Facebook is quite the colorful place today. An odd meme — bra color status updates — has made its way around the network, but no one really knows how or why the what-color-is-your-bra meme took off.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, women (and some men) are posting single word updates with the color of their bra, hence the barrage of “black,” “red,” and “nothing” updates from your female friends. But who’s actually behind the bra color campaign, and what they’re trying to accomplish, remains a mystery. Speculation, however, is running rampant.
A Detroit blog suggests that the color update craze was started by women in Detroit who are trying to raise awareness around Breast Cancer (though October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month). Another blog backs up that notion and includes the following Facebook message:
“Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha .”
We’ve yet to dig up the real source of the trend, so if you have any information on how this got started and who’s behind it, share it in the comments.
My Bra Color on 9jabook is :Green WHITE Green !
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BARCELONA star, Lionel Messi, has been named FIFA World Footballer of the Year to complete a stunning 2009 for the Argentine forward.advertisementThe 22-year-old, who helped Barca win the Club World Cup on Saturday, their sixth trophy of the year, also won the Ballon d'Or award this year.“A magnificent year for me and Barca has ended in the best way,” Messi said after the presentation of the award.He beat off competition from last year's winner, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Xavi and Andres Iniesta.Messi becomes the first Argentine to win the award, which was inaugurated in 1991 and it completed a stunning year for the brilliant winger.He helped Barca to an unprecedented treble of Champions League, La Liga and Spanish Cup last season, scoring the second goal in their 2-0 win over Manchester United in May.This season, the Catalan club added the Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup and Club World Cup to its roll of honour, beating Argentine side, Estudiantes, in Abu Dhabi to complete a stellar year.At the start of the month, Messi beat Ronaldo to the European Footballer of the Year award by a massive margin, 473 points to 233 and has now succeeded Ronaldo to win the FIFA award too.However, Messi has played down the attention, saying: “No, please, I am not king of the world now, nor the number one, I don't believe in those things.“I am the same person as always and I have the good fortune to play in a great team. It was an historic year for Barca and for me, but thanks to the work of everyone.”At a glittering gala at the Zurich Kongresshaus, England stars, John Terry and Steven Gerrard, were named in the FIFPro World XI, voted for by their fellow professionals.Fellow Premier League stars Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic and Fernando Torres were also picked, along with former Manchester United star, Ronaldo.Real Madrid's Iker Casillas was picked in goal and Barca quartet Dani Alves, Xavi, Iniesta and Messi completed the line-up.Ronaldo won the inaugural FIFA Puskas Award for the best goal of the year for his stunning 40-yard strike while playing for Manchester United against FC Porto in the quarter-finals of the Champions League in April.Brazilian Marta won the Women's World Player of the Year for a record fourth consecutive time, beating off competition from England striker, Kelly Smith.The 31-year-old Smith, who played her club football in the United States, starred in the England side that reached the final of Euro 2009.The prizes were voted for by the captains and head coaches of the men's and women's national teams.
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Posted by 9jabook.com on January 7, 2010 at 8:48pm
Notable quote from Article
"Second, if, as seems likely, Yar'Adua is in fact incapacitated, the U.S. must demand that the constitution be followed and power transferred to the vice president "
Just As Americans and the rest of the world still Want to know where in the World is Osama Bin Laden ? Mainstream American Journalists in the wake of the Mutallab "bombing" from top Rated Online Blogs like the Hufftington Post are asking Where in the World Is Nigeria's President ?READ ON !
Even as Obama Declares "I take Full Responsibility for America's Security Lapses as Commander in Chief "
Now,Amid all the media frenzy around the Nigerian underwear bomber and how America should have stopped him before he tried to blow up a passenger plane on Christmas Day, a critical piece to the counter-terrorism puzzle seems to have been missed: where in the world is the Nigerian President?Normally, after such a horrific incident, President Obama would be on the phone with his counterpart, discussing what went wrong and agreeing on ways to work better in the future to prevent such attacks. But this couldn't happen because Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua left his country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia on November 23rd and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
Yes, you read that right: the whereabouts of the leader of Nigeria -- America's most important strategic ally in Africa, the fifth largest source of U.S. oil imports, and home to 150 million people -- are unknown. It is also not clear if he is alive or dead.
The situation is so uncertain that Nigeria's parliament is openly considering sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia to find out the truth. A major opposition party yesterday demanded, quite reasonably, some "proof of life."
The mystery over Yar'Adua is so bizarre as to be comical -- if the consequences weren't so severe. His absence has thrust the country into an immediate constitutional crisis. The president failed to delegate authority to his deputy before traveling, effectively leaving no one in charge. This 43-days-and-counting power vacuum is being swiftly filled by an insular cabal bent on exploiting the situation for their own gain.
Complicating matters, the vice president -- ironically named Goodluck Jonathan -- is a Christian and an Ijaw, part of a minority group from the southern Niger Delta region and far from the power centers of the northern Muslim elites who expect one of their own to run the country. There is much speculation that insiders are scheming now of ways to keep Jonathan from ever assuming power. In an ominous sign, a new chief justice was quickly (and possibly illegally) sworn in last week.
These developments all put Nigeria's future at great risk. A decade of constitutional democracy is threatened by the specter of mass violence and a possible military coup.
The failed terrorist attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Flight 253 highlights that Nigeria's power void is dangerous for the U.S. as well. The foundation of a counter-terrorism strategy is to build cooperative partnerships with friendly nations. This means sharing information and helping to build security capacity in places like Yemen, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.
But we cannot have a partnership if there is no one on the other end of the line. Nigeria cannot be a reliable ally if it is consumed by its own corruption and political machinations. In this way, Nigeria is rapidly becoming more like Somalia -- a failed state with no real government to cooperate with -- than a real partner.
What can the United States do? First, it should insist on an immediate public declaration of President Yar'Adua's health and fitness to govern. If the president's staff refuse to oblige, then the U.S. should encourage the national assembly to assert its constitutional responsibilities when it reconvenes on January 12.
Second, if, as seems likely, Yar'Adua is in fact incapacitated, the U.S. must demand that the constitution be followed and power transferred to the vice president. The long-term security of Nigeria depends on entrenching the rule of law and this must supersede any palace intrigue or political bargaining.
Third, it is clear that whatever the outcome over the next few weeks, Nigeria will remain on a knife's edge until elections in 2011. Any hope for a more stable country hinges on a credible election next year. Yar'Adua came to power in a deeply flawed poll in April 2007 and almost no steps have since been taken to fix the broken system. The U.S. is in a unique position to push for and help deliver a better election that would strengthen the authority and legitimacy of the next government.
Last, the U.S. can support Nigeria's vibrant civil society that is clearly fed up and is increasingly demanding change.
The case of the missing Nigerian President is a wake up call to the United States about the vulnerability of many of our global partners. How we respond is not only crucial to the future of an important ally, but a critical test of our strategy for building partnerships in troubled places to combat the global ills of our time.
Todd Moss is vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Bush administration.
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Posted by 9jabook.com on December 11, 2009 at 10:51pm
Amnesty International exposed the shocking level of unlawful police killings in Nigeria in a new report released on Wednesday.
“The Nigerian police are responsible for hundreds of unlawful killings every year,” said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme.
“Police don’t only kill people by shooting them; they also torture them to death, often while they are in detention.”
“The majority of the cases go un-investigated and the police officers responsible go unpunished. The families of the victims usually get no justice or redress. Most never even find out what happened to their loved ones.”
Police frequently claim that the victims of shootings were ‘armed robbers’ killed in ‘shoot-outs’ with the police or while trying to escape custody. These claims are often highly implausible.
Fifteen-year-old Emmanuel Egbo was killed by a police officer in Enugu in September 2008. According to witnesses, he was playing with other children in front of his uncle’s house when three police officers came up to them. One officer pulled out a gun and shot the boy, claiming he was an armed robber. He was unarmed.
In August 2009, his family discovered his body had disappeared from the mortuary. As of November 2009, the body is still missing.
Amnesty International said that some police officers see the killings of ‘armed robbers’ in detention as acceptable practice.
In June 2009, the organization visited the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) detention centre in Abuja, which is located in a disused abattoir outside the city.
Suspects are held in a vast warehouse previously used for slaughtering cattle. Chains are still hanging from the ceiling. When Amnesty International delegates visited the building, about 15 people were held in cells. Amnesty International delegates counted at least 30 empty bullet cases scattered on the ground.
Unofficially, a policeman told Amnesty International that many “armed robbers” are taken there and shot.
Amnesty International said that one of the main problems is ‘Nigeria Police Force Order 237’ under which police officers are allowed to shoot suspects and detainees who attempt to escape or avoid arrest – whether or not they pose a threat to life.
“Force Order 237 is so impermissibly broad. It simply gives police officers permission to shoot people. It is against international standards, and is being abused by police officers to commit, justify and cover up illegal killings,” said Erwin van der Borght.
“The government must repeal Force Order 237 and publicly announce that the use of lethal force is only allowed when strictly unavoidable to protect life. This simple step could make a big difference to the number of unlawful police killings we are seeing in Nigeria.”
Enforced disappearances in Nigeria are rife. Typically, in the first days or weeks following arrest, families are allowed to visit their relatives in detention. Later on, police tell them their loved ones have been “transferred to Abuja”. Other times, they simply deny any knowledge of their whereabouts.
The Nigerian government says that they do not condone extrajudicial killings. But they are not doing enough to stop them and bring the police perpetrators to justice. Even on the rare occasions when police officers implicated in an unlawful killing are prosecuted, they are often released on bail or escape custody. Some are simply transferred to other states.
