreak in March and "began preparing for the worst." He said the hospital where he was working got its first Ebola patient in June, and then the number of patients increased steadily.
Health workers took precautions, Brantly said, but on July 23, "I woke up feeling under the weather, and then my life took an unexpected turn as I was diagnosed with Ebola virus disease." He had taken his wife and children to the airport three days earlier. Meanwhile, he said, he got sicker and weaker by the day. Brantly was flown out of Liberia on Aug. 2, and Writebol followed Aug. 5.
At the news conference, Brantly choked up several times while thanking his aid group, North Carolina-based Samaritan's Purse, and the Emory medical team. He and his wife hugged the medical staff and joked with them. Several blinked back tears, then cheered and applauded as the couple made their way from the room. Brantly said he and his family would be going away as he continues to recover.
In his statement, David Writebol said his wife "was greatly encouraged knowing that there were so many people around the world lifting prayers to God for her return to health. Her departure from the hospital, free of the disease, is powerful testimony to God's sustaining grace."
Brantly and Nancy Writebol received an experimental treatment called Zmapp, but it's not known whether the drug helped or whether they improved on their own, as has happened to others who have survived the disease. The treatment is so novel that it hasn't been tested in people.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/2-american-ebola-patients-released-from.html

Boko Haram has seized control of a town in northeastern Nigeria, the latest to fall into Islamist hands in the crisis-hit region, witnesses and a local official said Thursday.

Several residents who fled the Boko Haram assault on Buni Yadi in Yobe state said it began late last month, with the insurgents ultimately taking over the main government building.
They have reportedly raised their flag above the building and have carried out summary executions, including of two people who were caught smoking cigarettes.


Abdullahi Bego, the spokesman for Yobe’s Governor Ibrahim Geidam, could not confirm the executions.
But he told AFP: “As I speak there are no military in Buni Yadi and locals say that Boko Haram come and go as they please.

“So many people from Buni Yadi have fled to the state capital Damaturu,” he added.
Residents said the rebels, who massacred dozens of students at a boarding school in Buni Yadi in February and kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from neighbouring Borno state in April, had set up roadblocks.
They were also robbing people as they tried to flee.
“I left Buni Yadi yesterday (Wednesday) because it was no longer safe for me and my family,” said trader Surajo Muhammad.

The gunmen “shot dead two men for smoking and they also killed a known drug peddler”, he added.
Tijjani Bukar, who also fled, reported the same executions.
“I couldn’t stay any longer because I came to realise these people have come to stay,” he said.
“I thought they would be there for a few days but from our understanding they have turned the town into their (territory).”

The United Nations has confirmed that Boko Haram had seized control of the towns of Damboa and Gwoza in Borno state in recent weeks.
There are indications that Damboa was retaken by the military in an offensive earlier this month but details are not clear.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/boko-haram-takes-over-another-town-in.html

he 2010 winner of Big Brother Africa (BBA), Uti Nwachukwu, has said that he is neither gay nor in relationships with older women.
Nwachukwu, who is also a co-presenter of ‘Jara,’ a showbiz programme on Multi-Choice’s Dstv, said this on NET, an online entertainment platform and described such stories as “nothing but bad press.”
“In Nigeria, once you are young in the entertainment industry and you are doing well, the next thing they tag you with is that you are either dating an older woman or that you are gay,” he said.
•Uti Nwachukwu

He, however, admitted that he was in a relationship but with a young lady and said, “I am a very passionate person; when I love, I do more than the average person.
“I could be a bit possessive and all that.”
On his experience in Big Brother All Stars, he said that the reality show was a platform that helped to correct the mistakes he made in BBA 3, in which he was a contestant.
“Big Brother Africa 3 was easy but I was lucky to get a second chance. For BBA All Stars, they didn’t just bring back anybody; they brought back the best from Seasons 1- 4.
“These were people who had come out of the show and people had pointed out their mistakes to them.
“I won’t lie by saying I didn’t have my own strategies,” Nwachwukwu said.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/im-not-gay-says-bba-winner.html

Glass House, the Secretariat of the crisis ridden Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) went up in flames this morning.
It was gathered that the fire started from the top floor of the building which housed the office of the General Secretary as well as the President of the football federation.

