Tuesday, November 20, 2012

President Jonathan’s younger brother dies at Aso Rock

The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan is currently bereaved. Reason being that his younger brother, Meni Jonathan has being confirmed
dead at the Aso Rock clinic Abuja, the Federal Capital today, Tuesday.
According to medical sources, Mr. Meni who was in his late 40s was flown in from Bayelsa, Jonathan�s country home last week for medical treatment at the Villa. The cause of sudden illness and his demise is yet to be
unravelled. The deceased is Jonathan�s half brother and until his sudden departure acted as the head of Otueke, council chiefs in Bayelsa State. Meanwhile, Jonathan is to embark on an official trip to Islamabad, Pakistan tonight, to attend the summit of Heads of States and Government of the Group of Eight Developing Nations (D-8).
In a statement released by his media aide, Dr. Reuben Abati, Jonathan would be accompanied by the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Olugbenga Ashiru, Minister of Trade and Investment Olusegun Aganga and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
The president is expected to return to the country on Friday. At the moment, it is uncertain whether he will still make
the trip as earlier scheduled or not.
Let�s keep our fingers crossed as we monitor event at the Aso Villa.

Daily Post
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Federal Ministry of Information, Nigeria

Ominshambles named word of the year by Oxford English Dictionary.
�Omnishambles� has been named word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary.
The word - meaning a situation which is shambolic from every possible angle - was coined in 2009 by the writers of BBC political satire The Thick of It. But it has crossed over
into real life this year, said the judges.
Other words included �Eurogeddon� - the threatened financial collapse in the eurozone - and �mummy porn� - a genre inspired by the 50 Shades books. �Green-on-blue� - military attacks by forces regarded as
neutral, such as when members of the Afghan army or police attack foreign troops - was also on the shortlist. The London Olympics threw up several contenders
including the verb �to medal�, �Games Maker� - the name given to thousands of Olympic volunteers - and distance runner Mo Farah�s victory celebration �the Mobot�.
New words from the world of technology included �second screening� - watching TV while simultaneously using a computer, phone or tablet - and social media popularised the acronym �Yolo�, you only live once. �Pleb� - an old word given new life by claims Conservative Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell used it to describe police officers in Downing Street - was also shortlisted.
He denied using the word, a derogatory term for the lower classes, but was forced to resign as a minister. But it was omnishambles that most impressed the judges. Fiona McPherson, one of the lexicographers on the judging panel, said: �It was a word everyone liked, which seemed
to sum up so many of the events over the last 366 days in a beautiful way.
�It�s funny, it�s quirky, and it has broken free of its fictional political beginnings, firstly by spilling over into real politics, and
then into other contexts. (BBC)

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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Gay anti-mafia politician breaks mold in Sicily

Openly gay, devoutly Catholic, left-wing and an enemy of the mafia, Rosario Crocetta broke the mould when he was elected governor of deeply conservative Sicily last month.

The island has long been better known for its machismo, corruption and homicidal mafia dons than progressive politics, but the chain-smoking former communist says he will bring a "revolution" after winning a regional election.

"I will demonstrate that this region can be the most liberal in Europe. Certainly I will be exposed to opposition from the old political system, to layers of powerful mafia patronage, but I am ready for the battle," he told Reuters in an interview.

Crocetta, 61, who has escaped at least three mafia assassination plots and was elected to the European parliament in 2009, could not be more of a contrast to his predecessors, under whom Sicily has come close to bankruptcy.

He replaces Raffaele Lombardo, who stepped down in July after being charged with mafia association. The previous regional president, Salvatore Cuffaro, is serving a seven-year jail term after being convicted on similar charges.

Crocetta said he planned a raft of anti-mob measures as well as boosting gay and other civil rights. He was Italy's first openly gay mayor and is now its second declared homosexual governor after Nichi Vendola in Puglia, seeing no conflict with his strong beliefs as a gospel-quoting Roman Catholic.

He sees his election as part of a general movement by Italian voters against a deeply unpopular and discredited traditional political class.

Crocetta made his name as leader for six years of the mob-infested city of Gela on Sicily's southwest coast, where he backed an "anti-racket" organisation of businessmen who refused to pay "pizzo" or extortion money - a leading source of revenue for a local mob known as the Stidda.