“Ending unlawful killings and enforced disappearances by the police will require serious legal reform and commitment and support from the Nigerian police force,” said Erwin van der Borght. “The Nigerian Police Force must introduce a new code of conduct throughout its chain of command – from the very top to the bottom. If not, the cycle of violence will simply continue.”
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Posted by 9jabook.com on December 6, 2009 at 9:40pm
Understanding the nation’s brand of Nazism
Nazism - a term associated with the Third Reich, that conjures fear, hatred and awe especially among the Jews because of the genocide of the fuhrer . Reminiscences of the atrocities of the triad of Hitler, Goering and Gobbeles, their march on Czechoslovakia, Poland, the breach of the Belgian neutrality, their adventures in France, Russia and the Bombing of London were atrocities unparalleled in history. Perhaps the climax of the Hitlerian genocide was the final solution, which meant the extermination of the Jews.
The Nazi had their bedfellows all over the world; the Pol Pots and Suhatos of Indonesia, the Pinochets of Chile; the Eyademas of Togo, The Mobutus of Congo Democratic Republic (CDR) the Idi Amins of Uganda and the Mugabes of Zimbabwe. A sprinkling of them also reincarnated in Nigeria: the Abacha's, the Babangidas and the Obasanjo'. Nigerians generally believe that Abachas was the worst tyrant Nigeria had ever produced, but some people think otherwise. They have certain traits in common: brutality, ferociousness, narcissism and paranoia.
Sometime ago, I read an interview granted by General Jeremiah Useni, retired, popularly known as “Jerry Boy”, and what intrigued me was his refusal to make a comparison between Abacha and Obasanjo. When the interviewer asked him which government he preferred, Obasanjo's or Abacha's, he replied “there was no basis for comparison, Abacha is a Saint! “ The former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory even warned the journalist never to compare the two rulers, for he was convinced beyond doubt that Abacha is a Saint compared to the Obasanjo. Although in matters concerning abstract values, people differ in visualizing their scales of judgment and this makes it pretty difficult to conjecture from what binoculars, prism or ideological aperture the former Minister saw the duo.
Again, the argument seems to have been brought to its peak at the 11th anniversary of Abacha's death, when other tyrants like Babangida and Buhari claimed that Abacha did not steal money and therefore exonerated him of his misdeeds of the past. I know that both Christians and Muslims abhor speaking ill of the dead, but they also believe in eschatology and the virtues of truth. Therefore any argument that seeks to beatify an African leader is a serious one that must of necessity be dragged to the court of public opinion.
I therefore elected to compare and contrast the nefarious activities of Abacha and Obasanjo, who operated like the Nazi's in their desecration of democratic values, censoring the press, their penchant for destruction and primitive accumulation. The time difference of the two leaders notwithstanding, both Abacha and Obasanjo were groomed in the military tradition of Sandhurst Academy. Perhaps the thin line of distinction is that whereas Abacha held the reins of power at a time Nigeria was navigating the brink of anarchy, Obasanjo was graciously released from the gulag to be having being persuaded by IBB, a fellow Sandhurst trained tyrant, to be President. By that position OBJ became the Head of State and arrogated to himself near-omnipotent powers to head all organs of government, including the National Assembly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Peoples DemocraticParty and even emasculated the judiciary. His economic policies of privatization was unpopular as he imposed maximum hardship on the masses, with astronomically increase in petroleum products and its attendant spiraling inflation. It was like the Nazi's who conquered Ukraine and stole all their food and exported to Germany.
Both were ferocious in persecuting political opponents. The high point of Abacha's goons was the extra-judicial murders of the Ogoni nine including Ken Saro-wiwa, and the abbreviation of late Kudirat Abiola - wife of late Chief M.K.O. Abiola - the acclaimed winner of the June 12 1993 Presidential elections. Obasanjo's eight years witnessed more than seventy documented high profile politically motivated murders. On the contrary, Abacha never feigned ignorance of his timidity. He read no printed matter, did not give a damn about the international media opinions; he only depended on his marabouts and fortune tellers who conjured voodoo inspiration to prop up his tyranny as long as it lasted. Obasanjo definitely scored a shade above distinction in terms of persecuting political opponents including his Vice-President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and he prosecuted such battles like holy wars under the guise of restoring sanity to the polity. The President and his Vice tried to outdo each other in kleptomania.
On the economic front, OBJ could have been scored very high if his reform agenda succeeded in creating even some marginal impact. At no time in Nigeria's history has the price of crude oil soared to $80 per barrel. With the stupendous wealth accruing from crude oil, Obasanjo inaugurated what he called a “Reform Agenda”. First, OBJ suffocated the banking sector by weeding out the small players under the re-capitalization scheme with Prof. Soludo as the CBN Chief. He also assembled a few pro-IMF egg heads to give legitimacy to his reforms. The administration embarked on a privatization spree and sold all choice corporations to his friends and cronies. Otedola and Dangote were major beneficiaries of the President's largesse. Third, he increased the pump price of petroleum products about nine times, and each time an increase was announced, he justified it by pontificating the same argument that our refineries were producing at very low capacity. This argument is difficult to reconcile with the huge sums of money voted for Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the refineries. Fourth, OBJ's IMF team like fifth columnists plotted to obliterate the time-honoured “public good” concept of education through a policy of marketisation of institutions including the unity schools. Nigerians know the truth about the stories surrounding the African Petroleum, the PTDF imbroglio, the Pentascope saga and now the gale of scandals have radiated to the power sector, Police Equipment Fund, Aviation Intervention Fund and others yet to catch the eager gaze of the anti-graft agencies. It is because of the despicable role Chukwuma Soludo played that makes this writer believe that Soludo is not the kind of Governor Anambra State needs now. The State has a formidable assemblage of tested technocrats, with experience in statecraft.
Arguably, the past eight years of mis-rule have brought about double digit inflation, increase in the price of petroleum products; privatization of refineries and all that could be regarded as our national heritage. At least under Abacha, the educational system was stable, the exchange rate of the naira was tolerably low and inflation was single digit. Worse than the Abacha junta, Nigeria in the past eight years can be described as a corporatized entity. Wages are not keeping pace with the spiraling inflation, graduate unemployment has worsened, our educational institutions seem to have lost their glamour and the so called reform agenda is like bitter pills forced down the throat of Nigerians. For nearly eight years Obasanjo was misguided by a class of mindless pro-IMF economic adventurers who mis-interpreted pro-poor growth as development. Economic growth was only noticed in Soludo's power point presentations, but the reality is that Obasanjo's eight years reign wrecked havoc and increased the misery index of Nigerians, as epitomized in the life expectancy rate, standard of living, access to health care facilities and other basic infrastructure including education.
Obasanjo and Abacha were both sworn enemies of the media. Abacha muzzled the press because he never read newspapers but OBJ deliberately killed the independent media, climaxed by his refusal to assent to the “Freedom of Information Bill”. Thus while Abacha attacked the physical manifestation of the media such as censoring the press, jailing practitioners, OBJ killed the soul of the press; and he who kills the soul is the real murderer of press freedom. Even the Freedom of Information Bill, which has been muzzled by the NASS may continue to suffer setbacks in the future. It is still in the morgue, and only some esoteric conjuration may bring it up for the gracious discussion of the honourable men.
One of the casualties of the Obasanjo self-perpetuation scheme was the lethal injury inflicted on the electoral system. Obasanjo superintended over the worst elections ever conducted in Nigeria since independence. Elections are supposed to be a decision-making process where people give their mandate to their representatives at all levels of government. In political theory, the principal mechanism for translating that consent into governmental authority is the conduct of free and fair elections. The 2007 elections were characterized by massive rigging and bizarre subversion of the popular will. The hullabaloo about electronic voting system and the over seventy billion naira of the taxpayers' money expended on the project demonstrated monumental waste. The NASS may not be in a hurry to review the Electoral Act because of the self-perpetuation scheme. That is the unenviable legacy Obasanjo bequeathed to the Nigerian State and the Yar'Adua administration is too slow to push through these reforms. They may never see the light of day till 2011 or even beyond.
OBJ can be described as the luckiest Nigerian, yet his years of democratic rule also witnessed more strikes, more riots, more collapsed buildings, more crashed airplanes, more politically motivated assassinations and other sundry disasters. The causes of these events are being investigated but this may continue ad infinitum. Of course the Nigerian Police lacks the capacity to investigate because of the bogey of corruption and the get-rich-quick mania.
Abacha's regime centralized corruption such that only Abacha, his friends and other lackeys of the junta enriched themselves. On the contrary OBJ set out to fight corruption by establishing ICPC and EFCC. Whereas ICPC has since inception not recorded any landmark achievements, the EFCC was used as an outfit to hunt down politicians who overtly expressed disdain for the third tenure plot. Nigeria's corruption rating by Transparency International was higher in the last 8 years. Even the World Bank reported in 2003 that 51% of corrupt activities were perpetuated at the Presidency. Now Nigeria ranks 130th among 180 countries in the corruption perception index.
•John wrote from Yenagoa
To many impartial observers, OBJ only de-centralized corruption and corporatized Nigeria under the guise of reforms. Verily, the application of double-standards has diminished the tempo of the anti-corruption crusade. This momentum may be gained with the sack of the former anti-corruption Czar. In fact, the Czar has long been replaced by Mrs. Farida Waziri, who in the imagination of most Nigerians, is attempting to re-position the outfit but the NASS poses a huge bottleneck. Obasanjo - the civil war hero, and gentleman farmer of the Operation Feed the Nation fame, wore the garb of democracy but like Abacha, he suffered from acute military hangover. A soldier by training, character and actions, an archetypal dictator, OBJ sought to push through his punitive reforms by brute force rather than appeal to the conscience of Nigerians. It would therefore be a terrible misnomer for anyone to see the past eight years of unmitigated disaster as democratic rule.
