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Babatunde Aliyu Fafunwa, former minister of education, died yesterday morning at the National Hospital, Abuja. He was aged 87.

According to a hospital official, he died a few minutes before 7am. Although the hospital staff refused to disclose the cause of death, it is believed that Mr. Fafunwa had fallen ill during a recent trip to Abuja, where he was expected to deliver a speech at the Open University.

Widely credited as introducing the 6-3-3-4 educational system in the country, the late Mr. Fafunwa was also the first Nigerian to receive a doctorate degree in Education. His teaching career began in 1961 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Following the advent of the Civil War, he moved to Ife, and taught at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), where he remained until his retirement.

Innovative methodologies

He is accredited with introducing several innovative teaching methodologies during his days at Ife. It was his contemporary methods that brought him to national prominence when he served as an education minister for three years under Ibrahim Babangida..

President Goodluck Jonathan had last week blamed him for the failure of the 6-3-3-4 education system.

He is to be buried today according to Islamic rites. He is survived by his wife, Doris, four children, and several grand children.

Fasasi Gbagba, the president of Jama’atul Islamiyya Society, the Islamic sect to which Mr. Fafunwa belonged, said the members were awaiting the body from Abuja. He is to be buried at his residence on Victoria Island, Lagos, today.

The Ogun State government has described his death as the loss of a major pillar of the education sector who worked tirelessly throughout his lifetime for the enhancement and development of the sector.

“A great mentor and outstanding person of character has just left us,” said the cultural activist, Segun Olusola, adding, “His relationship cuts across the entire nation and though a very religious person, he never allowed religion to affect his relationship.”

Q: What are the health consequences of being overweight?

A: The latest WHO projections indicate that at least one in three of the world's adult population is overweight and almost one in 10 is obese. Additionally there are over 20 million children under age five who are overweight.

Being overweight or obese can have a serious impact on health. Carrying extra fat leads to serious health consequences such as cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis, and some cancers (endometrial, breast and colon). These conditions cause premature death and substantial disability.

What is not widely known is that the risk of health problems starts when someone is only very slightly overweight, and that the likelihood of problems increases as someone becomes more and more overweight. Many of these conditions cause long-term suffering for individuals and families. In addition, the costs for the health care system can be extremely high.

The good news is that overweight and obesity are largely preventable. The key to success is to achieve an energy balance between calories consumed on one hand, and calories used on the other hand.

To reach this goal, people can limit energy intake from total fats and shift fat consumption away from saturated fats to unsaturated fats; increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as legumes, whole grains and nuts; and limit their intake of sugars. And to increase calories used, people can boost their levels of physical activity - to at least 30 minutes of regular, moderate-intensity activity on most days.

One week ago, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly -- 348 to 79 -- to give the Obama administration expanded authority toimpose tariffs on nearly any Chinese import. This move is, of course, aform of retaliation against China for the country's refusal to let theyuan appreciate.

Now, don't get me wrong -- trade between China and the U.S. is significantly lopsided. Last year, joint trade between the twocountries amounted to nearly $300 billion, but the U.S. trade deficitwas more than $220 billion.

However, the current bill passed by the House is a clear case of election-year politics, and it shows just how desperate Congress is tolook as if they are doing something to fix the economy. Now, if coolerheads prevail, this bill may not pass the Senate. But if it does passthere, and is then signed into law, it could be the first major salvo ina trade war that would do significant damage to both the U.S. and Chinaeconomies.

One reason why is because China is unlikely to sit idly by and watch its exports face high tariffs without its own form of retaliation. Buteven though this bill would hurt Chinese exporters, I think thehardest hit by a trade war would be millions of cash-strapped U.S.consumers, as tariff-laden goods from China would end up costingconsumers more money at nearly every major retailer in the country..

In the end, it would be U.S. consumers who would be hurt and end up footing the bill for Congress' so-called "solution."

So, how does this affect the companies in the China Strategy portfolio that I so often discuss here in Asia Insider?

Well, to be honest, this latest political action emphasizes just why it is so important to understand the differences between Chinesecompanies -- and is a big reason why I have largely stayed away fromChinese companies that rely on exports. In addition, I'm also notentirely comfortable with using multinational companies that are sellingto China as a way to play the China growth story.

I've discussed this in great depth with my China Strategy readers, but it boils down to that these types of companies will likelycome under significantly increased pressure in the near future as thebrewing trade and currency issues pick up steam.

As a result, my China Strategy portfolio focuses on Chinese companies that cater to China's burgeoning internal demand -- companiesthat will be the least affected by any new politically-imposed tariffrules.

