Rumors of Professor Dora Akunyili’s purported
death has been really strong since yesterday but
thankfully it’s not true. Her media aide Isaac
Ummuna took to her Facebook page this evening to
refute the rumours. May her days on earth be graced with life and strength
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
U.S. defense officials said Thursday that Russia has
pulled most of its forces away from the Ukraine
border, a withdrawal that the U.S. has been
demanding for weeks. They said about seven
battalions remained, amounting to a couple of
thousand troops. U.S. officials had estimated as many
as 40,000 Russian forces had been aligned along the
border with a restive eastern Ukraine that has been
wracked with violence between government security
forces and pro-Russian separatists. The defense
officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to speak publicly about the
precise numbers. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
didn’t provide any details to reporters traveling with
him at the start of a 12-day overseas trip, but he
called the withdrawal promising
In this April 17, 2014, file photo, U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry, left, talks with Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov at the start of a bilateral
meeting to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine in
Geneva. Nearly a quarter century after the Cold War
ended, the crisis in Ukraine symbolizes the weak
foreign policy hand the United States often finds itself
playing despite its status as the only global
superpower. Kerry last week in Geneva negotiated a
deal with Russia, Ukraine and the European Union that
was designed to ease tensions.
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her response to the
deadly 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya,
writing in her new book that she will “not be part of a
political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans.”
Clinton’s upcoming book, “Hard Choices,” is both a
rebuke to Republicans who have seized upon the
terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, and a roadmap for
Democrats to defend the Obama administration’s
reaction to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. Should Clinton
run for president in 2016, her four years as secretary
of state — including the deaths in Benghazi and the
follow-up inquests — could be a driving factor in that
campaign. Find more news related pictures in our
photo galleries and follow us on Tumblr
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
The deadly Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the consulate in
Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and
three other Americans.
Source : ABC News
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
MEXICO CITY — A U.S.-born signer of northern
Mexican “banda” music has been shot to death at a
restaurant in the border state of Sonora.
State police in Sonora said Tomas Tovar Rascon was
born in Phoenix, Arizona, and was shot several times
at the restaurant in Ciudad Obregon.
Tovar Rascon, 33, was better known by his stage
name, “Tito Torbellino.”
His Facebook page said he was scheduled to perform
at a concert in Ciudad Obregon on Friday. A U.S.
booking agent listed for Torbellino confirmed his
death.
Police said two gunmen entered the restaurant
Thursday and shot Tovar Rascon at close range. He
was taken to a local hospital but died on the way
there.
Members of other musical groups have been
murdered in Mexico in recent years, usually groups
that perform “narcocorridos” that celebrate the
exploits of drug traffickers.
But while some guns appear in Torbellino’s music
videos, his songs mainly focused on unrequited love,
not drug gangs.
Experts say drug capos sometimes target musicians
because of their ties to rival groups, or sentimental
involvements.
In 2013, South Texas singer Jesus “Chuy” Quintanilla
was found shot in the head near Mission, Texas.
Quintanilla was well known for his ballads, including
some about the exploits of Mexican drug cartels
Source : Associated Press
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
The extremist Boko Haram sect has kidnapped two
first class traditional rulers in Borno state – the Emir
of Uba, Ismaila Mamza and the Emir of Gwoza, Idrisa
Timta, security officials aware of the incident have
told PREMIUM TIMES.
The two emirs were seized by gun-wielding
insurgents at 10a.m Friday near Shaffa while they
were travelling to Gombe to attend the funeral of
the Emir of Gombe, Shehu Abubakar, who died
on Tuesday evening at the Royal Marsden Hospital,
London, where he was undergoing treatment for
cancer.
The two abducted emirs were elevated to First Class
traditional ruler status only in January.
The Borno statement government is yet to issue an
official statement on the abduction.
The abduction came 46 days after the Boko Haram
sect whisked away over 250 schoolgirls from their
dormitories in Chibok.
Over 200 of the girls are yet to be freed.
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
The Super eagles of Nigeria will take on their Greek
counterparts in a world cup friendly match next
Wednesday, in Philadelphia USA. Nigeria coach,
Stephen Keshi, will likely use this game to further
assess his tactics and personnel for the upcoming
Brazil 2014 world cup.
This would be the 3rd meeting between both teams.
The Nigerians were 2-0 winners over the Greeks at
the 1994 world cup, but the tables were turned 4
years ago, when the Greeks beat the Nigerians by
2-1 in a 2010 world cup group match.
The match venue is the PPL Park, in Chester,
Pennsylvania.
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
Competent security sources confirmed that the
Gwoza emir is dead.
Some sources said he died of heart attack while
fleeing into the bush after the gunmen had fired
several vehicles at their vehicle which forced it to
stop.
“Already, arrangement is being made to bring his
corpse to Gwoza from Shafa. His corpse was found in
the bush,” a source said.
The emir of Uba, who is said to be younger had
escaped while many of the people in their entourage
have been reportedly abducted by the attackers.
It was gathered that most of the vehicles in the
convoy have been set ablaze.
Latest story from Uba Emirate indicates that the
emir, Alhaji Ali Ibn Ismaila Mamza has narrowly
escaped.
One of his in-laws confirmed to Daily Trust that he
spoke with the emir by phone who confirmed to him
that he was ok.
However, there is no certainty on the where about of
Emir of Gwoza, Ahaji Idrissa Timta.
It was gathered that the two of them were in the
same car when the suspected gunmen ambushed
them.