Obasanjo is a fighter and he fought very hard to humiliate his opponents. His is lucky and audacious but bereft of the basic elements followers look out for in a democratic leader. It is difficult for a leopard to change his skin, and for most Nigerians with strong analytical minds, his two tenures in power will go down as an uneventful interlude of military hangover.
I am one of those Nigerians calling for the trial of OBJ, IBB, Chief Tony Anineh, Atiku, and other Nigerian involved in high profile corruption. especially on account of the economic atrocities perpetrated against Nigerians for the past eight years. Obasanjo should also tell Nigerians the truth about the punitive expedition he sent to Odi, Okerenkoko, Odioma, and other communities that were laid waste during his inglorious tenure. Nigerians have the right to know how the former President made his stupendous wealth, using his office as President.
The trial of OBJ and his Vice-Atiku by the EFCC will complete the anti-corruption war, and many Nigerians are looking forward to the time this would happen under the Yar'Adua administration. As a student of creative philosophy I have the conviction that leaders, no matter their description, ideological orientation or world view, must account for their stewardship at some date in the future. Just as the Nazi war criminals were tried in Nuremberg and convicted, the Nigerian brand of Nazists should be tried and convicted, and only then will there be full restitution and the souls of their victims will rest in perfect peace.
Idumange John (Mnim, CBA)
Is a University Lecturer and Activist
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It’s that time of year! During this Christmas season, I heard several sermons on the birth of Jesus. Now, in our Western culture that is rapidly losing its once-Christian worldview, Christians and Christian leaders need to use this time, more than ever, to challenge non-Christians. But will they give the vital message people need to hear at this time of history?
I was thrilled to be able to bring a friend who has struggled with the Christian faith for his entire life to church this Christmas season. Just before we arrived, he asked me a question that has been troubling him.
I was fascinated to note that he didn’t ask about Jesus and the manger, or about the shepherds or the angels who proclaimed the birth of Jesus on earth—instead, he asked, ‘Why do many Christians use organ transplants to prolong their life or try to prolong the lives of their children when they’re born with problems when God has deemed it was their time to die?’ He continued, ‘Why wouldn’t a Christian accept their death that comes from God? Shouldn’t they just accept it if they are true Christians and want to go to heaven instead of trying to survive on this earth?’
Now, why would he ask questions like that? The answer is that increasingly, the culture is losing the true meaning of Christmas because the education system and the media continues to indoctrinate people to reject the Bible as absolute truth. Instead, the Christian faith and the Bible is attacked and ridiculed and condemned as a ‘book of stories’ because so-called science has supposedly proved it cannot be true—particularly in its history in Genesis.
I’m sure my friend wasn’t expecting an answer. After all, such questions as the ones he asked have been leveled at Christians for years. (Sadly, many Christians don’t know how to answer such questions, because they, like him, have not believed the true history of the world from Genesis—which explains the origin and meaning of death.)
Now, I was sure the sermon we were about to hear would be from a pastor who assumed people believed the Bible. I thought he would remind them of the babe in a manger and why He came to earth. I realized that my friend needed answers, so he would know that he could trust the Bible before he even heard the sermon. I was pleased he had asked me what was on his heart and what was obviously stopping him from considering the Christian faith.
My friend had viewed death, suffering and dying as something God must be responsible for. He did not understand that death was an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), an intrusion due to sin. Death wasn’t something that God made and declared ‘very good’ in Genesis 1:31, but a result of sin. I explained that God created a perfect world, and because the first man Adam sinned, death entered the world as the punishment for sin. I had to explain that the earth was not millions of years old as he had been indoctrinated to believe, and thus there was not death, disease and bloodshed for millions of years before man’s existence.
I continued: When man sinned, God as a righteous and Holy creator had to judge sin with death. He also withdrew some of His sustaining power to cause man to experience a taste of what happens without God. Thus God is permitting things like disease, suffering etc., to happen, but He isn’t the one to blame for this—man is. Then it was like a light bulb came on in my friend’s head. With this new view of God, the Bible started to make sense to him.
Sadly, there are many people within the church who accept the supposed millions of years, instead of the truth as given in Genesis. Because of this, they don’t have valid answers for people like my friend, but instead would ignore his questions and instead relate the story of the babe in the manger in the hope my friend would start believing this. [See The god of an old earth.]
Many people struggle with accepting the truth of Jesus and the Bible because they have the wrong view of history. They, like my friend, have been indoctrinated to reject the Bible as a true account of history and the meaning of life. This is a major stumbling block for so many people believing God’s Word and being saved.
Knowing that many non-Christians view God like this and also knowing that they only set foot in church about once a year, I’m praying that Christian leaders will take advantage of this opportunity and address these issues, that are relevant issues for where the culture is at today, while speaking during this Christmas time. This could make such a difference in the lives of many who have a faulty view of God, and thus challenge them concerning the truths of the Bible.
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It has been revealed how Super Eagles striker, Obafemi Martins, extranvagantly squandered about N3.1 trillions while a player of Newcastle.MartinsadvertisementHis former management company, NVA Management Limited who has dragged the player to court over breach of contarct, told the jury how the player’s account almost went red because of his lifestyle.Obafemi Martins was paid £75,000, but allegedly squandered the earnings on an extravagant lifestyleA former Premiership footballer routinely blew his £75,000 a week wages in a matter of days and was constantly overdrawn, a court was told yesterday.Obafemi, ex-Newcastle striker 25, was paid the handsome salary after he joined the club for a £10million fee in August 2006.But despite his extraordinary earnings, his former management team yesterday claimed they repeatedly bailed him out after his bank account continually slipped into the red.The High Court heard that the Nigerian international player would withdraw £40,000 in cash from his bank account at the end of the week.But that would only last him two days, the court heard, as he topped up with a further £25,000 on the Monday morning.He was always overdrawn and repeatedly relied upon NVA Management Limited to ‘manage his life’, the High Court was told.Martins, who owned several fast cars including a top of the range Porsche 4X4, spent the money funding an extravagant lifestyle of luxurious penthouse homes and fine dining.He is now being sued by his former management company which claims that he still owes them 300,000 for sorting out his finances.He told the court that Martins would withdraw £40,000 for the weekend, followed by another £25,000 on the Monday.‘Despite earning these vast sums of money he was constantly overdrawn,’ added Mr Tennink.He said the firm, which looks after the affairs of several footballers, film and music stars, said that Martins had agreed to pay them for simply managing his life.It was under their stewardship that Martins agreed a £2million image rights deal ‘simply for being Mr Martins’.It’s claimed Martins was constantly overdrawn despite earning £75,000-a-weekHe also had lucrative sponsorship deals with various companies including Pepsi and Nike but had not been paid.When the company stepped in to run his affairs they sorted the unpaid contracts, bringing in thousands of pounds.They also organised visas when he travelled to Italy, where he once played for Inter Milan, and sorted out his passport, his mortgage and property valuations.They even arranged critical illness cover and were constantly running up and down the motorway from their London offices to Newcastle in a bid to do all that he required.‘But surely these were things a secretary could do?’ asked Judge Richard Seymour QC, referring to the size of fees charged.‘It was a Jeeves-type of role that they performed.’Mr Tennink protested that managing every aspect of his life was just part of what they did, and asked the judge to bear in mind the sort of figures these players earned.He said Martins had come to them in July 2007 and had agreed a fee of around £300,000 plus 20 per cent of any sponsorship monies they managed to acquire on his behalf.“He asked for these services to be carried out,” Mr Tennink told the court.Before they managed his affairs, Martins had not been paid a penny for his image rights for the use of his name on Newcastle shirts and mugs and had received nothing from his sponsorship deals.He could not even find the contracts he had originally signed, Mr Tennink added.Martins paid the company £67,500 in January last year and another £25,000 in April last year.But the question for the court to decide, said Mr Tennink, was whether there was a ‘binding obligation’ for him to pay the outstanding bill of over £300,000.After Newcastle were relegated from the Premiership last summer Martins was sold for £9million to German Bundesliga Champions Wolfsburg.Martins, who once owned a penthouse apartment overlooking Newcastle’s exclusive Quayside, is fighting the claim.The hearing is scheduled to last for three days.Read more…
Posted by Mikky Webs on November 20, 2009 at 6:06am
With no doubt whatsoever, the crisis in the Niger Delta is traceable and contributed to poor leadership and neglects by the Nigerian Government.The Niger Delta region is at the South Southern Part of Nigeria facing the Atlantic Ocean by the South via the Gulf of Guinea and the Cameroonian cities by the East. The Niger Delta Region is rich in mineral resources like crude oil and natural gas, arable and fertile land for farming and for rearing of animal. The people in this region are of various cultures and languages and industrious as well.More so, the Niger Delta region is best locations for tourist attractions and investments due to excellent weather and serene environment. It is point blank the region every tourist would like to visit and the treasure base of the Nigerian nation and no wonder international companies thrive in the region.Development in the Niger DeltaThe development in the Niger Delta Region is very discouraging and stunt since the inception of the Democratic dispensation in Nigeria headed by the former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The rate of insecurity and mostly unemployment of from the Niger Delta and the poor leadership in the Nigerian nation led to the coalition of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Niger Delta State (MAND) or rather nation which has been in existence for quite sometimes now. They feel marginalised and are fighting the government of Nigeria with the aim of being emancipated from cruelty practiced by the Nigerian Government. Hence the issue of the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria has for some time now remained untreated and neglected by the Nigerian Government.Check the neccessary measures to hit the point here:Read more…