Our correspondent learnt that the accounts department of the federation was also affected by the fire which cause was not known as at the time of filing in this story.
Officials of Federal Fire Service are still battling to put out the fire at the Secretariat located in Wuse Zone 7 Area of Abuja as at the time of filing in this story.
The NFF has for many weeks now being enmeshed in a leadership crisis with Aminu Maigari and Mike Umeh laying claim to the leadership federation.
However, Maigari, returned to office on Monday following the directive of the Sports Minister, Tammy Danagogo.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/glass-house-nigeria-football-federation.html

A senior doctor who treated Nigeria’s first Ebola patient has died, taking the death toll in Africa’s most populous country to five, health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said on Tuesday.
Chukwu said the doctor was “the most senior who participated in the management of the (first Ebola) patient” in the country.


Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, 40, died in a Lagos hospital on July 25, five days after arriving at the city’s airport visibly unwell on a flight from the Liberian capital, Monrovia.
“With this unfortunate development, the total number of Ebola virus-related deaths in Nigeria now stands at five,” Chukwu added.
The four other deaths included two medical workers, a doctor and a nurse, who had treated the Liberian finance ministry consultant, and an official from the west African regional bloc, ECOWAS, who picked him up from the airport.

All of the cases have been in Lagos, which is sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest city with more than 20 million people.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that there were 15 cases of the virus in Nigeria.
The global death toll from Ebola stands at 1,229, with the bulk of cases in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/nigerian-doctor-dies-of-ebola-virus.html

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State insurgents posted a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley and images of another U.S. journalist whose life they said depended on how the United States acts in Iraq.

The video, titled "A Message To America," presented President Barack Obama with bleak options that could define America’s next phase of involvement in Iraq and the public reaction to it, potentially deepening his hand in a conflict he built much of his presidency on ending.
Obama held back from making a public statement about the beheading until the video could be formally authenticated.


