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It was God luck that initially saved those 33 miners when the mountain collapsed, but it was not luck that kept them alive

Mining created Chile. The story of men who go down into the mountain and chip away at minerals in the darkness and then suffer an accident that leaves them at the mercy of that darkness is part of the DNA of Chile, an integral part of the country's history. It was one of the first things I learned about Chile when I arrived there in 1954 at the age of 12.

"Open your books to the story El Chiflón del Diablo," our Spanish teacher said on the first day of class. "The Devil's Tunnel by Baldomero Lillo. Written in 1904."

It was a story very much like the one that, many decades later on 6 August 2010, would afflict the miners of San José. It is all there – how the earth devours those who dare to probe its depths, in that classic story and all the others that Lillo wrote at the beginning of the 20th century and that every child in Chile studies. Those 33 miners could not know when they read those stories in school that they would someday be living that terror. They could not know that more than 100 years after that fiction was written that the conditions of mining life, the risks to the miners and the inhumane exploitation would be basically unaltered.

People around the world have been amazed at how the 33 miners have organised themselves in shifts, generated a hierarchy of command and crafted a plan for survival drawing from all the skills they have accumulated through their working lives. I am not in the least surprised. This has always been how Chilean workers have endured and persisted in the face of tremendous challenges. It is the legacy of those who extracted nitrate and who, at about the time that Lillo was writing about the torments of miners, were establishing the first trade unions, reading groups and newspapers of the Chilean working class. Those lessons of unity, fortitude and orderliness were handed down from father to son to grandson. It was what each male needed to know in order to outlive the disasters that could befall him in a merciless environment.

Of course, it was luck that initially saved those 33 miners when the mountain collapsed. But it was not luck that kept them alive. Inside them was the training and stamina inherited from forefathers, murmurs from those who were not willing to die over and over again in the darkness. There was a miracle at work, therefore, in San José, but to focus exclusively on good fortune is to perhaps miss the true and deeper significance of what happened. It begs the real question..

How is it possible that, more than a century after Lillo's stories denounced the inhuman conditions of men toiling underground, that insecurity and danger persist? How many more accidents like this one will be needed before legislation to mandate safeguards is enacted and workers can descend into the mountain without putting their lives needlessly at risk?

These 33 miners are now international heroes, with the world celebrating their rescue and their progress towards the light.

By one of those coincidences that history loves, these men were buried at the moment when the latest statistics show that the percentage of Chileans living in poverty has, for the first time since the end of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, gone drastically up rather than down.

Is it too much to hope that the ordeal these men have gone through will trouble the conscience of Chile and create a country where, 100 years from now, the stories of Baldomero Lillo and the story of the 33 miners from San José, will be a thing of the past? Now that would be a real miracle.

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- Rapper T.I. helped police persuade a man not to jump off the roof of high-rise hotel roof in Midtown Atlantaon Wednesday afternoon, police said..

T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, talked to the man about how a person "can make itthrough anything," Atlanta Police spokesman James Polite said.

"T.I. just happened to be in the right place at the right time," Polite said.

Harris faces his own life crisis this week when he appears before a federaljudge, who is considering revoking his probation on a weaponsconviction.

Police were trying to talk the man, who appeared to be about 25 years old, from jumping from the 22-story Colony SquareHotel when Harris "appeared out of nowhere," Polite said..

Harris offered to help convince the man that "life's not that bad," a proposal that police accepted, he said.

The man, who was not identified by police, agreed to leave the roof to meet with the rapper.

After several minutes of conversation, he was taken into custody andtransported to Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital for a psychologicalevaluation, he said. He was not charged with a crime, he said.

Harris and his wife, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, were arrested on drug chargesduring a traffic stop on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California,last month. The charges triggered Friday's probation revocation hearingin Atlanta.

In 2008, Harris was sentenced on charges of unlawfully possessing firearms as a convicted felon. The charges cameafter an arrest by federal agents a year earlier while Harris was buyingthree machine guns in the parking lot of an Atlanta grocery store.

Harris was released after serving nine months in prison and three months in a halfway house.

A true leader as foreman chooses to come out last

Cheers rang out around the San Jose copper mine as shift foreman Luis Urzua, 54, became the last man to be hoisted to the surface after an incredible rescue mission lasting 21 hours and 44 minutes.

His exit marked the end to an almost 70-day plight which has gripped the world.

To the delight of their loved ones, the men were one-by-one carried 2,200ft to the surface in a metal pod nicknamed "Phoenix".