HAS THE TITANIC Movie MET ITS MATCH ? Twilight Sequel : Have you Seen the Movie Twilight New Moon Currently Takingthe World by storm ! ?JOIN GROUP !Leonardo the Caprio made his Big Jump into the Movie Hall of Fame with his portrayal of the love crazy romance thathit the screens years back with kate winslet . Now there is a new Kid on the block and he is driving Teenagers especially girls WILD with his portrayal of another Love crazy romantic but this time a Vampire ! The Catholicpope's Vatican even suggested it be banned !http://tinyurl.com/PopeBansVampireWhat is his name ? Robert Pattinson ! see below for New Moon plot !T W I L I G H TShhh, can you hear that? What you're hearing is the collective shrieks from Twihards everywhere as The TwilightSaga: New Moon is upon us. For those of you asking yourself, what is a Twihard? I’ve included the definition below.twi-hard nounA serious/obsessive reader of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, one leap above Twilighters.Are you a Twilight fan? Do you plan on seeing the movie? Let us know at 9j.a.bo.ok.com !Currently the Twilight Saga is all the rage, and seems to have taken over almost every aspect of social media. If9.you venture over to MySpace.com you’ll see that the homepage has been New Moonified. It should be noted that NewJ.Moon & MySpace seem to share the same demographic, Tweens... so it only makes sense to try and grab those pageviews.A.MySpace has been all about some New Moon here lately, as they just hosted an exclusive stream of the red carpetB.during the films premiere, which pulled in 3 million viewers. Did you watch any of the red carpet stream? Tell us.OOKOver on Twitter, Twilight holds 3 of the top 10 trending topics including the highly coveted top spot.YouTube is even trying to cash-in on the New Moon craze by adding a “Twihard” box atop their site that states thefollowing, "The world is gripped by Twilight mania these days and on YouTube that translates into videos thatcelebrate, discuss and even mock the cultural phenomenon."Like I said before, New Moon hits theatres today and is expected to make somewhere between 85 million – 100 milliondollars this weekend, and could possibly break some box office records when it’s all said and done. It’s alreadybroken the advance ticket sales record, previously held by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. How much doyou think New Moon will make when it's all said and done? Tell us.It'll be interesting to compare New Moon's "social media status" against the next film in the saga when it hits thecinema around this same time next year, to see if it stil has the same amount of hype around it.Why do you think Twilight is such a huge success? Let us know your honest opinion.Twilight Book/Movie Summary9.Twilight is a series of four vampire-based fantasy romance novels by American author Stephenie Meyer. J.It charts a period in the life of Isabella "Bella"A.Swan, a teenage girl who moves to Forks, Washington and falls in love with a 104-year-old vampire B.named Edward Cullen. The series is told primarily fromO.Bella's point of view, with the epilogue of Eclipse and Part II of Breaking Dawn being told from the O.viewpoint of character Jacob Black, a werewolf. TheK.unpublished Midnight Sun is a retelling of the first book, Twilight, from Edward Cullen's point of view.Ever since the release of the first novel, Twilight, in 2005, the books have gained immense popularity and commercial success around the world. The series ismost popular among young adults; the four books have won multiple awards, most notably the 2008 British Book Award for "Children's Book of the Year" forBreaking Dawn,[1] while the series as a whole won the 2009 Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Book.[2]As of November 2009, the series has sold over 85 million copies worldwide[3] with translations into at least 38 different languages around the globe.[4][5]The four Twilight books have consecutively set records as the biggest selling novels of 2008 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list[6] and have spent over235 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Series Books.[3]Thus far, the first three books are being made into a series of motion pictures by Summit Entertainment; the film adaptation of Twilight was released in 2008and the second, New Moon, was released on November 20, 2009.[7] The third film, Eclipse, is set to be released June 30, 2010.NEw Moon PlotOn her 18th birthday, Bella Swan wakes up from a dream in which she sees herself as an old woman. She expresses her distaste with growing older than herboyfriend Edward Cullen, a vampire who stopped aging at 17. Edward's family throws Bella a birthday party. While unwrapping a gift, Bella gets a paper cut,which causes Edward's adoptive brother, Jasper, to be overwhelmed by her blood's scent and attempt to kill her. Realizing the danger he and his family poseto Bella, Edward decides to end their relationship, and the Cullens move away from Forks, Washington.Edward's departure leaves Bella heartbroken and depressed for months. However, when her father, Charlie, attempts to send her to live with her mother, Bella Twilight Trailer agrees to spend time with her friends. After seeing a movie with Jessica, Bella sees a group of men who remind her of a time when Edward rescued herpreviously, and she is surprised to see a vision of Edward warning her against approaching them. Bella discovers that all thrill-seeking activities grant hervisions of Edward. She also finds comfort in her deepening friendship with Jacob Black, a cheerful companion who eases her pain over losing Edward. WhenJacob is unable to see Bella for weeks, she discovers that he is a werewolf, an age-old enemy of vampires. Jacob's pack members are on constant patrol forVictoria, a vampire searching to kill Bella, leaving Jacob little time to spend with Bella. Alone, Bella returns to seeking thrill-inducing activities.A series of miscommunications leads Edward to believe that Bella has killed herself while cliff-diving. Distraught over her supposed suicide, Edward flees toItaly to provoke the Volturi, a powerful coven of vampires who are capable of killing him. Alice, Edward's adoptive sister, and Bella rush to Italy to save advertise on 9j.a.book.comEdward, and arrive just in time to stop him. However, the Volturi decide that Bella, a human who knows that vampires exist, must either be killed ortransformed into a vampire herself. Alice stops them from killing her by showing them a vision of the future in which Bella has been transformed. Once theyreturn home to Forks, Edward tells Bella that he has always loved her and only left town to protect her. She forgives him, and the Cullens vote in favor ofBella being transformed into a vampire, to Edward and Jacob's dismay. Edward gives Bella a choice: either she lets Alice change her after their graduation,or, if Bella agrees to marry him, he will change her himself. However, Jacob reminds them of a treaty the Cullens have made with the werewolves: they willnot attack each other, as long as the Cullens never bite a human.ADVERTISEMENTS ! ADVERTISE ON 9JABOOKRead more…
Posted by Jane Okinedo on November 20, 2009 at 12:30am
Vampire movie New Moon is deviant, says the VaticanVampire movie New Moon has been condemned by the Vatican as a 'deviant moral vacuum.'The latest film in the Twilight saga stars British actor Robert Pattinson as a blood-sucker who falls in love with a beautiful teenage girl.It is based on the hugely popular series of books by Stephanie Meyer, an American Mormon and mother of three. But that means little to the Catholic Church in Italy.This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and, as such, is something that should be of concern,' said Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, of the pontifical council of culture yesterday.'This theme of vampires in Twilight combines a mixture of excesses that, as ever, is aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element.'Three weeks ago the Vatican condemned Halloween as 'anti-Christian and dangerous' and it urged parents not to dress their children as ghosts, goblins and vampires.Such statements are not likely to dent New Moon's massive box office appeal. The first Twilight movie grossed more than $550million (£330million) in US box office and DVD sales.
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I stumbled upon this today while browsing the net and realised that a person's name just like his spirit,soul and body is a distinct criteria for his purpose in life .God has many names and the one we look at today is yahweh .
The Hebrews according to this article below are the progenitors of the naming convention and overtly and covertly have been identified with the history of the written word as we see it today.
Meaning, origin and etymology of the name YHWHYHWH is the second creation Name of God. God's Name changes from Elohim to YHWH Elohim in Genesis 2:4 .
As told by Joel M. Hoffman Ph.D. in his delightful and riveting book In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language - - the Hebrews were the first to incorporate vowels in their written text, and by doing this the previously esoteric art of writing and reading became available to the masses. The seemingly casual command to 'write' something on doors or foreheads included the invention of a writing system that could be learned by everybody. A very big deal, and resulting in the most powerful tool of data preservation up to this common age.
Hebrew theology is by far the most influential ever, and this is in part due to the Hebrew invention of vowel notation. This power (this theology) contrasted others by use of the vowel notation, using symbols that were already used and until then only represented consonants: the letters (waw), (yod) and (heh), and to give an example: the word is either the word dod, meaning beloved (and the is a vowel), or it is the word dud, meaning jar (and the is again a vowel), or it is the word dawid, which is the name David (and the is a consonant).
These letters became markers for both the Hebrew identity and the Hebrew religion, including the various names for God. One of these names is the famous Tetragrammaton (YHWH) which actually exists only of vowels, and is utterly exceptional in many ways, including the fact that it can not be pronounced.
The word (El) was the name of the prominent Canaanite god, whose name was either derived of or became the common word for god in general. The plural of this word is ; gods. With the addition of the letter , creating the word , the Hebrews not only stated essential monotheism (by naming a single God after the plural word "gods") but also marked their God as theirs: Elohim is the singular pantheon of the vowel-people.
Something similar occured when the name of patriarch Abram () was expanded with the heh into Abraham , and the name of matriarch Sarai () was expanded with the heh to Sarah ().
The meaning of the name YHWH is not very clear, and therefor subject to much debate. The key scene in this respect seems to be Ex 3:13-15, where God names Himself first: (I Am Who I Am), then (I Am), and finally (YHWH) and states that this is his name forever and a memorial name to all generations. It has been long supposed that YHWH is derived from the verb that is used to make I Am, namely (haya 491) to be, to become, to happen, or rather from an older form and rare synonym of haya, namely , hawa, hence y-hawa or yahweh, the proper imperfect of the verb, thus rendering the name either Being or He Is. (But note that the Hebrew language is far more dynamic than our modern languages. The verb to be indicates an action that intimately reveals the nature of the one who is doing the acting. For more more on this, see our article to be is to do.)