"If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.
The video's grisly message was unambiguous, warning of greater retaliation to come against Americans following nearly two weeks of U.S. air strikes that have pounded militant positions and halted the advance of Islamic State, which until this month had captured a third of Iraq with little resistance.
Posted on social media, the video brought a chilling and highly personal tone to a conflict that for many Americans had started to become all too familiar.
Foley, 40, was kidnapped by armed men on Nov. 22, 2012, in northern Syria while on his way to the Turkish border, according to GlobalPost, a Boston-based online publication where Foley had worked as a freelancer. He had reported in the Middle East for five years and had been kidnapped and released in Libya.
Steven Sotloff, who appeared at the end of the video, went missing in northern Syria while reporting in July 2013. He has written for TIME among other news organizations.
The video injected an unpredictable element into Obama’s deliberations on how far to proceed with U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, though aides said his vow not to put U.S. combat forces on the ground in Iraq still held.
On a Facebook page for Foley, a message from his mother Diane Foley said: "We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.
"We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world."
Islamic State had not previously executed American citizens publicly. The video was posted after the United States resumed air strikes in Iraq this month for the first time since the end of the U.S. occupation in 2011.
HOSTAGE HISTORY
Hostage crises have plagued U.S. presidents over the years.
Jimmy Carter’s presidency sagged under the weight of the Iran hostage crisis when Americans were held captive for 444 days. Ronald Reagan’s bid to get American hostages freed from Lebanon led to an arms-for-hostages Iran-Contra scandal that plagued his second term.
University of Virginia political scholar Larry Sabato said the current situation was more akin to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl by al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2002. He said it could help bolster what appeared to be a growing perception among Americans that the United States will have to be more aggressive in dealing with Islamic State militants.
A USA Today/Pew Research Center poll this week showed Americans by 44 percent to 41 percent saying Washington had a responsibility to "do something" about the violence, a shift from last month when 55 percent to 39 percent saw no U.S. responsibility.
"WE ARE AN ISLAMIC ARMY"
The Sunni militant group, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria in areas it controls, opened the video with a clip of Obama saying he had authorized strikes in Iraq.
The words "Obama authorises military operations against the Islamic State effectively placing America upon a slippery slope towards a new war front against Muslims" appeared in English and Arabic on the screen.
It showed black and white aerial footage of air strikes with text saying "American aggression against the Islamic State".
A man identified as James Foley, his head shaven and dressed in an orange outfit similar to uniforms worn by prisoners at the U.S. military detention camp in Guantánamo, Cuba, is seen kneeling in the desert next to a man standing, holding a knife and clad head to toe in black.
"I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government, for what will happen to me is only a result of their complacency and criminality," the kneeling man says.
The man next to him, in a black mask, speaks in a British accent and says, "This is James Wright Foley, an American citizen, of your country. As a government, you have been at the forefront of the aggression towards the Islamic State."
"Today your military air force is attacking us daily in Iraq. Your strikes have caused casualties amongst Muslims. You are no longer fighting an insurgency. We are an Islamic army, and a state that has been accepted by a large number of Muslims worldwide."
Following his statement he beheads the kneeling man. At the end of the video, words on the side of the screen say, "Steven Joel Sotloff", as another prisoner in an orange jumpsuit is shown on screen. "The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision," the masked man says.
Syria has been the most dangerous country for journalists for more than two years. At least 69 other journalists have been killed covering the conflict there, including some who died over the border in Lebanon and Turkey. More than 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria; with frequent abductions, some of which go unpublicised, it is difficult to know exactly how many.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that approximately 20 journalists, both local and international, are currently missing in Syria. Many of them are believed to be held by Islamic State.
'CRUSADER' AMERICA
Islamic State also released a video on Tuesday that gave the strongest indication yet it might try to strike American targets. The video with the theme "breaking of the American cross" boasts Islamic State will emerge victorious over "crusader" America.
It followed a video posted on Monday, warning of attacks on American targets if Washington strikes against its fighters in Iraq and Syria.
Islamic State's sweep through northern Iraq, bringing it close to Baghdad and in control of the second city, Mosul, drew U.S. air strikes that helped Kurdish peshmerga fighters regain some territory captured by the Sunni militants.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iraqi forces halted a short-lived offensive on Tuesday to recapture Tikrit, home town of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, due to fierce resistance from Islamic State fighters.
Buoyed by an operation to recapture a strategic dam from the militants after two months of setbacks, Iraqi army units backed by Shi'ite militias launched their offensive shortly after dawn on Tikrit, a city 130 km (80 miles) north of Baghdad which is a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim minority.
But officers in the Iraqi forces' operations room said by mid-afternoon that the advance had stopped.
Islamic State has concentrated on taking territory for its self-proclaimed caliphate both in Syria, where it is also fighting the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, and in Iraq.
Coinciding with the Kurdish advances, Damascus government forces have stepped up air strikes on Islamic State positions in and around the city of Raqqa – its stronghold in eastern Syria.
Analysts believe Assad - who is firmly in control in the capital more than three years into the civil war - is seizing the moment to show his potential value to Western states that backed the uprising against him but are now increasingly concerned by the Islamic State threat.
Islamic State added new fighters in Syria at a record rate in July, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict. About 6,300 men – 80 percent of them Syrian and the rest foreigners – joined last month, Rami Abdelrahman, founder of the Observatory, told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Edgartown, Mass., Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, and Oliver Holmes and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Jim Loney and Jason Szep; Editing by Howard Goller)

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/islamic-state-video-purports-to-show.html

EFCC operatives
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said on Monday that it had arrested two bank managers and four others in connection with a N167.5 million scam.
The spokesman for the commission, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, said this in a statement in Lagos.
He said four employees of an old generation bank were being held for allegedly stealing N5.1 million from a customer’s account.


According to him, the suspects conspired and issued an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card to an accomplice in the name of a bank customer in Bayelsa.
“The man used the ATM to withdraw N5.1million from account.”
Uwujaren alleged that the manager gave out loans to himself using several names and accounts of some customers of the bank with whom he shared the money.
“The manager was arrested while trying to flee the country after the management of the bank detected the fraud.

“Disbursement of the loans showed that he granted a total sum of N57. 9 million to Onezh Oil and Gas Ltd, N11.3 million to Esubeb Staff Multipurpose Cooperative and N11.7 million to Ogochukwu Amanda.”
Uwujaren said the suspects, who were being interrogated at the Kano Zonal office of the EFCC, would soon be charged to court.