Mission Accomplished Chile - a banner held by rescuers after the operation

The first to emerge was shy 31-year-old Florencio Avalos in the early hours of Wednesday..

As the day unfolded, the speed of each rescue increased, reducing the time it took to bring each man to the top to just 10 minutes – quicker than ever expected.

At 1.55am (BST), Mr Urzua arrived at the surface to a scene of "exhilaration, excitement and exhaustion", Sky News correspondent Emma Hurd said.

He embraced Chilean president Sebastian Pinera as he reached the surface and told him: "We have done what the entire world was waiting for.

"The 70 days that we fought so hard were not in vain. We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing."

The president replied: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration. Go hug your wife and your daughter."

The rescued miners are Florencio Avalos, 31, Mario Sepulveda, 39, Juan Illanes, 52, Carlos Mamani, 24, Jimmy Sanchez, 19, Osman Araya, 30, Jose Ojeda, 45, Claudio Yanez, 34, Mario Gomez, 63, Alex Vega, 31, Jorge Galleguillos, 56, Edison Pena, 34, Carlos Barrios, 27, Victor Zamora, 33, Victor Segovia, 48, Daniel Herrera, 27, Omar Reygadas, 56, Esteban Rojas, 44, Pablo Rojas, 45, Dario Segovia, 48, Johnny Barrios, 50, Samuel Avalos, 43, Carlos Bugueno, 27, Jose Henriquez, 54, Renan Avalos, 29, Claudio Acuna, 56, Franklin Lobos, 53, Richard Villarroel, 27, Juan Aguilar, 49, Raul Bustos, 40, Pedro Cortez, 24, Ariel Ticona, 29, and Luis Urzua, 54.

Although cramped and with a door that stuck occasionally, the Phoenix worked exactly as planned.

Daniel Herrera hugs his waiting mother after making it to the surface

The operation started soon after the first rescuer, Manuel Gonzalez, successfully reached the mine's chamber at 3.40am (BST) on Wednesday.

Rescuers had estimated it would take around 48 hours to get all the miners to the surface but as the mission progressed it gathered pace...

As the miners emerged, several thrust their fists upwards, andMario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and led his rescuers in a rousing cheer.

Franklin Lobos, who played for the Chilean national football team in the 1980s, briefly bounced a football on his foot and knee..

As part of its restructuring strategy for enhanced growth and market competitiveness, Ecobank Nigeria recently announced the disengagement of about 400 members of staff.

This is part of the Ecobank Group strategy designed to consolidate and optimise its operations.

Announcing the shake-up, Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Jibril Aku, said the action was predicated on the bank’s strategy to drive performance and deliver optimum value to all of its stakeholders with a highly efficient structure.

He assured customers of unhindered service delivery and pledged that Ecobank will live up to its vision to build a world-class pan-African bank that will contribute to the economic development and financial integration in Africa.

closest associate from the north, Hassan Tukur, who appears to have gained his absolute confidence, may be covertly working against his ambition to become President. Our checks reveals that Hassan Tukur, who has been a friend to the President for a very long time and currently works as his principal secretary, may be a “Frenemy” (one who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy).

Mr. Tukur is a diplomat and technocrat par excellence. His friendship with President Jonathan dates back to pre-Aso Villa days. He was President Yar’Adua’s special assistant on Petroleum Resources. Tukur is assumed to be the president’s closest associate from the North and is alleged to have single-handedly picked most of the regime’s political appointees that were employed from the north by Goodluck Jonathan. According to sources who have had contact with him, Tukur does not hesitate to inform you that “he can get the President to do anything”, and really in most cases he delivers; a source added.

However, Hassan Tukur, Huhuonline.com learnt is torn between his loyalty to his boss and his kinsmen from the north, who are vehemently opposed to the President`s 2011 presidential ambition. To this end, Tukur is alleged to have asked the President not to contest the 2011 election. But his advice has not been heeded.

It should be recalled that in his inaugural speech, President Jonathan promised that “the war against corruption will be prosecuted more robustly,” and his aides, particularly Hassan Tukur, pencilled in the name of his bosom friend, Nuhu Ribadu, the country’s former anticorruption czar, to lead the war. Mr Ribadu was considered robust and effective in his position until he was forced out by Yar’Adua’s government.