TWOTOT ( Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Moody Press Chicago) recognizes two separate verbs hawa:
(hawa (484) is the aforementioned older form of (haya 491), to be or become.
(hawa 483) means to fall, with derivatives calamity, wickedness, evil desire, disaster. Perhaps this curious double meaning is in some ways comparable to our word happen, as the words happening and happenstance are often used as euphemisms for typically unfortunate events.
TWOTOT goes even further as it states, "...there is a problem with the pronunciation Yahweh. It is a strange combination of old and late elements.[] In view of these problems it may be best simply to say that YWHW does not come from the verb hawa at all. [W]e may well hold that YHWH [...] is an old word of unknown origin which sounded something like what the verb hawa sounded in Moses' day. However, if the word were spelled with four letters in Moses' day, we would have expected it to have had more than two syllables, for at that period all the letters were sounded."
In other words, the name YHWH looks like a hybrid of times, as if it can not be localized but spans centuries of evolving grammar. Then it also looks very much as if it was derived of a verb that means to be, but which is spelled differently than the regular verb to be, and similarly to a verb that means something very bad. Perhaps all this confusion, or rather, this wide pallet of negotiations is what this Name most essentially conveys: existence in its broadest sense, yet unlike any regular human perspective; a blessing to the wise, but the undoing of the wicked.
On the other hand, perhaps the name YHWH means Tom, Dick or Harry in a language that has slipped out of the collective human consciousness and we are left with the echo's of a revelation that was as sincere and confidential as the word abba: daddy.
If God took so much stock in giving himself all these names and the almost impossiblity of knowing their exact meanings then maybe we should take a closer look at upgrading ours !
Thinking of changing your name now ?Read more…
Posted by 9jabook.com on October 31, 2009 at 9:00am
His ebony skin stood out in sharp contrast to the white crowd pressing to get a better view.
The young African boy bared his teeth at the men and women staring at him through the bars. They were sharpened into dagger-like points, making him appear all the more barbaric to the ignorant hordes.
Above the cage hung a sign proclaiming: 'The Missing Link.' A baby chimp sat disconsolately at the bottom of the enclosure, a single companion to the boy.
Exploited: Pygmy Ota Benga on display with monkeys at Bronx Zoo in 1906
The year was 1906. This was a pygmy, brought to America as a novelty to be put on display in the monkey house.
The New York Times reported: 'There were 40,000 visitors to the park on Sunday. Nearly every man, woman and child of this crowd made for the monkey house to see the star attraction in the park - the wild man from Africa.
'They chased him about the grounds all day, howling, jeering, and yelling. Some of them poked him in the ribs, others tripped him up, all laughed at him.'
Suddenly, the boy turned. Taking the bow and arrow given to him as an ethnic accessory, he shot at the gawpers. His arrow did no harm, but he did scare the life out of the onlookers.
This was Ota Benga, a pygmy, brought from the Congo and put on display in a zoo as an example of what scientists at the time proclaimed to be an evolutionary inferior race.
His story would divide a nation, and is now told for the first time in a new documentary, The Human Zoo.
The programme lifts the lid on a dark period in history, where 'natives' were paraded as exhibits, fuelling the spread of white supremacism and even contributing to the rise of Nazism.
Tragically, Benga became the victim of one of the most awful acts of exploitation ever seen and died a shadow of the proud young tribesman who arrived in America.
So just who was he, and how did this grotesque experiment help shape the 20th century view of race?
A hundred years ago, before television and mass tourism, a handful of enterprising adventurers, anthropologists and businessman decided to bring the far-flung glories of the world to life in one place.
Huge fairs were held in Paris, London and America, exhibiting everything from Italian gondolas to African elephants.
Having promised the world, there was pressure to deliver: people were the next quarry.
In 1904, the showman anthropologist William McGee conceived the idea of a human zoo, to be held in St Louis in the U.S. state of Missouri.
It was designed to be one of the largest scientific experiments ever undertaken and would be spectacular public entertainment.
McGee wanted the tallest people in the world, veritable giants from Patagonia, at the tip of South America. He wanted the Ainu, who lived on an island north of Japan and were supposedly the hairiest humans. He placed an order for 300 Filipinos - there is no record of why he wanted so many.
His grandson, Phillips Verner Bradford, says: 'If you told him that a place was dangerous, he'd say: "I want to go there!" He was that sort of guy.'
Verner took a boat from New York to London, down the European coast and around Africa to the Congo River.
Bradford says: 'He made his way up the Congo River with steamers as far as they would go. Once he arrived at the great waterfalls, he had to hire a crew of natives.'
They encountered crocodiles and hippopotamuses, and deadly whirlpools that could sink a boat.
Eventually, Verner made it into the jungle. He blithely walked into a village of cannibals, and found that they had captured a rival tribe who were being held in cages, ready to be eaten.
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The final proof? Memoirs that may show Hitler DID order the 'final solution' to be published after his right-hand man dies
To his delight, the prisoners were pygmies, or Mbuti - just what he was looking for. He began negotiating. Talking to the pygmies in their native Chiluba, he established that they would rather be taken to America than eaten. He bought six pygmies from their captors for a roll of brass wire and some salt.
One pygmy stood out. He was Ota. Photos of him taken in the Congo show a playful, chubby young man, a broad smile revealing his sharpened teeth, which were filed in his youth.
He looks healthy, spirited and full of life, standing around 4ft 8in tall.
He had never seen a white man before. Verner realised that he had a hugely marketable proposition on his hands, and made the return trip across the Atlantic with his human treasure.
For their part, the pygmies were intrigued by everything they saw and were full of questions: how did the boat work? Was there a cage of hippopotamuses down beneath pedalling it along? Verner showed them how the steam engine functioned.
Docking at New Orleans in June 1904, the Africans caught their first glimpse of America. They were stunned by the tall buildings and wide streets.
The six pygmies were sent to St Louis by rail. There, they became McGee's most important exhibits, the centerpiece of the St Louis World Fair, feted by society and academics alike.
Adverts proclaimed: 'They live in forests, they are extremely shy. They eat the flesh of wild animals killed with poisoned arrows. They are cruel, finding delight in torturing animals.
'They have long heads, long narrow faces and little red eyes, set close together like those of ferrets. Their bodies are exceptionally hairy.
'A pygmy has been known to eat 60 bananas at one meal, in addition to other food, and then ask for more.
'They seem to be controlled by an impulse that makes them delight in wickedness. If caught young, they are said to make excellent servants.'
Scientific racism: Ota Benga's Bronx Zoo captors had an admirer in Hitler
He wanted what he considered the most primitive American Indian tribe, the Cocopah in Mexico. He asked for Eskimos.
But most of all, he wanted the smallest people in the world. He needed pygmies. He had heard that they were very short and very black, and he had to have one.
Explorer Samuel Phillips Verner was dispatched by McGee to the Belgian Congo with a shopping list.
It read: 'One pygmy patriarch or chief. One adult woman, preferably his wife. One adult man, preferably his son. One adult woman, the wife of the last or daughter of the first. One female youth unmarried. Two infants. A priestess and a priest, or medicine doctors, preferably old. All of the above to be pygmies.'
Duly detailed, Verner set off for deepest Africa. He knew that this operation could be the making of him, putting him in the same league as Henry Stanley and Dr David Livingstone.
As the sales pitch shows, the human zoo played into the hands of white supremacists, teaching the public that there was a hierarchy of races, with the white man at the top and all others beneath.
McGee himself, in his book The Trend Of Human Progress, published in 1899, wrote: 'Those who know the races realise that the average white man is stronger of limb, fleeter of foot, clearer of eye, than the average yellow or red or black.'
Bastardising Darwin's theory of evolution, McGee saw each race as a stage in human evolution - with pygmies the least evolved of the species. With his rudimentary Victorian understanding of science, he believed they were the living missing link between apes and humans.
The human zoo was a fantastic success - and widely copied. Dr Sadiah Qureshi, a historian at the University of Cambridge, says: 'Millions of people went to see these shows at their peak. Originally you would get a show in a local theatre. By the late 19th century you would see hundreds, if not a couple of thousand people living on site, eating and on constant display.'
Indeed, some years later, in 1924, King George V and Queen Mary inspected the live exhibits at the British Empire Exhibition, at Wembley. Some Europeans' curiosity knew no bounds, however.
Qureshi says: 'The 1899 exhibition Savage South Africa held at Earl's Court in London caused quite a stir. At one point women were banned from going inside because they had supposedly been touching the natives.' For almost
a year, Ota and the other pygmies lived in America as human exhibits. They were made to build native houses, perform traditional dance ceremonies, live partially naked and cook authentic food.
Ota was described in the press as 'a dwarfy, black specimen of sad-eyed humanity'. With his filed tribal teeth, he was the most celebrated pygmy and dubbed 'Lord of the savage world'. He posed for photographs for 25 cents.
In 1905, after they had been viewed by a total of 20 million people, Verner took the pygmies home to the Congo.
Ota had planned to rejoin his tribe - but discovered that they had been entirely wiped out by Belgian soldiers. He married a girl from the nearby Batwa tribe, and appeared to settle back into life in Africa.
Then his wife was bitten by a poisonous snake and died. The Batwa rejected him, believing he was cursed and responsible for the young woman's death. Ota was cast adrift, a stranger in his own land.
He begged his friend Verner to take him back to America. Verner was reluctant, but eventually acquiesced, taking him to New York.
The pair shared the 3,000-mile sea voyage with crates of live animals, parrots, monkeys, snakes and other exotic booty, which Verner planned to sell in America. On the ship, Ota discovered cigarettes and drink.