"During my time as mayor, 150 businessmen were reporting extortion attempts and 850 mafiosi and extortionists were arrested, which is an impressive figure," Crocetta said.

POLICE PROTECTION

As he spoke in the Rome headquarters of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD), two squad cars and a swarm of police - his constant protection detail - waited outside.

Asked if he is worried for his life, Crocetta replies with a trade mark belly laugh: "I am very serene. I am a sunny person, I like life, I am happy or ... gay."

He quotes legendary anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone who was murdered in 1992: "If you are scared you die every day. If you are not scared, you die only once."

Crocetta says the mafia hates him because as mayor he robbed them of public work contracts, fired mafiosi including the wife of a leading boss and exposed businessmen implicated with the mob. "This attracted great unfriendliness towards me," he says.

A mafia boss who hired a Lithuanian hitman to kill him in 2003 was heard in a wire tap calling him "that queer communist".

As governor of Sicily he plans a "white list" of firms to be given privileged access to public contracts because they are untainted by Cosa Nostra, and says he will create a task force assisting victims of the mob and corruption.

"This is a novelty in Italy. If I make it easy to denounce the mafia and corruption, people will denounce it. I want a series of measures to control contracts, supplies, land sales. It will be a storm of measures," he said.

"When denouncing the mafia is a mass movement it is difficult for it to have (deadly) repercussions. There are repercussions when it is solitary."

Crocetta also plans to combat homophobia and increase gay rights although he says his election as president of the autonomous region or governor has already had an effect.

"When I became mayor, it had an impact. I remember that in my city many boys and girls who lived clandestinely before began to have the courage to live naturally."

LIBERATION

"Now it will influence Sicilian society and customs that people can begin to say freely that they are homosexual. They will think if we have a president who can say it, why can't we say it ourselves ... It will help to liberate many people from anxiety, violence and fear."

Crocetta says it is less suprising for a gay politician to be elected in the south than "racist and homophobic" northern Italian newspapers suggest.

"We have an ancient history of tolerance. When Oscar Wilde fled puritan England he took refuge in Palermo," he said, adding that Sicily was seen for too long through "a mafia lens".

"However, we must have very clear ideas about this. Being gay in Sicily is not like being gay in San Francisco."

Crocetta says he is as revolutionary to politics as comedian Beppe Grillo, whose anti-establishment 5-Star Movement took the most votes for a single party in the Sicily election and which has stormed to second place in national opinion polls.

Crocetta won in alliance with the centrist UDC party, which he said could be a model for his PD party nationally after elections next spring.

"I have always been a politician of a new type, starting when I was mayor of Gela. I want a revolution and Grillo wants a rebellion ... they are an anti-system movement which won't go far by itself."

Crocetta is seven votes short of a majority in the regional assembly but he shrugs off suggestions he will find it difficult to make radical change, saying if other parties reject good laws he will go back to the voters and get a bigger vote.

"The (regional) parliamentarians are always absent anyway," he says with a huge laugh. "In many cases we will win just by being present."

He has plenty to do. Sicily is notorious for graft and waste with public sector jobs allegedly long used to buy votes.

Prime Minister Mario Monti expressed fears in July that Sicily could go bankrupt, imposing a compulsory plan to restore financial stability.

Crocetta said he would cut Sicily's 5.3 billion euros ($6.7 billion) of debt by reducing a huge and wasteful civil service over three years, privatising regional assets, slashing bureaucracy and boosting solar energy and tourism

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Adolf Hitler And His Dark Charisma

Adolf Hitler was an unlikely leader but he still formed a connection with millions of German people, generating a level of charismatic attraction that was almost without parallel. It is a stark warning for the modern day, says historian Laurence Rees.

At the heart of the story of Adolf Hitler is one gigantic, mysterious question: how was it possible that a character as strange and personally inadequate as Hitler ever gained power in a sophisticated country at the heart of Europe, and was then loved by millions of people?

The answer to this vital question is to be found not just in the historical circumstances of the time - in particular the defeat of Germany in World War I and the depression of the early 1930s - but in the nature of Hitler's leadership.

It's this aspect of the story that makes this history particularly relevant to our lives today.