Mr. Tukur was very instrumental in the return of Nuhu Ribadu, whom he had convinced the president to appoint as his special adviser on anti-corruption and other related matters, but as soon Nuhu returned to Nigeria, the goal posts began to move. Hassan Tukur began to lobby the President to appoint Nuhu Ribadu as vice president, which in itself was not a bad idea as Nuhu Ribadu was viewed as a man of impeccable character, capable bringing credibility to any government. But this was not to be.

However, Nuhu Ribadu and Hassan Tukur, Huhuonline.com gathered were looking beyond the vice presidential position, their eyes were set on the plum job of president. Had President Jonathan given in to the plot, the duo would have covertly disclosed his flaws by releasing embarrassing details of the President to the media, which could portray him as inexperienced and incompetent for the office of President..

Consequently, they would have blackmailed him into resigning and returning to Bayelsa. Nuhu Ribadu is very familiar with this type of operation. Recall that Nuhu Ribadu blackmailed Obasanjo into dropping Peter Odili as running mate to Umaru Yar`adua in 2007.

Having failed in their plot, Nuhu Ribadu abandoned the PDP, and joined AC, where he is a presidential aspirant; While Hassan Tukur stayed put on his job as principal secretary to the president, and is currently amassing stupendous wealth for himself under the guise of raising funds for the Goodluck Jonathan 2011 Presidential campaign. However, it remains to be seen if Hassan Tukur’s loyalty lies with the President or the Northern Oligarchy.

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In the fourth of a series of articles looking at policing in Nigeria, the BBC's Andrew Walker asks what happened to the "Apo Six", the most infamous case of extra-judicial killing in Nigeria's history:

The pictures are truly gruesome - we cannot publish them.

Lawyer Amobi Nzelu spreads the glossy prints out on his desk, covering it with horror.

There is nowhere else to look except at the bodies.

There is a close-up of a face, gaping exit-wound at the temple.

Limbs and torsos covered in blood.

Dead eyes stare upward.

"This is a human being," he says.

"Look what they did."

Apology

The bodies belong to six young Nigerians killed by the police.

Ekene Isaac Mgbe, Ifeanyin Ozor, Chinedu Meniru, Paulinus Ogbonna and Anthony and Augustina Arebu were killed on 7 and 8 June, 2005.

My friend was going to the bush, to go to the toilet, when he saw the police digging a hole and preparing to bury some people Elvis Ozor Younger brother of Ifeanyin

The police tried to say they were armed robbers who had opened fire first.

But a judicial panel of inquiry set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo rejected the police's story and the government apologised on behalf of the police for their killings.

The government paid $20,300 (£13,800) compensation to each of the families.

It recommended the officers be arrested and face a criminal trial.

But nearly four years since the night the Apo Six were killed, the trial has got nowhere.

The public has almost forgotten the case is still going on.

Danjuma Ibrahim, the senior police officer accused of ordering the killings, lives free on medical bail.

And the families of the dead have all but given up on justice.

Tight-knit

Elvis Ozor is the younger brother of Ifeanyin Ozor.

Like his brother, he works as a spare car parts merchant in the Apo mechanics' village, south of the capital, Abuja.

It is a kind of shanty-town of sea crates and workshops where five of the Apo Six worked.

This is a tight-knit community, mostly of ethnic Igbos from Nigeria's south-east.

On 8 June 2005 the Apo mechanics found the police burying their friends in a cemetery that, by chance, was near their workshops.

"My friend was going to the bush, to go to the toilet, when he saw the police digging a hole and preparing to bury some people," Elvis says.

"They recognised my brother. When the police said they were armed robbers, no-one believed them - they knew my brother was not like that."

"When I arrived at work, word had spread, but I didn't know. I arrived and everyone was looking at me," he says.

The story was out, and an angry mob gathered.

There was a riot in Apo and the police shot two more people dead.

Unlike any other case of suspected extra-judicial killing in Nigeria, some of the police broke ranks and turned on the senior officer involved.

The other five officers accused of the murders and eight more police witnesses have testified that Danjuma Ibrahim ordered the killings.

During the judicial panel hearings, some Igbo police officers fed information to Mr Nzelu, who represented the families of the Apo Six.

The panel heard that the six were at a nightclub in Abuja's Area 11 when Mr Ibrahim - then off duty - propositioned Augustina.

She turned him down, according to the testimony of Ifeanyin Ozor's friends.

Ransom demand

Mr Ibrahim went to a police checkpoint at the end of the street and told officers there were a group of armed robbers in the area.

When the six young people came in their car, he drove into them, blocking their way and ordered the police officers to shoot.

Danjuma Ibrahim was a high ranking police officer in the Nigerian Police

Ifeanyin called his friends after he survived the first burst of gunfire, they testified.