Source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/efcc-arrests-2-bank-managers-4-others.html

Pirates in Lagos, western Nigeria, have started feasting on multi-million dollar Half of A Yellow Sun, a film that has been described as a landmark in the evolution of the Nigerian film industry.
The movie still showing at Nigerian cinemas has been pirated with thousands of its bootleg DVD copies already being hawked and sold for as low as N150 (about $1) a copy on the streets of Lagos.
correspondents observed that the pirated DVD copies of the acclaimed movie are being brazenly hawked in the traffic in Lekki; Maryland; Agidingbi, Ikeja and other major Lagos streets.
“It is tragic that such a film with huge investment could be subjected to such barbaric act in its home country. This is a serious breach of our copyright and it is very sad not for us alone but the Nigerian movie industry as a whole,” Moses Babatope, an executive with The Film One Distribution, the sole distributor of Half of A Yellow Sun in Nigeria.


A scene from Half Of A Yellow Sun
According to Babatope, “we have already taken steps to deal with this issue by forwarding our petition to the Inspector General of Police and the Censors Board so as to take action and even criminalise it should anyone be caught with the pirated copy.”
Half of A Yellow Sun, is the most expensive Nigerian film since the emergence of the phenomenal Nollywood. Its production gulped over $10 million (N1.6 billion) and was largely financed by private funds raised by Yewande Sadiku, CEO, Stanbic-IBTC Capital Limited, who also doubles as the film’s executive producer.
The investment banker, learnt, also got a loan from the $200 million Entertainment Intervention Fund of the Nigerian Creative and Entertainment Industry Stimulation Loan Scheme, NCEILS, run by the Bank of Industry in Nigeria, before the movie could be completed.
It was premiered at the 38th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2013. The film also screened at other international film festivals with both public and private premieres in the UK and Nigeria, followed by commercial screenings at cinemas in the UK and other few western countries.
The film was also released on DVD for UK market after its cinema screening was closed in the country.
The public screening was controversially delayed for months in Nigeria by the National Film and Video Censors Board, NFVCB until mid-July when it got the much awaited approval among 77 movies and rated “18”.
But following months of delays by Nigeria’s Censors Board, the movie illegally found its way into the internet when it was posted on YouTube and later dubbed into CD and DVD copies by pirates who are now hawking them on streets of Lagos.
This has fuelled fears that the producers may not recoup their investment. But Babatope allayed the fears, saying “Half of A Yellow Sun’ is doing well right now at the cinemas. While I will not want to reveal to you the figure, it is very encouraging as the film is topping the box office record. And it’s on its third week,” he said.
Babatope thus called on Nigerians to shun the pirates and troop out to the cinemas to see the movie so as to encourage more investment in the film industry.
“The Nigerian film industry has been grappling with the issue of piracy for years but to now have such an important film like Half of A Yellow Sun considered the most expensive Nigerian film ever made, fall victim to piracy before its even released properly in Nigeria, is another harsh reminder of the size of the piracy problem in Nollywood. The issue may be so widespread now that it will be difficult to imagine any real positive progress in the short term,” he said
Half of a Yellow Sun is an adaption of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s award-winning international novel of the same title. The movie set in the Biafran war era in Nigeria, focuses on love, lust, jealousy, greed and brings to light the effects of war on the lives of everyone it touches.
Written and directed by Biyi Bandele, Half of a Yellow features Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Onyeka Onwenu, Genevieve Nnaji, O.C. Ukeje and Zack Orji.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/lagos-pirates-feast-on-half-of-yellow.html

Are you a habitual eater of instant noodles? Then be ready for the consequences as experts have linked it to challenges with the human metabolic process thus resulting in heart diseases and stroke in the long run.
Ordinarily, noodles, a staple food is seen as cheap, easy to prepare and best eaten by school children and workers who have little time to eat major foods.


Fox News says a new research has found that the instant noodles commonly known as ramen may increase people’s risk of metabolic changes linked to heart disease and stroke.
In the study, according to Fox News, “women in South Korea who consumed more of the pre-cooked blocks of dried noodles were more likely to have metabolic syndrome regardless of what else they ate, or how much they exercised.”