Arriving in New York, Verner - who had business to do - bade him farewell, arranging accommodation in a spare room - this time he was not on show - at the American Museum of Natural History. There, he thought Ota would be safe.
Soon, however, he came to the attention of William Hornaday, a conservationist and director of the Bronx Zoo.
Collaborating with one of America's most notorious racists, Madison Grant, he conceived a plan.
Grant wanted to promote 'scientific racism', talking in terms of 'purity of type', and the survival of the white master race.
In 1930, after his work The Passing Of The Great Race was translated into German, Grant received a letter from an aspiring politician, saying 'your book is my bible'.
The man was Adolf Hitler. He would indeed use 'scientific racism' as the foundation for the Third Reich, giving academic grounding to the Holocaust.
Together, Hornaday and Grant offered to take charge of Ota Benga, who initially believed he would be looking after the Bronx Zoo's elephants.
In fact, he was going to be put on public display as a living example of 'racial inferiority'. Immediately, the exhibition prompted criticism. The New York Times reported on September 9, 1906: 'The exhibition was that of a human being in a monkey cage. A human being. In a monkey cage.
'The human being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not rate high in the human scale, but to the average nonscientific person in the crowd of sightseers there was something about the display that was unpleasant.
'It is probably a good thing that Benga doesn't think very deeply. If he did it isn't likely that he was very proud of himself when he woke in the morning and found himself under the same roof with the orang-utans and monkeys, for that is where he really is.'
The exhibition was a sensation. On a single day, 40,000 people arrived to see Ota and his chimp. The show lasted only two weeks, however, due to a public outcry, and human zoos as a phenomenon died out by the Forties.
So what became of Ota Benga? After he was removed from the Bronx Zoo, there was great debate regarding his fate. African-American church ministers insisted he be released - not for his comfort, but because they wanted to convert the pygmy to Christianity.
He was eventually placed in an orphanage for black children, the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, to be 'civilised'. He was dressed in Western clothes and taught how to eat, talk and behave like an American.
He had his pointed teeth capped and attended a Baptist seminary, where he started to study English.
He was kept out of the public eye for four years. Eventually, he moved from New York to the backwater town of Lynchburg, Virginia, where he became a local curiosity and was known as Otto Bingo.
Forevermore haunted by his time in the monkey cage, he would repeatedly slap his chest, declaring: 'I am a man. I am a man.'
He began to save money to return to the Congo, working in a tobacco factory. With the outbreak of World War I, this became impossible and Ota sunk into depression.
He never did make it home. One evening, he went into a barn behind the village general store. He chipped off the caps hiding his teeth, restoring them to their filed-down glory, lit a small ceremonial campfire, and shot himself in the head, dying ten years after being put on display at the Bronx zoo. He was 32 years old.
His story now bears testament to the ignorance of those who believed themselves superior to him.
He was buried in an unmarked grave, but he left his mark on the world, exposing as moral pygmies the lesser men who would cage a human.
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ARSENE WENGER reveals the secrets of Arsenal's beautiful game.In an in-depth interview, the Gunners boss uncovers how he teaches his young side to play what is universally regarded as the best football in the land.For many purists, only European champions Barcelona are as pleasing on the eye as Wenger's Arsenal.Spectacular combinations based on speed of body and mind, together with technical ability and power, have made the North Londoners the nation's favourite second team.This season, more than any other since the Invincibles of 2003-04, Wenger's Gunners seem to be mounting a quietly confident title challenge - lying in the slipstream of leaders Chelsea.With 36 League goals in 11 games they have scored seven more than the Blues and 13 more than Manchester United - even though they have played one game less.Wenger's blueprint is based on intelligence, class, technique, and fitness. But the key ingredient is confidence, which makes individuals comfortable on the ball.His players must always have choices and alternatives, which provide "solutions".The legendary French boss has revolutionised the English game since arriving from Japan 13 years ago, changing dietary and training habits as well as the lifestyle of the top professionals.But it is Arsenal's brand of football that is Wenger's biggest achievement.The 'Arsenal way' is based on off-the-ball movement, with the main objective being to give the man on the ball as many alternatives as possible. Those solutions, as Wenger calls them, mean endless problems for Arsenal's rivals.When he teaches his charges, Wenger uses what he calls "green lights" and "red lights" to show where his players must be when Arsenal are in possession.Of course, like any teacher, he wants his pupils to stay well clear of the "red light" districts on the pitch.Essentially, when an Arsenal player has the ball there must at least two possible passes he can make - the so-called green lights - and so on and so forth.He said: "We work a lot on the potential of combinations between players. We plot it on the pitch and, once a player has the ball, there are red lights or green lights."The collective goal is to create the most possible green lights."That is to say to give passing solutions to the man with the ball and to leave the responsibility with that man to make the best choice possible, allowing the team to keep possession but at the same time - if possible - make the game progress towards the attack."So you must always offer the player solutions that allow him to utilise his intelligence around the game to the maximum."Advertisement
The Arsenal boss, 60, accepts his biggest challenge as boss of a team that plays the 'Wenger way' is to prepare his team mentally.Over the last few years, a lot has been made of the mental fragility of his Gunners side.Critics have argued that, while they may be easy on the eye, they are also easy to disrupt.The way Arsenal collapsed in last season's Champions League semi-final against Manchester United is a case in point.Their confidence was shattered after the Red Devils grabbed a two-goal lead inside 10 minutes in the second leg - and one of the biggest games in Arsenal's history turned into a procession for United.Speaking on French radio, Wenger continued: "For it to work, players must make themselves available and we work on that in training."That's where top-level sport becomes really interesting, in finding a way to have the team in a position of psychological comfort so that they can offer solutions."Because you know that, when doubt creeps in, the green lights become red lights."Because each player takes fewer spontaneous initiatives and, all of a sudden, it's absolutely unbelievable at what speed all those lights become red and the player with the ball finds himself in the s***."Doubt is the key enemy of our game but, eventually, we must at the same time give our team the sense of availability."And, on a psychological level, we must give them a taste for audacity and for developing connections between each other."Wenger insisted that to maintain the quality of Arsenal's game, he simply cannot afford to make too many changes or bring in too many players at once.During the summer, only Thomas Vermaelen was brought in to bolster the Gunners' first-team squad.He concluded: "When you change more than three players from game to game you take a technical risk."The balance of a team doesn't depend on one player but if you change three it's a grave risk, not only in a game but also in signing players."You change three players and bring in three or four new faces who do not know your playing philosophy and it can hit your team like the flu."Sometimes when the players are extremely intelligent they adapt very quickly and it can also click very quickly. But it's rare."
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by Paul Adams 9jabook's 4.1.9 Buster
Coming Soon Expose of Top 20 YahooYahoo "ChairMen" of Naija origin in the diaspora with names and "Pictures" !
Adeniyi Adeyemi, 27, of Brooklyn, New York, was charged last week in a 149-count indictment for allegedly using his position as a computer technician to steal the identities of over 150 employees of the Bank of New York Mellon and to subsequently defraud charities, non-profits, and other organizations for more than $1.1 million over an eight year period.
The crimes with which Adeyemi is charged -- grand larceny, identity theft, money laundering, scheme to defraud, computer tampering, and unlawful possession of personal identification information -- allegedly took place between November 1, 2001 and April 30, 2009.
According to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Adeyemi worked as a computer technician at the Bank of New York on 1 Wall Street and at other bank locations around Manhattan. While in the bank's employ, he is alleged to have stolen the personal information of dozens of bank employees, mostly from the bank's information technology department.
A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office was not immediately available to confirm how long Adeyemi worked for the bank.
Over the eight year period, Adeyemi is alleged to have used the identities of other bank employees to open brokerage accounts at various institutions, including E*Trade, Fidelity, Citi, Wachovia, and Washington Mutual, and to have used those accounts to store and transfer money stolen from charities and non-profits.
Adeyemi's ability to access the bank accounts of charities and non-profits was made easier than it might otherwise have been because such organizations often make their bank account information available online to facilitate donations, the District Attorney's Office said.
The list of affected organizations includes: Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey, Iris Ministries, the Kalgidhar Trust, the Sudanese American Community Development Organization, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, AFK Foundation, the American Community School at Beirut, the Jacksonville Humane Society, American Friends of Birdlife International, the International Association of Women Judges, the Space Generation Advisory Council, and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.
Adeyemi allegedly stole $128,000 from the IT employees whose identities he'd stolen. The District Attorney's Office claims that Adeyemi changed his former colleagues' online bank account contact information, hijacked their accounts and wired money out -- in increments below $10,000 to avoid triggering mandatory reporting to the US Treasury -- to the dummy accounts he had established at various brokerages. He allegedly bought about $100,000 in US Postal Service money orders, which he used to pay living expenses and to send money overseas, primarily to Nig.eri.a.
Adeyemi was placed under Secret Service surveillance "when suspicious Internet activity traced back to wireless Internet connections in Adeyemi's apartment building, and mail connected to the fraud was delivered to the various apartments within the building," the District Attorney's Office said.
An April 30, 2009 search of Adeyemi's apartment turned up credit reports belonging to dozens of Bank of New York employees on his computer, along with other documents containing personal information on over 150 bank employees, and $30,000 in cash. A storage locker rented by Adeyemi was found to contain similar documents and credit cards bearing the names of bank employees.
Adeyemi was arrested when the warrant was served and has remained in custody.
In an e-mail, Kurt Johnson, VP of corporate strategy for security vendor Courion, said that if the bank had had the proper automated access management technology in place, Adeyemi probably would not have been able to abuse his position as easily.