Who actually fired the shots is still disputed by Danjuma Ibrahim's lawyers, but four of the six were killed there, the prosecution says.

Ifeanyin and Augustina were taken to a police station.

Officers called Augustina's family to demand a 5,000 naira (then $43, £22) ransom to let her go, according to a report by the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial execution.

Her family could not raise the money.

They were taken to a piece of rough ground outside town where they were executed, police officers testified at the criminal trial.

Augustina was strangled.

Then the police planted guns on the bodies of all six of the bodies and pictures were taken of them in the grounds of a police station by a police photographer.

Danjuma's defence

At the criminal trial, Mr Ibrahim's lawyers maintained that the Apo Six fired first.

He says all of them were killed in the gun battle, and a "home made" pistol and a shotgun were found in the car.

Extra-judicial killing in the police remains a shockingly common occurrence Eric Guttschuss Human Rights Watch

His lawyer Hyeladzira Nganjiwa says the prosecution dropped charges against some police officers in return for them changing their testimony.

Mr Ibrahim is the fall guy in a government plot to sweep the incident under the carpet, he said.

"I could never have done what they are accusing me of," Mr Ibrahim told the BBC outside the Abuja court where he is being tried.

He was released on medical bail in 2006, after his lawyer said he had a heart condition.

The five other accused - one of whom is now dying of Aids, according to his lawyer - remain in police custody.

That trial has been going on for almost three years.

After hearing the testimony of eight prosecution witnesses, the defence is now cross-examining the first.

Lawyers say the case is being stalled so it will eventually be forgotten, and the charges dismissed.

'Stalling'

In this case people accepted the victims were not armed robbers because they came from a close community.

But in other less high-profile cases, the public turns a blind eye to police killing, human rights advocates say.

The reluctance to punish police officers "emboldens" other officers to kill, says Eric Guttschuss of Human Rights Watch.

But the police say a great deal has changed since Apo Six case.

"The police have a higher respect for human rights than before," says spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu.

"I am not aware of any recent cases of extra-judicial killing."

Divine justice?

Mr Guttschuss of Human Rights Watch, which tracks alleged cases, disagrees.

"Extra-judicial killing in the police remains a shockingly common occurrence."

He says the police lack the capacity to properly investigate crimes, and because of the pressure from society to deal with violent criminals, they simply dispose of suspects without the encumbrance of trials.

"[A] Nigerian's guilt or innocence is immaterial," he says.

Elvis Ozor says he has given up on the judicial system.

"When Danjuma was released, I forgot everything about the case."

"The only way justice will be delivered is from God."

BBC News, Lagos

The police are facing criticism over the deaths

"It really overwhelms our capacity to store bodies," says Dr Anthony Mbah, chief medical director at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital.

His mortuary is overflowing - with corpses brought in by the police.

"We have between 70 and 80 bodies right now... and about three weeks ago, there was a mass burial of some other corpses," he says.

"We are now getting ready to get these ones buried."

Inside the mortuary in the south-eastern city of Enugu, two rooms are set aside for the remains of the young men.

In the first room, they are stacked, naked, one on top of the other. In places the piles are four or five deep.

Faces peer out amongst a forest of legs. Heads loll into groins. Limbs are flung around torsos. Some almost seem to embrace. The smell - and the flies - make it impossible to get close.

It is a scene beyond belief.

Fathers' pain

The mortuary is in a state of chaos. No-one working here can put a precise number on the corpses. Many of the bodies have no names. Mortuary records simply say "suspected armed robber" or "unknown thief".

As they killed him, they killed me, my life is over Dennis Onovo Father of victim

The register says police left 75 bodies between the beginning of June and 26 November this year.

But the records are imperfect - staff correct mistakes as they go along, one page appears to be missing.

It is uncertain how many of these bodies really are those of armed robbers.

The father of one victim of a police shooting has no doubt about the innocence of his son.

"A child is a gift from the Gods. They have taken him from me," Chief Dennis Onovo murmurs.

The morning that Mr Onovo's 22-year-old son, Matthew, died he had been walking to a computer class. Police were searching for an armed man in the area - and shot him dead.

"I always hoped my son will one day be governor of this state, or even head of state - but all my effort is in vain," says Mr Onovo.

For two days, the community stood still as people came out in peaceful demonstration.

The police told Matthew's parents he was suspected of armed robbery.

"This boy was not an armed robber. He was never a thief, much less an armed robber," says Mr Onovo.