In fact, a retaliatory restriction on imports from the U.S. could ultimately lead to more demand for China-based goods -- adding to the bottom line of China-based companies selling in China, such as the ones that I recommend in China Strategy.

I think we're going to see some very significant gains in the near future in several domestic-demand driven companies. Several of our topdomestic consumption plays have performed exceptionally well:

• China's Number-One Online Travel Company, soaring a whopping 356%;
• The Google of China, already giving us 284% gains, with more to go;
• China's Leading Offshore Oil Corporation, up 227% and heading higher with the price of oil.

Just in the past two week, we've seen some significant gains in some of my other latest China Strategy recommendations:

• Our China Clean Water Play, up 33%
• Leading Probiotic Producer in China, up 17%
• Chinese Oil and Biofuel Company, up 16%
• Largest Private Printing Supplier in China, up 14%
• Chinese Aluminum Giant, up 12%

And that's just a sampling of the profits my China Strategy subscribers have seen by focusing on Chinese domestic consumption.

So, even though the prospect of a new trade war is disturbing, our select China Strategy portfolio companies are doing just fine. To learn more about business strategies and receive weekly and monthly updates with my mostrecent advice on our investment opportunities check out my blogs http://www.9jabook.com/profiles/blog/list?user=26kfovjx02akt

hello guyz….I’m shifting to new home so I will not be able to post for few days as I’ve to get another internet connection in new place and connect it but I’ve not forgotten to post
the special dose of Sunday to make you laugh. In this post, I’m going to
tell you some characteristics of experienced programmer. After reading
this post, please let me know weather you fall within this category or
not?

When you are counting objects, you go like “0,1,2,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9,A, B,C,D…” .

When asked about a bus schedule, you wonder if it is 16 or 32 bits.

When your wife says “If you don’t turn off that darn machine and come to bed,then I am going to divorce you!”, and you chastise her for for omitting the else clause.

When you are reading a book and look for the space bar to get to the next page.

When you look for your car keys using: “grep keys /dev/pockets”

When after fooling around all day with routers etc, you pick up the phone and start dialing an IP number.

When you get in the elevator and double-press the button for the floor you want.

When not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your {network address} faster than your postal one.

When you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you’re doing the math in octal. ..

Even though it’s celebrated during the month of October, breast cancer awareness is really a year-round issue.

Dr. Ann Kulze, MD, author of “Dr. Ann’s Ten-Step Diet” offers great guidance with a list of things we can do right now … to do everything possible to prevent breast cancer and stop all these silly races, walks, shopping sprees and those damn ribbons!

1. Maintain a healthy body weight (BMI less than 25) throughout your life. Midlife weight gain has been shown to significantly increase the risk of breast cancer. Additionally, an elevated BMI has been conclusively shown to increase the risk of post-menopausal breast cancer.

2. Minimize or avoid alcohol. The use of alcohol, according to Dr. Kulze is the most well-established dietary risk factor for breast cancer. The Harvard Nurses’ Study, along with several others, has shown that consuming more than one alcoholic beverage a day can increase the risk of breast cancer by a much as 25 percent.

(Article extracted from www.hellobeautiful.com)

Boko Haram militants struck again this morning in ancient city of Maiduguri as they shot and killed a prominent Islamic preacher, Sheik Bashir Mustapha, in the in front of his house.

The eminent Islamic scholar was critical of the Boko Haram sect and also close ally of the Borno State governor Ali Modu Sheriff. Eyewitnesses told Saharareporters that one of Sheik Bahir's student died of gunshot wounds. The preacher lives in the Gwande area of Maiduguri.

Two police officers were also killed in the audacious early morning raid near the GRA part of the city near the police commissioner's home on Damboa road. The daylight killings left residents cowering in their respective homes.

http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/prominent-islamic-preacher-sheik-bashir-mustapha-killed-boko-haram-militants-maiduguri

(CNN) -- At age 13, Hope Witsell struggled in middle school. Not because her class work at Shields Middle School in Ruskin, Florida, was challenging, but because Hope was being bullied.

Her friend, Kyla Stich, told CNN that fellow students would "walk up to her and call her 'slut,' 'whore,' and they would sometimes, they would call her 'skank' and just be really cruel to her.".

Another friend, Lexi Leber, said, "We had to make like a wall, we had people surrounding her, and she had to be in the middle because people would come by and try to hit her and push her into a locker or something.

"She was afraid to walk alone, she was afraid someone would do something to her, like verbally attack her, so she would always have someone with her," Leber added.

This all started in the spring of 2009 during the last week of school.