"Companies need to wake up to internal threats facing them today and stop handing the keys to the kingdom to people who have no business holding them," Johnson said.
More news from our investigations
The penchant for quick money by most young Nigerians in the diaspora has now taken another dimension, as most of them now use their wealth of academic wherewithal to wreck havoc on the lives of their unsuspecting victims by defrauding
them without recourse to conscience whether they are right in such atrocious act. It is appalling to see that as anti graft agents in Nigeria (EFCC and ICPC) are working to quell corrupt practices and economic crimes right here in Nigeria, some Nigerians in the diaspora are still neck-deep in corruption and mudslinging the image of the Nigeria for self aggrandizement.Adeniyi Adeyemi, 27, of Brooklyn has been summarily made to face 149 counts, including grand larceny and identity theft. A 27-year-old Brooklyn man used his job as a computer technician to appropriate the identities of more than 150 employees at the Bank of New York Mellon and steal more than $1.1 million from a wide array of nonprofit groups and other institutions, officials announced this made this known recently. The technician, Adeniyi (of Yoruba origin), a of Crown Heights, was charged with grand larceny, identity theft, money laundering, scheme to defraud, computer tampering and unlawful possession of personal identification information in a indictment.
9jabook.com checks revealed that the fraud started in November 2001 and lasted through April of this 2009, according to the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, which is prosecuting the case. Using his position as a contract employee in the information technology department at Bank of New York Mellon, Mr. Adeyemi stole personal identifying information from dozens of employees, using the information to more than 30 bank and brokerage accounts in their names at E*Trade, Fidelity, Citi, Wachovia and Washington Mutual, Mr. Morgenthau said.
Mr. Adeyemi then diverted money from the bank accounts of charities, transferred the funds to the dummy accounts, and later withdrew the money or funneled it into a second layer of “dummy accounts,” Mr. Morgenthau said. Among the charities Mr. Adeyemi is said to have stolen from are Goodwill Industries, Iris Ministries, the Kalgidhar Trust, the Sudanese American Community Development Organization, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, the American Community School at Beirut, the Jacksonville Humane Society, American Friends of Birdlife International, the International Association of Women Judges, the Space Generation Advisory Council, and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.
Mr. Adeyemi is also alleged to have bought more than $100,000 in money orders from the Postal Service using funds stolen from the employees whose information he took. The New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force of the United States Secret Service began surveillance on Mr. Adeyemi after tracing suspicious Internet activity to his apartment. During a court-authorized search in April, investigators found dozens of bank employees’ credit reports on his computer, along with many other identifying documents for more than 150 employees, Mr. Morgenthau’s office said.
Mr. Adeyemi was arrested and has been held in custody since then. He was to be arraigned in State Supreme Court before Justice Carol Berkman. Kevin Heine, a spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, said in a statement, “We strongly support the investigation and actions taken by the district attorney’s office, and are fully cooperating.”
It was however gathered that Adeyemi was only caught when he got greedy and decided to steal from his ID-theft victims directly and investigators realized so many of them worked at Bank of New York, said Chief Assistant DA Mark Dwyer. Investigators are hinting that Adeyemi worked as part of a ring, and may have used some of his stolen fortune to buy his way into a sham marriage that enabled him to stay in the US. A bank spokesman Kevin Heine declined to comment on the case, except to say, "We strongly support the investigation and the actions taken by the DA's office and are fully cooperating."
by Paul Adams 9jabook's 4.1.9 Buster
Coming Soon Expose of Top 20 YahooYahoo "ChairMen" of Naija origin in the diaspora with names and "Pictures" ! email any comments or if you know any Chairman or Yahoo Yahoo boy in your area to pauladams@systemini.net
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Posted by 9jabook.com on November 13, 2009 at 2:30am
Two years ago, Patrick Geryl, then 51, quit his job as a laboratory worker for a French oil company. He'd saved up just enough money to last him until December 2012. After that, he thought, he wouldn't need it anyway.
Unprecedented catastrophe will precede the end of the world in 2012, believers say, such as massive earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, among other calamities.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)
Instead, Geryl, a soft-spoken man who had studied chemistry in his younger years, started preparing for the apocalypse. He founded a "survival group" for likeminded men and women, aimed at living through the catastrophe he knew was coming.
He started gathering materials necessary to survive — water purifiers, wheelbarrows (with spare tires), dust masks and vegetable seeds. His list of survival goods runs 11 pages long.
"You have to understand, there will be nothing, nothing left," Geryl told ABC News from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. "We will have to start an entire civilization from scratch."
That's because Geryl believes the world as we know it will end in 2012. He points to the ancient Maya cyclical calendars, the longest of which last renewed itself approximately 5,125 years ago and is set to end again, supposedly with catastrophic consequences, in 2012. He speaks of the ancient Egyptians, who, he claims, saw 2012 as a year of great change too. And he points to science: NASA predicts a sharp increase in the number of sunspots and sun flares for 2012, he said, sure to cause electrical failures and satellite disruptions.
All this adds up, Geryl said, to unprecedented catastrophe. First, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them.
These may sound like the ravings of a madman, or perhaps the head of a small apocalyptic sect. But Geryl is not the only one who believes in the apocalypse. Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe, Canada and the United States. A simple Google search for "2012" and "the end of the world" brings up nearly 300,000 hits. And the video-sharing Web site YouTube hosts more than 65,000 clips informing and warning viewers about their fate in 2012.
"It's bigger than Y2K," said Mark van Stone, a specialist of Maya hieroglyphic writings and author of a forthcoming book on 2012. "The year is like a pop song or a popular movie. You type in 2012, and you get hundreds of thousands of hits."
Dennis McClung, 28, a project manager for Home Depot from Phoenix, Ariz., runs one of the Web sites dedicated to 2012, an online survival supply store, which sells gas masks, knife kits, bullet-proof vests and more.
"I'm not a firm believer in one specific prophecy," said McClung, who runs his site with his wife, Danielle. "But I think we ought to be prepared for anything."
Even with December 2012 still 4½ years away, McClung said business is booming. His Web site, which features an "official 2012 countdown" clock and exhorts customers to "be smart, be ready," averages several thousand visitors a week. McClung's best-sellers, he said, are emergency medical supplies and water purifiers.
"I get a lot of hits from India. I get a lot of hits from the Netherlands," McClung said. "But my No. 1 customer is the U.S."
One of those customers is Thomas Lehmann, a 25-year-old factory worker from Cape Girardeau, Mo. Lehmann said he started researching 2012 when he was 12 years old, and still spends about two hours a day reading about the topic both online and in books. He said he is saving money for survival gear.
"Whatever happens, I'm just trying to be prepared for it," Lehmann said. "I'm just learning to be independent of the system. I mean electricity, vehicles, alternate sources of energy. I'm learning to live without gas, basically be self-reliant."
"If this stuff does happen," Lehmann said, adding, "I have a way to eat. I can hunt, I can fish and I can purify water. I think it's people in the big cities that need to be worried. People that can't provide for themselves."
But for all the hype, there is little evidence the ancient Maya ever intended for the end of their calendar to be read as a portent for disaster.
"These prophecies of doom really don't have any basis in what we know about the Maya," said Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology at Brown University and a specialist of Maya hieroglyphic writing. "The Maya descriptions barely talk about this event."
Instead, Houston said, the Maya saw their "long count" — the longest of their cyclical calendars — coming to an end in 2012 but also beginning anew on that date, without disastrous consequences.Read more…
It is over a month into the new school session, but it is still a sitting affair for some pupils at Aunty Ayo Girls Comprehensive Junior Secondary School in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday when NEXT visited.
With a policy that requires school pupils to bring chairs and lockers for class use to school, the situation in Aunty Ayo is true of many public schools in the state. A majority of the pupils have to make do on the floor pending a time when their parents will buy the required furniture.
Aminat Yunus, a junior secondary school one (JSS1) pupil said she had passionately looked forward to secondary education, and the facilities that would come with it. According to her, receiving lectures on the floor never featured in those expectations.
She said: "It's not convenient to write on the floor at all, but that is where those of us without chairs and lockers write. I am still waiting for my own; my parents have not made them for me yet."
Adunola, another pupil of JSS1 is also eager to have her ‘own furniture', even though she, along with her friends have devised a method of writing, which she considered effective under the circumstance; they have been writing on their school-bags, placed firmly on their legs.
Ms Adunola said: "That is what we do, and it's easier that way. Another one is if you have a friend that has bought her furniture; she may invite you to join her."
Earlier in the day, a Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meeting was held to address the issue among others. According to the PTA Chairperson, Mr. Adeleye, who spoke to NEXT on the phone after the meeting, the issue featured prominently in their meeting.
He said that the Association has sent letters to the State Government in the past over the issue, without getting the desired response; except for a specification of what type of furniture to provide, and with what material.
He also added that the situation was also affected by the relocation of a satellite campus of the Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) which used to hold its lectures within the premises of the secondary school. Some of the pupils benefitted from the furniture provided by LASPOTECH before it moved.
"Now, we have been told that the chairs we make for the students should be made of mahogany wood, and that it should be double, and that means it should long enough to take two students. So the names of the students (pair) will be written on the seats," said Mr. Adeleye.
He added: "We (Parents) can't continue to wait for the government and leave our children to sit on the floor; that's why the parents have to make the chairs for their children. If any parent does not do that, there is nothing else we can do; his child will be left to sit on the floor."
Earlier this year, at a press briefing marking the second anniversary of this administration, Sarah Sosan, the deputy governor had said," I don't think the standard of education is low. We need to improve on factors and we've been doing that through the rehabilitation of science laboratories, provision of libraries, putting of furniture in place, and so on. We are also aggressively putting structures in place to reduce congestion in our schools.
