First woman to moderate presidential debate in 20 years

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CNN's Candy Crowley will
become the first woman in 20 years to moderate a
presidential debate when she questions President
Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney
in October.
The cable network's chief political correspondent is
set to lead one of three debates before the November
6 general election, the bipartisan Commission on
Presidential Debates said on Monday.
"I am wowed, amazed and excited by the opportunity
to moderate a 2012 presidential debate," Crowley
said.
The move follows a recent push for a female
moderator since ABC's Carole Simpson in 1992. The
commission made no mention of the gender
milestone in making its announcement, only the
moderators' expertise.
"These journalists bring extensive experience to the
job of moderating, and understand the importance of
using the expanded time periods to maximum
benefit," the commission's co-chairmen Frank
Fahrenkopf and Michael McCurry said.
Several female U.S. lawmakers and other women's
groups pressed for a newswoman to lead a debate
after three New Jersey teen-aged girls began an online
petition at Change.org. The girls also called on
Romney and Obama, a Democrat, for support.
"It is long past due to have a woman on the same
stage as the men running for president," one of the
girls, Sammi Siegel, wrote online. Their petition drew
170,000 signatures, several lawmakers said earlier
this month.
Other debate moderators include PBS Newshour's Jim
Lehrer on October 3 and CBS News' Bob Schieffer on
October 22. Both have led several past presidential
debates. ABC News' Martha Raddatz will moderate the
October 11 debate between Vice President Joe Biden
and Romney's running-mate U.S. Representative Paul
Ryan of Wisconsin.
(Reporting By Susan Heavey; Editing by Cynthia
Osterman)
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

Google Plans to Slash Jobs at Cell Phone Maker

Google will remake Motorola Mobility, the cell phone maker it bought this year, beginning with job cuts. Google plans to lay off 20 percent of Motorola Mobility’s workforce and close a third of its worldwide offices. The cell phone maker has suffered from a slide in market share. losing out to Samsung and Apple, the dominant players in the global market. The New York Times reports “the turnaround effort will also be a referendum on the management of Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, whose boldest move has been the $12.5 billion acquisition.” One third of the 4,000 job cuts will be in the US. Under its new management the company is said to be cutting back on the number of different phones it makes and ending production of low end devices.
Many small investors and savers have fled the stock market in the past few years. But that may not have been a wise move. Since the spring of 2009 when the market was at its lowest point in over a decade, the Dow Jones index has doubled. This year stock market has been climbing a wall of worry about the US economy and budget, Europe’s financial crisis, and slower growth in China. But the opens for business this morning above 13,200. The S&P 500 share index is up 12 percent this year. The market had its strongest gain for the first seven months of any year since 2003.
Gas prices are rising and they’re a real drag on household budgets. The Energy Department is expected to report another jump today in average prices. One reason for the rise is the soaring cost of ethanol, an ingredient in gasoline. Global oil prices are close to $93 for West Texas Crude, a rise from a month ago, but still well below the peak reached in early April. A survey of business traffic commissioned by British trade body UKinbound during the three weeks of the London games has found that 82 percent of tourism-oriented businesses suffered lost business versus the same period of 2011. Two-thirds said the numbers of tourists fell more than 10 percent. The group says a survey of more than 250 tour operators, hoteliers and visitor attractions found that tourist traffic fell all over Britain, not just London. The group says many travelers chose to skip the UK entirely because it would have required travel into London.
Barnes & Noble is reducing the price of its 8-gigabyte model of the Nook tablet computer by $20, bringing it to $179. That undercuts by 20 bucks the rival Kindle Fire sold by Amazon.com, which has 6 gigabytes of memory.
Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc

WikiLeaks says its site has suffered weeklong denial-of-service attack

LONDON - The secret-busting organization WikiLeaks says it's been the victim of a sustained denial-of-service attack which has left its website sluggish or inaccessible for more than a week.
In a statement released late Saturday the group said the assault intensified around the beginning of August and has since expanded to include attacks against affiliated sites.
Denial-of-service attacks work by overwhelming websites with requests for information. WikiLeaks has said it's been flooded with 10 gigabits per second of bogus traffic from thousands of different Internet addresses.
Josh Corman, with online content delivery company Akamai, characterized that as "a bit larger" than attacks commonly seen in the past few years.
WikiLeaks, which has angered officials in Washington with its spectacular releases of classified U.S. documents, remained inaccessible Sunday.
Source: yahoonews

Rihanna reveals plans to live with Chris Brown - Report

The celeb couple's 'rekindled romance' has been the talk of the press for quite a while now and it has recently intensified quite a lot, as the pair supposedly hooked up during a recent French vacation.

A source has told Look Magazine: "Rihanna is convinced it'll work this time. She and Chris had two intense days on that yacht [in France] and talked properly for the first time in years"

They then added: "Rihanna's asked Chris a million time before to break up with his girlfriend, but this time she believes he will do it."
"She wants him to live with her in LA once he sells his house, which is on the market at the moment."

Meanwhile, the pair will continue to have their 'secret hook ups' it seems, but have no intention of revealing all to the world just yet.

A friend of Chris Brown has told Hollywoodlife, “They still talk…on the regular"

He then added: “He probably talks to [Rihanna] three or four times a week by phone or text. And you already know they [are] sending each other messages and s*** on…Twitter"

But, as the source explains, it doesn’t just stop at talking. “[Their] relationship is what it is. They talk when they talk. They hook up when they hook up…They are two grown…people and can do whatever the f*** they want,” the friend says. “I guess they just don’t want all the press in [their] business. They need some privacy, too…I know some of the boys [are] pushing Chris to just go ahead and make [it] official with Rihanna but he [won't budge.]“
Source: Ascology

INFOGRAPHIC OF THE DAY | Empowering women Like & share.

.Women Can...................

..

Three more U.S. soldiers killed by Afghans in grim day for NATO

KABUL (Reuters) - Three U.S. Marines have been shot dead by an Afghan worker on a military base in southern Afghanistan, in a deadly 24 hours for NATO-led forces during which six American soldiers were killed in rogue attacks.

The shooting took place on Friday night in the Garmsir district of Helmand province, where three U.S. special forces soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman and comrades earlier in the day.

"Let me clearly say that those two incidents clearly do not reflect the overall situation here in Afghanistan," the chief NATO force spokesman, Brigadier-General Gunter Katz, told reporters on Saturday.

The three Marines were shot by a base employee who turned a gun on them, in the third rogue attack in four days. Foreign military sources said the man had not been wearing a uniform and it was unclear how he got hold of the weapon.

Iran earthquakes kill 180, injure 1,300

DUBAI (Reuters) - Two strong earthquakes killed 180 people and injured another 1,300 in northwest Iran where rescuers frantically combed through the rubble of dozens of villages on Sunday.

Thousands fled their homes and remained outdoors after Saturday's quakes, as at least 20 aftershocks hit the area.

“Madonna is a slut” – Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister

Pop legend Madonna has come under fire once more, this time from a senior Russian official. The singer was on Wednesday criticised for showing support to a girl group, the members of whom are currently trying to avoid harsh jail sentences. Russian prosecutors on Tuesday called for the three members of the feminist band “Pussy Riot”, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich, to be jailed for three years, stating that they had insulted all of Russian Orthodoxy and posed a danger to society. The group had performed a song criticising Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral and was charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

Performing on Tuesday night, Madonna on Tuesday night, while performing in Moscow’s Olimpisky Stadium took off her top and revealed the words “Pussy Riot” scrawled across her back during a performance of her 1984 hit Like a Virgin.

“I know there are many sides to every story,” she said. “And I mean no disrespect to the church or the government, but I think these girls have done something courageous and they have paid the price for this act and I pray for their freedom. They deserve the right to be free.”