Friends and family say Hope had "sexted" a picture of her breasts to her boyfriend. Another girl from school, they say, got her hands on the photo and sent it to students at six different schools in the area.

Before Hope could do anything to stop it, that photo had gone viral.

The school alerted Hope's parents. Her mother, Donna Witsell, told CNN how she learned about the photo.

"The assistant principal had a meeting with my husband and I and pretty much told us that he did not see the image but that he had heard that it was Hope and when he confronted Hope, Hope did not deny it. She wasn't proud of it but she didn't lie," Hope's mother said.

Mrs. Witsell says she had warned her daughter about the dark side of technology, about "some of the pretty sexual images of young girls and guys."

She added, "Hope was very aware of that, of inappropriate dress and most definitely posing."

Still, because of that photo, Hope had become a target for 11-, 12-, and 13-year-old bullies.

But she didn't share her pain with her parents.

Even when bullies wrote horrible things about Hope on a MySpace page called the "Shields Middle School Burn Book" and started a "Hope Hater Page," the young girl kept silent.

Summer provided a bit of a break, but when the new school year began, the taunting was even worse.

On Saturday, September 12, 2009, Hope Witsell helped her father mow the lawn. They cooked a special seafood dinner together as a family. Then Hope disappeared to her room upstairs. Her parents stayed downstairs and watched TV.

Donna Witsell will never forget the moment she went to say goodnight to her daughter.

"I went upstairs to go in her room and kiss her goodnight. That was when I found her. I screamed for my husband. And started doing CPR."

It was too late. Hope was already dead. She had used her favorite scarves to hang herself from her canopy bed.

After Hope died, her mother learned her daughter had been summoned to meet with a school social worker. A spokesperson for the school says the social worker was concerned Hope might have been trying to hurt herself, so she had Hope sign what's called a "no harm" contract in which Hope agreed to talk to an adult if she wanted to harm herself..

Hope's mother says she was never told about the contract, which she found crumpled up in the garbage in her daughter's bedroom after she died.

School officials told CNN they believed the social worker had tried calling Hope's mother to alert her but weren't sure if she had left a message.

"The school dropped the ball," Donna Witsell said.

"The school did not call. We have the digital telephone; we have the cell phones that indicate when there was an incoming call and what number was calling in. We have a house phone, I have a cell phone, my husband has a cell phone. We have emergency contact numbers at the school which was my sister-in-law and her husband. There was no indication that the school called any of those numbers," Hope's mother said.

Days after Hope died, her older sister, Samantha Beattie, discovered the bullying was still going on. Even in death, Hope could not escape it.

"I knew she had MySpace and Facebook. There were people putting comments on there: 'Did Hope really kill herself?' 'I can't believe that whore did that.' Just obscene things that I would never expect from a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old," said Samantha.

In the year or so that has passed since Hope Witsell took her own life, her mother has started a group called Hope's Warriors. She hopes it will help combat bullying and save other moms from feeling the horrendous pain that she feels.

Donna Witsell has a message for parents: "It happened to my daughter, it can happen to yours too. No one is untouchable. No one is untouchable."

Our correspondent gathered that this new fad is a common practice among youths, especially in tertiary institutions. The reason why youths do this range from their desire to keep their relationships to mischief. During the week, a soft sell magazine published semi-nude pictures of a young actress which a friend of hers circulated over mobile phones without her knowledge. Although she expressed regrets that it was published during an interview with an evening newspaper, she insisted that it was common..

A 26-year-old student of one of the federal universities in the South West, who pleaded anonymity, said, “My current relationship is about one and half years old. Though I have never sent my girlfriend any nude picture of myself, she sent me hers. I had a nude picture of myself on my phone which she saw. It was after that she sent me a nude picture of herself.”

“The final year Political Science undergraduate also admitted sending her sexually explicit text messages. According to him, ”If we are not together, we need to make each other happy. Texting nude pictures and suggestive SMS is a way of keeping the relationship going.”

Another student of a state university in the Eastern part of the country said she went along with the sexting tradition to please her boyfriend. “My relationship is about a year old. Though we have never sent nude pictures to each other but we do text sexually explicit messages. My boyfriend started it and I went along to make him happy.” The final year computer science student however admitted that sexting was among girls. “Most of them do it to keep their boyfriends happy.”

Twenty-nine year-old student of another federal university in the East, who also pleaded anonymity, said, “I am not currently in a relationship but in my last relationship, I sent my girlfriend sexually explicit text messages. I did it each time I missed her, kind of like an emotional eruption.”