Hitler was the archetypal "charismatic leader". He was not a "normal" politician - someone who promises policies like lower taxes and better health care - but a quasi-religious leader who offered almost spiritual goals of redemption and salvation. He was driven forward by a sense of personal destiny he called "providence".

Before WWI he was a nobody, an oddball who could not form intimate relationships, was unable to debate intellectually and was filled with hatred and prejudice.

But when Hitler spoke in the Munich beer halls in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in WWI, suddenly his weaknesses were perceived as strengths.

His hatred chimed with the feelings of thousands of Germans who felt humiliated by the terms of the Versailles treaty and sought a scapegoat for the loss of the war. His inability to debate was taken as strength of character and his refusal to make small talk was considered the mark of a "great man" who lived apart from the crowd.

More than anything, it was the fact that Hitler found that he could make a connection with his audience that was the basis of all his future success. And many called this connection "charisma".

"The man gave off such a charisma that people believed whatever he said," says Emil Klein, who heard Hitler speak in the 1920s.

But Hitler did not "hypnotise" his audience. Not everyone felt this charismatic connection, you had to be predisposed to believe what Hitler was saying to experience it. Many people who heard Hitler speak at this time thought he was an idiot.

"I immediately disliked him because of his scratchy voice," says Herbert Richter, a German veteran of WWI who encountered Hitler in Munich in the early 1920s.


"He shouted out really, really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn't quite normal."

In the good economic times, during the mid-to-late twenties in Germany, Hitler was thought charismatic by only a bunch of fanatics. So much so that in the 1928 election the Nazis polled only 2.6% of the vote.

Yet less than five years later Hitler was chancellor of Germany and leader of the most popular political party in the country.

What changed was the economic situation. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 there was mass unemployment in Germany and banks crashed.

"The people were really hungry," says Jutta Ruediger, who started to support the Nazis around this time. "It was very, very hard. And in that context, Hitler with his statements seemed to be the bringer of salvation."

She looked at Hitler and suddenly felt a connection with him.

"I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage, but solely about the good of the German people."

Hitler told millions of Germans that they were Aryans and therefore "special" and racially "better" people than everyone else, something that helped cement the charismatic connection between leader and led.


He did not hide his hatred, his contempt for democracy or his belief in the use of violence to further political ends from the electorate. But, crucially, he spoke out only against carefully defined enemies like Communists and Jews.

Since the majority of ordinary Germans were not in these groups, as long as they embraced the new world of Nazism, they were relatively free from persecution - at least until the war started to go badly for the Germans.

This history matters to us today. Not because history offers "lessons" - how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings.

In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had "charisma" because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.

It's bleakly ironic that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens recently with swastika banners carried by angry Greeks protesting at what they see as German interference in their country.

Ironic because it is in Greece itself - amid terrible economic crisis - that we see the sudden rise of a political movement like the Golden Dawn that glories in its intolerance and desire to persecute minorities.

And it is led by a man who has claimed there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. Can there be a bigger warning than that?

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James Buchanan Duke: Father of the modern cigarette

It looks harmless enough - white, 8cm (3in) long and about the width of a child's finger - but the cigarette is vilified like no other product. Who invented it and how much responsibility does he bear for the countless deaths it has caused?

US surgeon Alton Ochsner recalled that when he was a medical student in 1919 his class was summoned to observe an autopsy of a lung cancer victim. At that time, the disease was so rare it was thought unlikely the students would ever get another chance.

But by the year 2000, it was estimated that 1.1 million people were dying annually from the disease, with about 85% of those cases stemming from a single cause - tobacco.

"The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation," says Robert Proctor of Stanford University. "It killed about 100 million people in the 20th Century."

Jordan Goodman, the author of Tobacco in History, says that as a historian he is careful about pointing the finger at individuals, "but in the history of tobacco I feel much more confident saying that James Buchanan Duke - otherwise known as Buck Duke - was responsible for the 20th Century phenomenon known as the cigarette."

Not only did Duke help create the modern cigarette, he also pioneered the marketing and distribution systems that have led to its success on every continent.

In 1880, at the age of 24, Duke entered what was then a niche within the tobacco business - ready-rolled cigarettes. A small team in Durham, North Carolina, hand-rolled the Duke of Durham cigarettes, twisting the ends to seal them.