I am proud to say that our public schools in Lagos are wonderful. Who says that the public schools are not good enough?"
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Madam Jane didn’t know what she was getting herself into when she allowed her ex-boyfriend spend the night in her home without the consent of her husband. When her husband got to know about it the next day, he was furious. But because he loves his wife dearly, he didn’t know how to handle the situation.advertisement The question Bridget AMARAEGBU sought answers from some of celebrities is, ‘was it right for his wife to have allowed her ex spend the night in their home?Enjoy it.No way, not in my own house — Lurrenz, MusicianNo, way he can’t spend the night in my house. My dear, a lot of things can happen in one minute. What I’m saying is that no matter how much we love each other, it is not advisable to give the devil any opportunity to ruin our home. Though, it’s very possible that this ex- lover just got stranded and was looking for refuge, I don’t think my house is the best place for such to happen. At worse, I can afford to pay his hotel bill for just that night, considering the danger that can befall him if he’s left in the dark. But he won’t sleep in my house for any reason.Again, I ask myself questions such as why should he be stranded around my house? Can’t he find his male friends to assist him? What about his relatives? Of all his friends, why did he remember my wife for such assistance? The fact that I’ll pay for his accommodation will be based on the love I have for my wife and I won’t even pay for more than one night, after which he should be able to find his way, unless he has an ulterior motive.Even if he hasn’t got a hidden agenda, I’ll not be comfortable if after one night he still can’t find his bearing. And you should not blame me for taking any other action. I want you to understand that most men will not even hear of it.Things that like this can lead to divorce in many African homes. We are not in the western world where nearly everything is obtainable. Some of them may not really bother if their spouse is having another affair or not. But the mind of the average black man is full of jealousy with issues such as this.And if you ask me what I’ll do if the ex-lover in question was my girlfriend, I’ll like to put it straight here that my ex-girlfriend cannot come around my matrimonial home. If she’s stranded around my house, I’ll seek the consent of my wife and together, we’ll put her in a hotel so that peace can reign.There’s no reason why anybody should allow trouble to smell around his home for no serious reasons when there are other options.I know so many men who can’t stand their women having a chat with another man. In fact, there’s a particular neighbour of mine who doesn’t allow his wife to chat with his friends and he has a good reason for doing that. No matter how much those friends of his try to persuade him, he’ll tell you that his wife is too young to handle such chat, and I don’t blame him. Since he already knows that his wife is too young, it’s better for him to shield her from danger. I’m not saying that any of those friends would begin to toast her but he has to be cautious to avoid temptations.Sometimes, when you hear that one partner is being unfaithful, it may not be intentional but as a result of the situation he or she found himself, don’t forget that the spirit may be willing but the flesh will be weak. That is why it’s better to avoid any short cut the devil can use to destroy your marriage. We’ve heard stories where unfaithful partners were bewitched, and so on. We read them on the papers and watch related issues in the movies.So, what are we talking about?Let’s all pray that we have a happy and peaceful home because it’s only God that can sustain our homes but then we should also make our own effort.Why not, I trust her — GT Guitarman, MusicianMy answer is yes. Do you know why? Because she is my wife and confidant. I don’t see any reason why I cannot trust her. Trust is the word that should hold any relationship and I believe that once that trust is not there, then a relationship as sacred as marriage should not hold in the first place. I won’t marry a woman who doesn’t love me because it’s only when a relationship is not built on love that the people involve find it difficult to trust themselves. I’ll like to give my spouse that opportunity to prove her love for me.I won’t allow a visit — Henry Ojo, Creative artistHonestly, I don’t know where you get all these inspirations from but if you insist that it’s a true life story, then I’ll tell you my mind. The truth remains that I’ll not allow my wife’s ex to even visit my house, not to talk of spending the night in my house. No forget say na from clap dem de follow enter dance…o. From spending one night, he may have to visit again and before you know it, so many things might begin to happen.Another thing is that any woman who can bring her ex- boyfriend to her husband’s house is mad. As far as I’m concerned, she can lodge him in the hotel and do whatever she likes with him there but not in my house.It’s an assault to marriage — Amaka Johnson, ModelMy dear, such a thing is not advisable because no matter how much love we profess for each other, I’ll never be comfortable with myself as long as this ex-lover of his is in the house. Anything can happen when a man and woman who are not related are left alone in the same house.While I was growing up my grandmother always reminded us that you don’t keep yam and goat together and come back to find them the way you left them, no way, and I believe her.Apart from the fact that he can also do whatever he likes with her elsewhere if he doesn’t want me to know, I’m still better off if he does it outside my knowledge. Sleeping with her in our home will mean an assault on my marriage.No, old firewood no dey quench — Ebeye Amanda, ActressNo, I’ll not allow that to happen. Is it that she can’t find any other place to spend the night? I’ll only be a fool to think that nothing will happen between them that night because anything can happen. Do you still remember that saying, old firewood no dey quench? I don’t even expect her to still have my husband’s contact in the first place because they should have been separated long before now. So what is she still looking for in his home if not trouble?It’s not my business if he goes looking for her elsewhere but it won’t happen under my roof, never.Many things can happen in one night — Fragrance, MusicianAh! No way, eeh too many things can happen in one night. I can’t trust any man to the extent of allowing his ex-girlfriend to come spend the night in my matrimonial home. At worse I can rent a room for her in a hotel but she won’t sleep under the same roof with me and my husband. That one is not safe at all and that’s my personal view on this issue, any other persons opinion is welcome.
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Posted by Jane Okinedo on October 24, 2009 at 1:30am
ABOUT 58 Nigerians were yesterday morning deported from Dublin, Republic of Ireland.ADVERTISEMENTThe deportees arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos aboard an Air Italy chartered flight with registration number 1924.Italian law enforcement agents accompanied the deportees on board the aircraft, which landed at the airport at 05.25 hours.Immigration sources said of the 58 deportees, 28 were males while 12 were women. The rest were children.The deportees allegedly committed immigration offences in the foreign country.Most of them were let go by Nigerian law enforcement agents, who received them at the airport, as they were not found guilty of any offence.Over 3,000 Nigerians have been deported from various countries in the last three months.Yesterday's deportation came a few days after 734 Nigerians were returned from Libya by the Muammar Gaddafi-led government.On September 27, 2009, Libya deported 150 Nigerians all males aboard aircraft with registration number SUBME.
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The explosion of Information Technology in Nigeria has meant that more people have access to internet connection and other innovative IT solutions, but this has brought its own ills.Two years ago, the Internet Crime Report ranked the country tops among the African countries from which fraudulent credit card transactions and other forms of cyber-crime originate. The local parlance for the perpetrators of these cyber cons is “Yahoo boys”.All that is needed for start-up is between N300 and N500 for an all-night internet access at a cybercafé or even a dial-up connection, a second rate laptop from the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos and a handful of software. As the con man toils all-night, setting traps for gullible citizens while they are asleep; he goes to sleep in the day, expecting to wake up to a harvest in form of money, in local and foreign currencies, saleable items like computers, or the PIN of somebody’s ATM card.Bolade Akeem, a resident of Ibadan, recently fell victim of these fraudsters. “I lost my one month salary to ATM fraud,” he said while narrating his predicament to NEXT.“I do hear about Yahoo boys, but I don’t know how they operate. The way they operate is secretive because victims do not talk about it, probably because doing so reveals their palpable vulnerability,” he said.“I responded to an email, purportedly from Interswitch, which said I needed to update my ATM card details. I didn’t know such email is rampant until I spoke out and other people started relating their own experiences,” he said.“Should every victim narrate his/her experience exactly the way it happened, many more people will not be entering it and the ‘yahoo business’ will be heading moribund by now,” said Mr. Akeem.Indeed, more young people are taking to the practice, either on a part-time or a full-time basis, as revealed by the manager of a Lagos Island-based cybercafé who spoke to NEXT on the condition of anonymity.Evil partnership“It’s difficult to run a profitable internet cafe in Lagos without the patronage of these boys,” he said, adding that “many Yahoo boys are unemployed. Some of them quit after getting regular source of income. At least I know about four that have quit.”From a list that included secondary school leavers, undergraduates, and unemployed university graduates, he deduced that more than poverty, idleness and lust for “quick money” are the reasons given by some of the boys he had spoken to.According to Mr. Akeem, the fertile avenue for the business of internet scam remains the public cybercafés.“The latest strategy, I learnt, is that they (scammers) liaise with some cybercafé owners and plug a particular device into computer systems. The device records any entry made on popular e-commerce and email websites, including credit card number and PINs,” said Mr. Akeem.Solution“We are being forced to embrace the ‘e-trends’ – e-payment, e-banking, e-this and e-that without a plan for e-security. These scammers can easily link up with their pals overseas for advanced scamming technology. This ‘Yahoo business’ is dynamic and has gone international,” said the cybercafé manager.However, Mr. Akeem suggested that the best protective measure is to be wary of unsolicited emails and use trusted internet network on a trusted computer equipped with latest protective software. “And the only computer you can trust is your own,” he added.Jide Awe, an IT expert and founder of Jidaw.com in a website post on cybercrime, listed some of the internet fraud schemes as those perpetrated through e-mail, chat rooms, message boards, or websites.According to the him, fraudsters are taking advantage of the speed and easy accessibility of the internet, cheaper to use fraudulent, deceptive “spamming” e-mails to dupe unsuspecting victims and the anonymity that the internet sometimes offers.Mr. Awe urged security agencies to be equipped with the skills, know-how and the insight necessary to fight cybercrime effectively.
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