The research study published in the Journal of Nutrition emphasised that people who had metabolic syndrome could have high blood pressure or high blood sugar levels, with the consequence being the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Instant noodles: linked to heart attack
Co-author of the study, Hyun Shin, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said although instant noodle is a convenient and delicious food, there could be an increased risk for metabolic syndrome given the high sodium, unhealthy saturated fat and glycemic loads in the food.
To arrive at this conclusion, Shin and his team at Baylor University and Harvard studied and investigated the health and diet of at least 11,000 adults in South Korea between ages 19 to 64 looking at how many times they ate instant noodles every week.

The researchers found that women who ate instant noodles twice or more every week had a higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome than those who ate less.
However, the researchers said they could not link any association between eating noodles such number of times and developing metabolic syndrome in men, arguing that this may be linked to the difference in gender of men and women including the effect of sex hormones and metabolism.

The researchers said they picked population in South Korea because the country is the highest consumer of noodles in the world with a consumption rate of 3.4 billion packages of instant noodles in 2010.
Lisa Young, a Professor and nutritionist at the New York University, while speaking about the study, said it could apply to every part of the world where noodles (ramen) are sold and eaten
“Instant noodles are high in fat, high in salt, high in calories and they’re processed; all those factors could contribute to some of the health problems addressed.

“That doesn’t mean that every single person is going to respond the same way, but the piece to keep in mind is that it’s not a healthy product, and it is a processed food,” Fox News quoted Young as saying, adding that processed foods are known to contain high amounts of sugar and salt since they are designed to have long shelf lives.

Young added that to eat instant noodles and avoid the dangers in it, “number one, don’t eat it every day; number two, portion control (in which one should eat small amount of instant noodles and mix them with vegetables and other healthier, non-processed foods).”

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/instant-noodles-cause-heart-attack-say.html

Twenty-nine-year-old Ekene Ucheagwu, a native of Ndikpa Awu­ka Ogbunka, Orumba South Local Government Area, Anambra State, who alleged­ly committed an abominable act is now gnashing his teeth in the custody of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Anambra State Police Command.

Ekene kidnapped his 65-year-old mother, Agnes, strangled her and then proceeded to burn her corpse in the dreaded Ogba Ukwu forest in the community.

As the nation was celebrat­ing the last May Day, Madam Agnes was reported missing. The kinsmen, Sunday Sun learnt from the Anambra State Commission­er of Police, Mr Usman Gwary, promptly suspected her son, Ekene, because of the lingering misunderstanding between him and the mother. Gwary said Ek­ene was summoned by the kins­men to ascertain what he knew about the incident. Curiously, he told them to prepare a burial place for the missing woman.

It was further gathered that the problem between mother and son began sometime in 2012, and led to the hapless woman being beaten by the son, who broke her arm in the process. For such case of assault and battery, the police arrested and detained him for sometime at Umuchukwu Police Station. While in police custody, he was said to have sworn to deal with his mother whenever he regained freedom. True to his word, Ekene carried out the threat by beating her again.

At the office of SARS, where he is being held, Ekene spoke with Sunday Sun, accusing his late mother of being a witch, who used satanic powers to frustrate him and his siblings, preventing them from progress­ing in life.

His words: “My mother was evil. I killed her because of her wickedness. She prevented us, her children, from progressing. She was a witch and rained curses on us not to progress. She used her witchcraft powers to blind and attack us. I killed her because she planned to kill me because I called her queen of the coast. I beat her initially for her wickedness, but I am beginning to regret my action because my people have isolated me. I cannot forgive my mother. She had six children, three girls and three boys. My sister and brother died and she was behind their deaths.”

One of the kinsmen of the sus­pect, Josiah Okoli, commended the Commander of SARS, Supol James Nwafor, a chief superin­tendent of police (CSP) and his team for the quick investigative work that led to the arrest of Ekene in Aba, Abia State.

Okoli recalled that the police had given a firm commitment to arrest the perpetrator of the act before the late Agnes would be given a befitting burial. He expressed satisfaction that the culprit was eventually uncov­ered.

source: http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/evil-son-strangles-mother-burns-her.html