Two years later Duke saw an opportunity. He began working with a young mechanic called James Bonsack, who said he could mechanise cigarette manufacturing. Duke was convinced that people would want to smoke these neatly-rolled, perfectly symmetrical machine-made cigarettes.

Bonsack's machine revolutionised the cigarette industry.


"It's essentially a cigarette of infinite length, cut into the appropriate lengths by whirling shears," says Robert Proctor. The open ends meant it has to be "juiced-up with chemical additives". They added glycerine, sugar and molasses, and chemicals to prevent it drying out.

But keeping cigarettes moist was not the only challenge that Bonsack's contraption presented to Duke. While his factory girls typically rolled about 200 cigarettes in a shift, the new machine produced 120,000 cigarettes a day, about a fifth of US consumption at the time.

"The problem was he produced more cigarettes than he could sell," says Goodman. "He had to work out how to capture this market."

The answer was to be found in advertising and marketing. Duke sponsored races, gave his cigarettes out for free at beauty contests and placed ads in the new "glossies" - the first magazines. He also recognised that the inclusion of collectable cigarette cards was as important as getting the product right. In 1889 alone, he spent $800,000 on marketing (about $25m in today's money).

Bonsack retained the patent to his machine, but as thanks for Duke's support in developing it, he offered him a 30% discount on the lease.

This competitive advantage - coupled with vigorous promotion - was key to Duke's early success. As he had suspected, people liked mechanised cigarettes. They were modern-looking and more hygienic - one campaign emphasised this point over cigars, which were manufactured using human hands and saliva.

But although cigarette smoking in the US quadrupled in the 15 years to 1900, it remained a niche market, with most tobacco being chewed or smoked through pipes and cigars.

Duke - a cigar smoker himself - saw the potential for cigarettes to be used in places closed to cigars and pipes, such as drawing rooms and restaurants. The ease with which they could be lit and - unlike pipes - remain lit, also suited them to coffee breaks in modern city life.

"The cigarette was really used in a different way," says Proctor. "And it was milder - and this is one of the great ironies, that cigarettes were widely thought to be safer than cigars, because they are just 'little cigars', right?"

We now know that cigarettes are far more addictive than cigars. The fact that the smoke is inhaled - which it is not traditional for cigars - also makes them more dangerous. But a correlation with lung cancer was not made until the 1930s and the causal link was not established until 1957 in the UK and 1964 in the USA.

Cigarettes were in fact promoted as beneficial for health. They were listed in pharmaceutical encyclopaedias until 1906 and prescribed by doctors for coughs, colds and tuberculosis (a disease which the World Health Organization now links with tobacco).

There was an anti-cigarette movement in the early 1900s, but it was more concerned with morality than health. A rise in smoking among women and children fed into a wider concern about the moral decline of society. Cigarettes were prohibited in 16 different US states between 1890 and 1927.

Duke's gaze shifted overseas. In 1902 he formed British American Tobacco with his transatlantic rival, Imperial Tobacco. The packaging and marketing would be tweaked for different consumers but the cigarettes would remain largely the same. More than a decade before the creation of the Model T Ford, Duke had a universal product.

"To him every cigarette was the same," says Goodman. "All of the globalisation that we are now familiar with through McDonald's and Starbucks - all of that was preceded by Duke and the cigarette."

The global reach of cigarettes is still extending today. Although smoking in wealthy parts of the world is in decline, cigarette demand in developing countries is increasing by 3.4% a year, leading to an overall growth in cigarette consumption.

The WHO warns that unless preventative measures are taken, 100 million people will die of tobacco-related diseases over the next 30 years - more than from Aids, tuberculosis, car accidents and suicide combined.

But can we blame Buck Duke for any of that? After all, no-one is forced to take up smoking, even if they find it difficult to give up once they have started.

In a recent essay for the journal Tobacco Control, Robert Proctor argues that many people in the tobacco industry all share some responsibility. "We have to realise that adverts can be carcinogens, along with convenience stores and pharmacies that sell cigarettes. The executives who work for cigarette companies cause cancer, as do the artists who design cigarette packs and the PR and advertising firms that manage such accounts," he says.