"As they killed him, they killed me, my life is over."

Emmanuel Egbo's parents say he was a keen student, not a criminal

A few miles away, another father echoes his words.

Chief Mark Ngena trembles, remembering.

"He was playing with his fellow children," he says of his 13-year-old son Emmanuel.

"Suddenly policemen, three of them, came in. They shot and killed this boy. Murdered him in cold blood."

It was later claimed that Emmanuel too was an armed robber.

His family have never recovered his body.

Lawyers and relatives point to a pattern - of unlawful killings by police, followed by claims the deceased was an armed robber.

It is an easy way to cover dirty tracks, they say.

Police 'are victims too'

Enugu State Police Commissioner Mohamed Zarewa looks at the photograph of piled up bodies in the mortuary and covers them with his hand.

Why are you not asking about the policemen who died? Mohamed Zarewa Enugu State police commissioner

"I am not aware of that number you are talking. I am not aware, I am not aware," he says.

He mutters it five or six times.

Officers in his force do not carry out unlawful or arbitrary killings, he insists.

He says the young men were all killed in gun battles, fighting the police.

"Not just to go and kill somebody, we don't do that, it's unconstitutional.

We are in a democracy," he says.

"You are asking about the young men, why are you not asking about the policemen who died? We people, we lose our lives."

It is true that police work in Nigeria is a difficult job - often deadly.

An encounter between a police officer and a real armed robber is a matter of life or death.

Police officers' wages are low. Corruption in the force is endemic. Poorly trained and ill-equipped policemen are sent to face armed gangs.

But it is also true that many people are killed in police custody.

Punishment without trial

In the Brought in Dead book, seven names are of particular interest.

The Brought in Dead book revealed names of interest

Kennis Victor Okonkwo, Adolphus Odumegwu, Sunday Okoye, Hussein Yusuf, Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya, Amichi Nnamdi, and Ifeani Eze Leonard.

They were arrested, accused of a kidnapping in early September.

On 11 September they were paraded by the inspector-general of Police.

Photos of them alive appeared in local newspapers.

But they never reached court.

By 15 September six of them were dead. The body of the last was delivered to the mortuary the following day.

By each name is written SARS, Special Anti-Robbery Squad - a feared police unit.

When asked for an explanation, Police Commissioner Zarewa said he was too busy.

'Equivalent to hell'

"They told me they have transferred my brother to Abuja," says Charles, a shy 22-year-old.

His older brother was in trouble with the police, accused of robbery.

Charles took a food flask for his brother, and travelled for two days to reach the police station.

On arrival he was arrested, accused of armed robbery, and held for three months.

"Inside there was equivalent to hell," he says.

He says he was taken out of his cell, hung by the knees and beaten. But he feels lucky as it happened only a couple of times.

A man held with him suffered a similar punishment, but his joints were smashed. He screamed as he crawled back into the cell.

Briefly, Charles was held opposite his own brother and the two had the chance to talk.

After that, Charles never saw him again.

"It is the slang they use," he says quietly.

"They are not going to tell you openly your brother is killed. They just tell you they have transferred his case to Abuja."

police station in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri has been destroyed in an attack blamed on the Boko Haram Islamic sect.

One policeman was injured by gunmen who shot at the entrance before an explosion inside injured another policeman and woman.

At least 18 people, mostly police officers, have been killed in the city in the past two months.

Clashes between Boko Haram and the police in July 2009 left hundreds dead.

The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in Maiduguri says the attack follows the killings on Saturday of an Islamic scholar, his follower and a policeman in separate attack.

The scholar was believed to have been preaching against the sect, which is opposed to Western education and accuses Nigeria's government of being corrupted by Western ideas.

Our correspondent says the attack on Monday night happened at about 2130 local time.

Police say a locally made Molotov cocktail exploded inside the police station, which is in the Gamboru suburb, near the former headquarters of Boko Haram.

A homemade petrol bomb was thrown at the police station

Most of those killed in the recent assassinations have been shot by people riding motorbikes.

In a bid to reduce the killings, motorbikes have been banned at night but the shooting have continued.

Hundreds of people suspected of being Boko Haram members escaped from prison in September after gunmen attacked the jail where they were being held in the city.

Last year's violence started when Boko Haram members attacked a police station in Maiduguri before clashes spread to neighbouring areas.

Most of those who died were supporters of the sect, which is also known locally as the Taliban and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria.

The sect's leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was among those killed, apparently after he was handed over alive to the police.