Pytor Verzilov, the husband of one of the members of the group praised the singer for her actions, saying, “She might be changing Russia’s history by this. To give a sentence after something like this would be commiting international political suicide, admitting that you’re no better than North Korea.”

None of this was unfortunately received well by the Russian Government, judging by comments made b Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister. “With age, every former s. tries to lecture everyone on morality,” he wrote on Twitter late on Wednesday, using the first letter of the Russian word for “slut” or “whore”. “Especially during overseas tours.”

 Source: Dailypost

JTF arrests owner of Al-Amir restaurant - Daily Trust

Armed soldiers operating under the Joint Task Force
(JTF) on Thursday evening apprehended the owner of
Al-Amir restaurants chain, Alhaji Muktari, during a raid
at Gwammaja quarters in Kano metropolis.
JTF did not comment on the arrest, but Weekly Trust
gathered from security sources that the businessman
was being suspected of having links with the Boko
Haram sect, which has been carrying out attacks in
Kano and other parts of the north.
Eyewitnesses told our correspondent that the operation
lasted about an hour, during which dozens of troops
cordoned off the area around the suspect's residence
and forced residents to remain indoors.
A neighbour, who does not want his name mentioned,
said the soldiers stormed the area in about a dozen
military trucks, accompanied by armored personnel
carriers.
The raid had begun shortly after Muslims broke their
Ramadan fast. The spokesperson of the mosque
committee near the residence of the arrested
businessman and former deputy chairman of Dala Local
Government, Sama'ila Imam, said the soldiers had shut
them inside the mosque, before returning an hour after
done with the raid.
"We were inside the mosque, preparing to break our
fast when the soldiers arrived and shut the door from
outside. After about an hour, they returned with the
man, who was obviously beaten up," he said.
Imam also said that five soldiers entered the mosque,
while 20 others waited outside.
"They entered the mosque with their boots on and went
row after row, asking each one of us to stand up for the
Alhaji to identify if any of us were his accomplice. They
would ask him, 'is he the one?' and he would answer
'no'," he said.
"We had to come out after today's Friday prayers to
clear the air about the incident and to condemn the
desecration of our mosque by the JTF personnel," said
the mosque official.
A security source confirmed the arrest, saying the
businessman was picked for interrogation based on his
suspected association with the Boko Haram group. Of
recent, he said, security agents have received reports
about people on motorcycles visiting his 'Yan Majalisa
Estate residence in the night, which prompted his
arrest.
Meanwhile, Weekly Trust could not reach any relation of
the businessman for comments, as his family members
were said to be located in another part of the state.
Also, all attempts to get the JTF spokesperson,
Lieutenant Ikedichi Iweha, to speak on the arrest failed
yesterday as he did not answer several calls to his
mobile phone. He equally did not reply a text message
sent to him on the issue up to the time of going to
press.

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

Fareed Zakaria suspended for copying other writer's work

NEW YORK (AP) — Time editor-at-large and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has been suspended by both the magazine and the network for lifting several paragraphs by another writer for his use in a recent Time column.

Zakaria apologized Friday, declaring in a statement he made "a terrible mistake," adding, "It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault."

White Garment Pastor Exposed: Sex escapades, how he scams top politicians and fake predictions

Popular Lagos pastor and self acclaimed Nostradamus of this time, Primate Ayodele of Inri Alaseyori Cathedral Church, a white garment church in Lagos, is now the major discourse in the Christendom over his sudden wealth and his alleged nefarious activities, which is ungodly to the religion.

Aside being alleged as a shrewd scammer, he is also said to be fond of anything in skirt. It would be recalled that in one of his predictions, he had predicted that late president, Musa Yara Adua would returned hale and hearty, but unfortunately for him, the former President reportedly died of the illness.