“The vehicle was repeatedly shot at while the driver
was making endless efforts to flee. When the vehicle
could no longer move, the two monarchs opened
the doors and fled into the bush,” a palace source in
Uba, said.
But a source in Gwoza said “We are yet to hear
much information on the state of our emir…we are
confused,” he said
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
Climate changes that have made Montana
streams much warmer over the last 30 years are
helping invasive trout push their native cousins
toward extinction, researchers said on Tuesday,
saying study is an example of global warming
reducing biodiversity.
The study led by ecologists with the U.S. Geological
Survey links warming streams and reduced spring
flows in the Flathead River basin in western Montana
and Canada to a sharp rise in interbreeding between
rainbow trout introduced by government fishery
managers and native westslope cutthroat trout.
The study, published in the latest edition of the
journal Nature Climate Change, shows evidence that a
warming planet could decrease biodiversity by
supporting cross-breeding between invasive and
native species, authors said.
Rainbow trout, stocked in Rocky Mountain streams
and lakes to lure anglers, fared better than westslope
cutthroat during a warming trend in the Flathead
basin that saw mean air temperatures rise by roughly
0.36 degrees Celsius per decade between 1978 and
2008, a rate that is twice the global average, the
study shows.
Like other invasive fish, rainbows have greater
tolerance for environmental alterations like lower
stream flows because of drought while native trout
adapted to local conditions that historically brought
colder water in greater volumes.
Variables such as habitat degradation were the focus
of previous research on the impact on climate
changes on native fish in the western United States.
While hybridization is a well-established threat to
native cutthroat trout in western North America, the
study led by USGS ecologist Clint Muhlfeld and others
demonstrated how factors such as rising water
temperatures influence evolutionary processes by
accelerating interbreeding with rainbow trout and
corrupting the natural genetic pool that allowed
westslope cutthroat to adapt and survive in local
streams for more than 12,000 years.
“Hybridization was a time bomb waiting to go off
under the right set of conditions,” Muhlfeld said.
Cross-breeding reduced the overall fitness of the
native fish, likely decreasing the resiliency and
adaptive capacity that helped it survive cataclysmic
events like glaciation, researchers found.
“If these nonnative rainbow trout populations persist,
we think the writing is on the wall and there will be
the loss of these native cutthroat trout, a genomic
extinction,” Muhlfeld said.
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
Leaving politics
behind, a veteran Russian cosmonaut and a pair of
rookie astronauts from the United States and
Germany blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a six-month mission
aboard the International Space Station.
The crew’s Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off at 3:57 p.m.
EDT and headed into orbit, a live broadcast on NASA
Television showed.
Perched on top of the rocket was a Russian Soyuz
capsule holding cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, a retired
Russian Air Force colonel; NASA astronaut and U.S.
Navy pilot Reid Wiseman; and German astronaut and
geophysicist Alexander Gerst.
“Adrenaline is rising but feel relaxed,” Gerst, 38,
posted on Twitter as he and his crewmates rode a bus
out to the launch pad.
Less than six hours after liftoff, Gerst and his
crewmates reached the station, a $100 billion
research laboratory as it flew about 260 miles (418
km) above the Pacific Ocean west of Peru.
The Soyuz slipped into a berthing port on the station’s
Rassvet module at 9:44 p.m. EDT.
The station, a project of 15 nations, is overseen by the
United States and Russia.
Tensions between the countries have been strained
following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea
peninsula and economic sanctions imposed by the
United States as punishment. But until recently, the
space partnership was largely exempt from the
political rancor and the sanctions’ financial impacts.
That ended earlier this month when Russian officials
said they would not support a U.S. proposal to keep
the station operating beyond 2020. Russia also
imposed its own ban on selling Russian rocket motors
for U.S. military launches, a more immediate concern
since one of two primary rockets currently flying U.S.
military missions use Russian-made engines.
At a prelaunch press conference on Tuesday, the new
space station crew was asked if the escalating
tensions were having any impact on their mission.
In response, Suraev, Reid and Gerst slapped their
arms around each other and hugged.
Aboard the space station, currently staffed by NASA
astronaut Steven Swanson and two Russian
cosmonauts, it’s business as usual, Swanson said
during an inflight interview broadcast on NASA
Television on Tuesday.
“We don’t talk about it much, honestly,” Swanson
said. “It does not affect our working relationship. We
get along very well. There are no issues at all up here.”
Source : Reuters
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.
Hayden Panettiere’s pregnancy
has been outed by one of her close
friends.
The news of the Nashville star’s
pregnancy was announced by
Jersey Shore star Snooki who
congratulated the Heroes star on
her website today.
The reality TV star gushed over her
friend’s pregnancy saying: “YAY
congrats Hayden Panettiere on
expecting your first bundle of joy!”
It’s not yet known when the 24-
year-old actress and her fiance, 36-
year-old boxer Wladimir Klitschko, are expecting
their child.
According to the Daily Mail, the actress and her
fiance have reportedly put their wedding plans on
hold due to the conflict in Ukraine which Klitschko
has been heavily involved in.
Wladimir Klitschko is the brother of Vitali Klitschko
who was a Ukrainian presidential candidate.
Speaking to US magazine in May, Panettiere spoke of
wanting to become a mother.
“I’ve lived a very big life, and I don’t feel my age, and
I feel like I was born to be a mother,” she said.
“Sometimes people speak about [having kids] like,
‘Your life ends – you’re never going to be able to do
anything again!’ And I’m like, ‘What are you talking
about?’ Motherhood is the most beautiful, exciting
thing, and there’s nothing that I feel like I can’t accomplish while having children in my life.”
herexg's Blog 