Very few, it seems, consider the fate of the nude pictures when the relationship goes awry or the phone gets stolen as was in the case of the scandal last year where some nude pictures of a couple working in a major telecommunications firm was published on Facebook. There is always the danger, of course, of such pictures going into the wrong hands like the case of Natasha Obetan, a Port Harcourt ex-beauty queen whose nude pictures made the rounds.,

“I don’t know of any guy who used his girlfriend‘s nude pictures against her. The only person I know of that did something akin to that, his ex-girlfriend wasn’t even aware of what he did. She thought he had deleted all her nude pictures but he had one left. It was his friends that got to see it,” the student from a federal university in the South West said.

A psychiatrist at the Federal Psychiatrist Hospital, Yaba, Dr. Oladapo Adepoju sees the practice as a reflection of the moral decadence in the society. “Sexting is a social ill. It just shows that young people have taken romantic involvements to another level. I cannot call it a sexual disorder, except if it causes the person to harm himself and others too. On the other hand, however, deriving sexual satisfaction from viewing nude photos is a sexual disorder.” Disagreeing with the idea that sexting keeps the flame of love burning, he said, ”Sexting does not promote faithfulness in the long run. The danger of sexting is that both parties are likely to get sexually aroused. By the time this happens, they will want sexual satisfaction. If your partner is absent, the person might then resort to masturbation or engage any willing member of the opposite sex to achieve that sexual satisfaction.”

A concerned parent who didn‘t want to be named said, ”I have a teenage daughter in school. I would be very sad if I find out she is doing something like that. You really don‘t have to send amorous text messages or nude pictures to keep any relationship alive. There is a time for everything. All sexting does is to distract the parties involved from what they should actually be doing which is studying.”

A member of the gang which masterminded the kidnapping of four female members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Umudoga Secondary School, Omuma in Rivers State, has been arrested.

The suspect, known as Ten Ten, was arrested by a joint team of the military and police at Eberi Omuma in Rivers State, on Thursday evening following a tip-off.

As of press time, the suspect was being interrogated at the 2nd Brigade Army Base at Bori Camp in Port Harcourt.

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Rivers State command, Rita Inoma-Abbey (SP), confirmed the arrest.

She disclosed that part of the ransom paid to the abductors was recovered by the security operatives.
Inoma-Abbey further disclosed that after the interrogation, the suspect would be handed over to the police for further questioning and prosecution.

The police imagemaker said, “this is to inform you that a joint police/military team arrested one of the kidnappers of four corps members and part of the ransom paid to them was recovered.

“The suspect, who is called Ten-ten, was arrested at the boundary between Eberi Omuma and Abia State. Eberi Omuma is in Rivers State.

“Investigation into the matter is still ongoing as the suspects is being interrogated at the army base in Bori Camp,” she stated.

There was a mild-drama at Igando Police Station in Alimosho Council of Lagos State when a 28-year old man, Wale Ipolola, escaped from the police station where he was detained over alleged involvement in a rape case.

Wale was arrested by the police for allegedly raping a 6-year old girl (names withheld) who was his neighbour’s daughter.

Instead of defending the charge against him at the police station, he attempted to escape. But he was unlucky as the policemen launched a manhunt for him and was re-arrested.

He was arraigned on a two-count charge of rape and escape from police custody at Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court.

Police claimed he took the little girl inside his room, laid her on the bed and had sex with her.

The incident happened at their residence, 28, Modina Road, Egan, on the outskirts of Lagos, South West Nigeria.

The alleged offence was blown open when the victim’s mother saw her as she entered the defendant’s room. She wanted to carry her but she discovered that fluid suspected to be sperm was coming out of her private part.

She raised an alarm and confronted the defendant. She later reported the incident at the police station.

The suspect was later arrested and charged to an Ejigbo magistrate’s court.

When the charge was read to him, he pleaded not guilty.

The presiding magistrate, Mrs. S. O. Solebo, granted him bail in the sum of N200,000 with two responsible sureties in the like sum.

The matter has been adjourned till 1 November for hearing.

—Cyriacus Izuekwe

Officials of the State Security Services (SSS) were said to have completed the forensic analysis of the site of the October 1 bomb blast in Abuja.

It was gathered that the security agencies decided to open the route leading to the Transcorp Hilton Hotel after the completion of the forensic analysis of the site.

A source also said that the SSS had moved some of the highly implicated vehicles out of the site, while they continued the investigation.

It was also gathered that the SSS has also flagged off a probe into the bomb hoax that rocked the National Assembly and the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Abuja.

Sources confirmed that the Security agency was embarrassed when reports indicated that the National Assembly and the NNPC complexes were rocked by bomb scares that ended up being fake.