BIZARRE: Herbalists rush for used condoms in Abuja, prostitutes arrested with quantities of sperm

Used Condoms in the past is something that none pays attention to, but shockingly it has now become one thing no one wants to drop carelessly especially patrons of “runs” babes in the Federal Capital Territory because of the huge financial prices.

Information has it that herbalists now buy it from most call girls and runs babes in the Federal Capital Territory.

Already most patrons now pick their used condoms from prostitutes, and dispose it themselves so as not to get their sperm that is stocked in the condom in the hands of herbalists.

According to those who should know, many young girls who are now involved in the prostitution business are now willing to go out with men at any cost unlike in the past. They don’t haggle prices with customers because they make fast cash from the sale of the sperm of all customers that they sleep with.

Woman attempts to steal newborn baby using a shopping bag

A woman disguised in scrubs was caught trying to steal a newborn girl from a Southern California hospital in a tote bag after sensors attached to the baby alerted employees, Garden Grove police said.

Grisel Ramirez, 48, was arrested Monday at Garden Grove Medical Center after a hospital staffer stopped her from leaving with the baby, Lt. Jeff Nightengale said during a news conference. “At this point we don’t have a solid reason why she stole the baby,” Nightengale said.

Ramirez is accused of posing as a nurse who came into the room of the baby’s mother and told her to take a shower before a doctor came to examine her, Nightengale said.

Once the baby’s mother was out of the room, Ramirez allegedly put the newborn in a purple tie-dyed tote bag and tried to carry her out of the ward. “An alarm went off when the baby crossed an imaginary line” in the hospital that set off a sensor, Nightengale said.

Many hospital wards have security systems where patients, such as newborns or those with Alzheimer’s disease, are tagged with an electronic sensor — usually in a bracelet or anklet — that sets off an alarm when the patient leaves a certain perimeter.

Authorities would not say what kind of system the Garden Grove hospital uses. Nightengale added that the baby was only in the bag for a short period of time. She wasn’t harmed and is back in the care of her mother
Nightengale credits an alert employee and hospital policies for stopping Ramirez and saving the baby. “The hospital staff reacted as they should,” said Nightengale.

Investigators later concluded that Ramirez was the woman who walked into a hospital in Anaheim last week and asked several questions of a pregnant woman, Nightengale told KCAL-TV Monday night. The questions raised suspicions and the pregnant woman told authorities, prompting police to circulate a flier with Ramirez’s picture on it, Nightengale said.

He said investigators have found no history of mental illness for Ramirez.

Source: Naij

London 2012: Seven Cameroonian athletes disappear from camp

Seven Cameroon athletes have disappeared while in Britain for the London Olympics, the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education said on Monday evening.

The seven – five boxers, a swimmer and a soccer player – are suspected of having left to stay in Europe for economic reasons.

“What began as rumor has finally turned out to be true. Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village,” David Ojong, the mission head said in a message sent to the ministry.

Ojong said a reserve goalkeeper for the women’s soccer team, Drusille Ngako, was the first to disappear. She was not one of the 18 finally retained after pre-Olympic training in Scotland.

While her team-mates left for Coventry for their last preparatory encounter against New Zealand, she vanished. A few days later, swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue and his personal belongings were also not found in his room.

Ojong added that five boxers eliminated from the games, Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo, disappeared on Sunday from the Olympic village.

International Olympic Committee officials said on Tuesday they had heard nothing about the missing athletes.

“We are unaware of it,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said when asked whether organizers had heard of it.

It is not the first time Cameroonian athletes have disappeared during international sports competitions.

At past Francophonie and Commonwealth games as well as junior soccer competitions, several Cameroonians have quit their delegation without official consent.

Jonas Dogara: No Be All Calabar Girls…

E dey always dey interesting to see how Nigerians dey react anytime foreigners talk bad about us as a group of people. If dem say dem arrest a Nigerian wey dey try to smuggle drugs into the UK or dupe people for Germany, e no dey really bother you. The worst thing wey you go say na ‘See how our country done bad? Na poverty dey make our people dey go do this kind thing o. God help us.’ Depending on wetin the name of the arrested Nigerian be, you fit add ‘Chei, Igbo men and money!’ or ‘Yoruba people!’ or something else wey involve tribe. Then we move on to another thing.

