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SURGEONS at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) have successfully separated conjoined twins.
 
Dr. Auwal Abubakar, a paediatric surgeon, who led the team of experts on a 15-hour operation, told journalists yesterday in Maiduguri that the twins were joined at the pelvis.

Abubakar said the operation was conducted on Monday at the main theatre of the hospital.

His words: "I am happy to announce that we have successfully separated co-joined twins joined at the pelvis.
photo is strictly for illustration and not related to this story
"The separation of this kind of co-joined twins is one of the most difficult operations. In fact, this is the third to be carried out in Nigeria".

Abubakar explained that most surgical operations on co-joined

twins were carried out the world over on those joined at the chest because they were easier to separate...

"This type of co-joined twins is more difficult to separate but their chances of survival after the operation are higher than those who share a common heart or other vital organs", the surgeon said.

He disclosed that 20 medical experts, comprising paediatrics, orthopaedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, technicians and other specialists conducted the operation.

Abubakar, however, said that each of the separated babies would have to use a rubber limb to walk, as they grow older.

"The co-joined twins had only three legs before the operation, we left each of them with one leg after the operation because the third leg does not have a bone so it was cut off", he said.

Abubakar added that the reproductive system of one of the separated twins had also been changed to that of a female during the surgery.

He said: "They shared a single male genital before the operation but we realised that it was easier to leave one with the genital and construct a female genital for the other. The female will function normally like other persons but will not be able to bear children because she does not have a fallopian tube".

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that on August 30, 2010, surgeons at the hospital had a successful kidney transplant on 31-year-old Usman Suleiman.

Conjoined twins (also known as Siamese twins) are identical twins whose bodies are joined in utero. A rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 50,000 births to 1 in 100,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa.[1] Approximately half are stillborn, and a smaller fraction of pairs born alive have abnormalities incompatible with life. The overall survival rate for conjoined twins is approximately 25%.[2] The condition is more frequently found among females, with a ratio of 3:1.[1]Two contradicting theories exist to explain the origins of conjoined twins. The older and most generally accepted theory is fission, in which the fertilized egg splits partially. The second theory is fusion, in which a fertilized egg completely separates, but stem cells (which search for similar cells) find like-stem cells on the other twin and fuse the twins together. Conjoined twins share a single common chorion, placenta, and amniotic sac, although these characteristics are not exclusive to conjoined twins as there are some monozygotic but non-conjoined twins that also share these structures in utero.[3]

source wikipedia

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of marriage that included a White House run when their sunny relationship offered a counterpoint to President Bill Clinton's philandering.

According to an e-mail circulated among the couple's associates on Tuesday, the Gores said it was "a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration."

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider confirmed the statement came from the Gores, but declined to comment further.

The Gores were telling friends they "grew apart" after 40 years of marriage and there was no affair involved, according to two longtime close associates and family friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The associates said the Gores, over time, had carved out separate lives, with the former vice president on the road frequently. One of the associates said: "Their lives had gotten more and more separated."

Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. He has since campaigned worldwide to draw attention to climate change, which in 2007 led to a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."..

The Gores, who were married on May 19, 1970, at the National Cathedral in Washington, crafted an image as a happily married couple during his eight-year stint as vice president in the 1990s and a presidential candidate in 2000. The couple famously exchanged a long kiss during the 2000 Democratic presidential convention.

The image of their warm relationship stood in sharp contrast to the Clinton marriage rocked by Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a scandal that hung over Gore's own presidential campaign.

Al Gore at the time said his wife was "someone I've loved with my whole heart since the night of my high school senior prom."

On Halloween, Al and Tipper Gore would dress up in costume and greet trick-or-treaters who made their way to the vice president's mansion. One year, she was dressed as a puppy and he was dressed as Underdog.

Tipper Gore was a co-founder in 1985 of the Parents Music Resource Center, which pushed for parental warning labels on music with violent or sexually explicit lyrics. The group drew the ire of musicians ranging from Dee Snider of Twisted Sister to Frank Zappa, who said warning labels were unnecessary and a danger to freedom.

Tipper Gore later became friends with the late Zappa's wife, Gail, and played drums and sang backup on daughter Diva Zappa's album in 1999.

The Gores have four adult children, Karenna, Kristin, Sarah and Albert III.

In a letter written to then-girlfriend Tipper as a 17-year-old college freshman, Al Gore wrote: "Mother's having a fit about me riding the motorcycle back to Harvard. Dad's mad at my long hair."

Gore later held his father's former seats in the U.S. House and Senate for 16 years. He first ran for president in 1988 at age 39, but drew little support outside the South.

A subsequent bid in 1992 was derailed after the Gores' 6-year-old son almost died after being hit by a car in 1989.

"It was a very spiritual time for both of us," Tipper Gore later wrote. "In Al's case, he decided to write a book and not to run for president in 1992."

The book was "Earth in the Balance," and Al Gore ended up in the thick of the 1992 campaign anyway — as Bill Clinton's running mate.

Tipper Gore, who has acknowledged treatment for depression after Albert III's accident, is a vocal advocate on mental health issues.