Successful lawsuits that have been brought against "big tobacco" have tended to argue that tobacco companies knew about the detrimental effects of their products, but did nothing about it. But Buck Duke, who died in 1925, did not.

"I wouldn't want to blame him for cigarette consumption," says his biographer Bob Durden, who is keen to point out Duke's positive character traits. "He was very hard-working. He loved his work."

Those who still find something unsavoury about Duke may wish to consider his good deeds. He gave more than $100m to Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina, which was renamed Duke University in 1924 (in honour of James Buchanan Duke and his father, Washington Duke, another benefactor).

But if it weren't for Buck Duke, would Americans still be chewing tobacco today? Would modern sports bars have spittoons by the door?

Goodman believes that the world was inevitably heading towards mechanised cigarette production. Bonsack's machine wasn't the only prototype, and if Duke hadn't seized the opportunity another businessman would have.

"He was both a hero and a villain I suppose. Buck Duke is a hero in terms of his understanding of the market, his understanding of human psychology, his understanding of pricing, his understanding of advertising. He's not villainous in that sense," says Goodman.

Yet however great Duke's achievements as an architect of mass-production and globalisation, his legend will continue to be eclipsed by his controversial creation.

"He made the world smoke cigarettes," says Goodman. "And it's the cigarette which has been the problem of the 20th Century."

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Sunday, November 11, 2012

Pastor Oritsejafor Acquires Private Jet


Current president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has bought a private jet, joining a growing number of high-flying Nigerian pastors who own private jets. Mr. Oritsejafor is the chief pastor and founder of the Word of Life Bible Church in Warri, Delta State.  

Home » News & Reports » News Professor Rahamon Bello Is Appointed The 11th VC Of UNILAG-ChannelsTV




The governing council of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) has announced the appointment of Professor Rahamon Adisa Bello, a Professor of Chemical Engineering as the 11th Vice-Chancellor of the university.

Defiant Armstrong posts pic of Tour champion jerseys

This post on Lance Armstrong's Twitter page has been been met with a mix of outrage and applause by the online community.

According to CNN, Lance Armstrong has defiantly posted an internet picture of himself with the seven Tour de France winner's jerseys that have been expunged from the history books.


Intelligent Nigerians, Inadequate Languages


Grimot Nane

Unsurprisingly, the typical Nigerian believes Nigerians are amongst the most intelligent people in the world. The reasons for this belief are varied, none of them empirical. Some attribute this widely held belief amongst Nigerians to the number of high profile Nigerians that have attended top universities in the world. It is not hard to find out that if the proportions of alumni from Oxbridge and Ivy League universities are aggregated by nationality, Nigeria will not be in the top 20. Some attribute it to sharp practice as exemplified in the advance fee fraud, affectionately known as “419”.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Obama Wins, Gets Second Term

Barack Obama re-elected as president of the United States after reaching 275 electoral votes. We are still waiting for the presidential's speech. However the race is a validation if not an overwhelming mandate that they are in support of the President's policies and Actions.
Congratulations President Barrack Obama!
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Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Explosions and Gunfire Rocks Yobe

Explosions and gunfire rocked Gashua , a town in Yobe
state, Tuesday and prompted a military deployment, but
there were no immediate reports of casualties, residents
and the army said.
The military said troops had deployed to the town where
the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has previously
carried out waves of deadly attacks.
�There have been explosions and gunfire throughout the
town. It all began around 3 am and lasted up to six in the
morning,� one resident told AFP.
He said the unrest and heavy presence of soldiers had
forced residents to remain in their homes.
Another resident said military patrols could be heard in
the streets after the shooting and blasts stopped.
�The explosions and shootings started around three and
continued for almost three hours,� he said. �Everybody
has remained indoors.�
Military spokesman Lazarus Eli confirmed soldiers were
patrolling, but declined to give further details.
�Our troops have deployed to Gashua this morning, but I
can�t tell you the situation in the town now,� he said.
The northeast has been hard hit by deadly attacks
blamed on Boko Haram, leaving hundreds of people
dead and prompting a heavy army deployment.
Violence linked to the sect is believed to have left more
than 2,800 people dead since 2009, including killings by
the security forces.

Source: Vanguard
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