But if you dey travel outside Naija and when dem see your green passport, dem take you go corner and search craze comot for your body, na different story. You go wan mad! But you no go rake for there o, make strong thing no come happen. You go wait until you comot for airport before you begin holler, and the holler dey always be for Queen’s English.

Was the Sikh temple shooting domestic terrorism? - Yahoonews

Members of the Sikh community in Wisconsin hold up a photo of the suspected gunman. (Darren Hauck/Getty)

The FBI is treating a mass shooting on Sunday at a Milwaukee-area Sikh Temple as a possible act of domestic terrorism, officials announced in a press conference Monday. Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran and suspected white supremacist, is believed to be the gunman and was killed at the scene of the crime.

Michael Eric Dyson Interviews Nas 8/3/12

Hello Midas, Check out the interview granted to NAS by Michael Eric Dyson and do not hesitate to tell us what you think about it. Regards!

Condemn Boko Haram, Clark dares IBB, Buhari - Vanguard

Former heads of state, Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari

ABUJA— Elder statesman and prominent Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, yesterday, declared that some highly placed individuals from the Northern part of the country were behind the increasing spate of violence in Nigeria to actualize their vow of “making the nation ungovernable for President Jonathan.”
Speaking as a guest lecturer at the “2nd State of the Federation Lecture” organized by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, NIALS, Clark therefore challenged two former heads of state, Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari, to establish their innocence by publicly condemning activities of the Boko Haram Islamic sect.
The lecture was chaired by former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana.

Second Israeli dies in self-immolation welfare protest

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli who set himself on fire in protest at economic difficulties has died of his
 injuries, the hospital treating him said on Wednesday,the second such death in a few days.
Akiva Mafi, a 45-year-old, wheelchair-bound armyveteran, doused his body in petrol and lit it at a bus
station on July 22, after what friends described as a debilitating battle for welfare benefits.He was the second such fatality after Moshe Silman, a debt-ridden member of a grassroots movement calling for lower living costs, self-immolated during a July 14 demonstration in Tel Aviv and died two weeks
later. Silman, 57, left a note accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative government of
"taking from the poor and giving to the rich". Local media reported similar suicide bids among others
suffering economic hardship. In response to the deaths, activists announced plans
to hold a demonstration in Tel Aviv later this week "as a shout-out against economic hardship leading some
to suicide." Speaking on Israeli television after his cabinet approved a new package of tax increases and
spending cuts on Tuesday, Netanyahu described the self-immolations as tragic but cautioned against
"drawing conclusions about the overall populace,"which he argued had been spared deeper fiscal crises.

US: Drought deepens worries about food supplies, prices - Reuters

A drought-damaged corn field is …

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Alarm grew over the unrelenting Midwest drought on Tuesday, as one of the top corporate leaders in agriculture warned that the government must act quickly to reduce the amount of corn going to ethanol to prevent a sharp spike in food prices.

Worries about the worst drought in more than half a century afflicting the world's largest grain exporter also deepened overseas, where buyers in China and other hungry nations fret that the expected sharp drop in U.S. harvests will cause shortages and price spikes.

Greg Page, chief executive of global grains trading giant Cargill Inc, joined a chorus of critics of biofuels by urging the U.S. government to temporarily curb its quotas to produce corn-based ethanol fuel.

Corn plants struggle to survive 

Page said on CNBC that the U.S. biofuel mandate "needs to be addressed" through existing policy tools. Otherwise, the spike in U.S. corn and soybean prices to record highs will "ration" demand in ways that will hurt food production too much.

"If all of that is only on livestock or food consumers, it really makes the burden disproportionate. What we see are 3 or 4 percent declines in supply lead to 40 to 50 percent increases in prices, and I think the mandates are what drives that," he said.

In 2011, almost 40 percent of the giant U.S. corn crop went into making ethanol, and the United States still exported more than half of all corn shipments worldwide.

"There is a methodology to reduce the amount of biofuels that is mandated in the U.S," Page said.

The U.S. Agriculture Department last week raised its estimates of food price inflation due to soaring grain prices tied to the drought, saying prices could rise as much as 3.5 percent this year and another 3-4 percent in 2013, led by meat.

On Monday, U.S. livestock groups appealed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to curb or suspend the mandate, warning against the ruinous impact of soaring feed costs. Corn and soybean meal make up basic animal feedstuffs.

Page said the shortfall in supply would be "manageable" provided that consumers ration their use, that producers don't impose export constraints and importers don't embark on a panicked buying spree, as some did in 2008 -- a beggar-thy-neighbor approach widely seen to have worsened the price spike.

"We need thoughtful responses from governments. We need to be sure free trade remains. In past periods of shortage of crops, we've had embargoes, which have exacerbated peoples' supply concerns and caused people to take actions that were not helpful to global aggregate food security," he said.

CROP OUTLOOK WORSENS

Grain analysts polled by Reuters pointed to a U.S. corn crop of 11.2 billion bushels, the smallest in six years and down 14 percent from USDA's latest forecast of 12.97 billion. Initial forecasts were for a crop of more than 14 billion bushels.

Soybeans, which were planted later and until now escaped the drought's pressure, are now also being hurt. Analysts predict a 2.834 billion bushel harvest, the smallest in four years, and down from USDA's latest estimate of 3.05 billion bushels.
The drought is hitting other food producers besides Cargill.

Oilseed processor and ethanol producer Archer Daniels Midland Inc reported a larger than expected 25 percent drop in quarterly profit on Tuesday due in part to higher corn prices causing it to lose money making ethanol.

"In a challenging fourth quarter, solid results from our global oilseeds business, particularly in South America, were more than offset by negative U.S. ethanol margins and weaker U.S. merchandising results." ADM CEO Patricia Woertz said.

Brokerage BB&T Capital Markets last week lowered its earnings forecasts for U.S. pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc and U.S. chicken producer Sanderson Farms Inc, citing corn prices.

But some said that easing off ethanol production -- already at a two-year low amid soaring corn prices -- was unnecessary.

In Iowa, the largest U.S. corn and soybean producer, Gov. Terry Branstad said on Tuesday he opposed an ethanol waiver.

"Even if you took that kind of action, it probably would have no action on soybean and corn prices," Branstad said.

Ray Bardole of Rippey, Iowa, a soybean farmer and industry official now touring China, told reporters by phone that he has been reassuring the worried Chinese, who are the biggest importers of U.S. soybeans.
"As we have met with folks from the government, as well as the Chinese media and our customers themselves, that is absolutely the very top thing on their mind," he said. "'What is the dry weather going to do to our supply?'"
At the Chicago Board of Trade corn and soybean markets eased back from new record highs this week as traders took their profits. Even with Tuesday's drop, corn prices are up 20 percent in July to post the biggest two-month rally since the last major drought in 1988.
December corn futures closed down 1.1 percent at $8.05-1/4 per bushel and November soybeans closed down 0.2 percent at $16.41 per bushel.
"We are continuing to see a deterioration of the crops," grains analyst Karl Setzer of MaxYield Cooperative in West Bend, Iowa said, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's crop progress report issued on Monday.
That report said 24 percent of the domestic corn crop was in good-to-excellent condition as of Sunday, down from 26 percent the previous week. That was a tad better than trade expectations for a three-point drop.
The soybean crop was 29 percent in that category, down from 31 percent in the previous week.
Those ratings were the worst for those crops since the last major drought in 1988.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Leff and Brian Winter. Editing by Peter Bohan and Leslie Gevirtz)