NIGERIA : Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign billboard burnt in Abuja over election postponement

The incident was said to have taken place following earlier rumours that the Independent National Electoral Commission had postponed the February 14, 2015 Presidential election.

The billboard is located on the ever-busy Suleija-Kaduna Expressway at the Federal Housing junction, beside the office of the National Emergency Management Agency in Kubwa.

On it was boldly written, “On February 14, vote Goodluck, vote PDP, The Goodluck Thumb.”

It was learnt that the arsonist drove to the billboard, parked his car, brought out a tyre and set it on fire.

But the arsonist, according to officials of NEMA, who pleaded anonymity, came back in the night and on seeing that the fire didn’t do much damage poured petrol on another tyre and set it ablaze.

It was not however clear who was responsible and what prompted it.

But a taxi driver within the vicinity, who simply identified himself as Yahaya, said, “The incident happened following earlier rumours that the February 14 presidential election has been postponed.”

Our source saw ashes of the burnt billboard during a visit to the site on Sunday.

Some youths had recently pelted the convoy of President Goodluck Jonathan in Katsina and Bauchi states and burnt his campaign vehicles in Jos.

The Nigeria Posterity Project had expressed concern over the use of stones and destruction of campaign posters belonging to Jonathan by some northern youths.

According to the organization, northern leaders should tone down their utterances and allow free campaigns by all candidates in all parts of the country.

The National Coordinator of the NPP, Mr. Louis Ebodaghe, had said, “The burning of President Jonathan’s campaign vehicles in parts of the North and the pulling down of his posters in parts of the North can only be likened to Nazi Germany where, for the fear of Hitler, everybody must fly the Nazi flag even against their conscience. This cannot be tolerated in modern day Nigeria and should not be encouraged.”

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress in Cross River has disclosed plans to embark on a One- Million Youth March in the state to reiterate support for the party’s presidential candidate, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), despite the poll shift.

The party condemned the postponement of the general elections earlier scheduled for February 14 and 28, saying it was obvious that the leadership of the PDP was afraid of impending defeat at the polls.

Speaking on behalf of the party after a crucial meeting on Sunday, the state APC Youth Leader, Mr. Effiom Otu, said the youth wing of the party would organise a one-million youth march in solidarity with the APC presidential candidate and other APC candidates to garner support for the party ahead of the elections.

Otu also said the youths had endorsed a door-to-door campaign for the party, adding that the objective was to educate and sensitise the electorate in order for them to be convinced.

He said the campaign would ensure that all the 2,283 polling units in the state were aggressively covered in the exercise.

Otu said, “We will organise a one-million youth march in the state capital soon in solidarity with our presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and other candidates to garner more support for the party ahead of the elections.

“We (the youths) have endorsed a door-to-door campaign for the party in the state. The objective is to ensure that those who hold suspicious view about the person and capacity of the party candidates for the election are educated and sensitised to jettison their held conviction.”

He castigated the Presidency for using insecurity as a reason for the polls shift, explaining that there was no strength in the argument advanced for the postponement.

Otu said, “The Presidency was caught in another web of cajoling by feigning insecurity as the reason for the postponement because it could not convincingly pull through the issue of PVCs collection as initial reason for the shift.

GRAMMY AWARDS: Birdman Denied Entry To Nicki Minaj’s Pre-Grammy Party

According to TMZ, Birdman and his huge entourage were turned away from Nicki Minaj’s Pre-Grammy party in West Hollywood early Sunday morning. Apparently, Birdman and his crew showed up to the party at 1:45 am to be turned away with an explanation that the club was about to close.  It could be as simple as that, but you would think that Nicki would make a way for the CEO of Cash Money Records, the parent company of her mentor Lil’ Wayne’s label, Young Money. Maybe Birdman was just too tardy for the party, or maybe Nicki is making it known who she is siding with in the beef Birdman is currently experiencing with Lil’ Wayne who wants to cut all ties with him and is rumored to be suing him for the advance of the delayed Carter V album.

In other news, Grammy weekend is shaping up to be pretty crazy. TMZ also reports that someone was shot to death outside of Hollywood’s Supper Club where Snoop Dogg, Schoolboy Q and Wiz Khalifa were partying inside. The rappers had nothing to do with the shooting, but police report two men were involved in an altercation which resulted in one man being shot in the head and rushed to the hospital where he died. Cops have a suspect in custody and say it looks like the men may have been gang-affiliated.

We hope these Grammy festivities can turn down just a tad so these celebs can win some awards, party safely and go home.

Cairo, Egypt: 25 people killed in Egyptian soccer match riot (PHOTOS)

A pickup truck bursts into flames as a riot breaks out outside of a soccer match between Egyptian Premier League clubs Zamalek and ENPPI at Air Defense Stadium in a suburb east of Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015.

 
CAIRO (AP) — A riot broke out Sunday night outside of a major soccer game in Egypt, with a stampede and fighting between police and fans killing at least 25 people, authorities said.

The riot, only three years after similar violence killed 74 people, began ahead of a match between Egyptian Premier League clubs Zamalek and ENPPI at Air Defense Stadium east of Cairo. Such attacks in the past have sparked days of violent protests pitting the country's hard-core fans against police officers in a nation already on edge after years of revolt and turmoil.

Two security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the violence killed at least 25 people.

Egypt's public prosecutor issued a statement ordering an investigation. After convening an emergency meeting to discuss the violence, the Cabinet announced that it was postponing upcoming soccer matches until further notice, Egypt's state television said.

What caused the violence wasn't immediately clear. Security officials said Zamalek fans tried to force their way into the match without tickets, sparking clashes. Fans have only recently been allowed back at matches and the Interior Ministry planned to let only 10,000 fans into the stadium, which has a capacity of about 30,000, the officials said.

Zamalek fans, known as "White Knights," posted on their group's official Facebook page that the violence began because authorities only opened one narrow, barbed-wire door to let them in. They said that sparked pushing and shoving that later saw police officers fire tear gas and birdshot.

Fans of Egypt's Zamalek soccer team flock in droves outside the Air Defense Stadium to watch a match between Egyptian Premier League clubs Zamalek and ENPPI in a suburb east of Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015.

The Zamalek fan group later posted pictures on Facebook it claimed were of dead fans, including the names of 22 people it said had been killed. The AP could not immediately verify the images.

Egypt's hard-core soccer fans, known as Ultras, frequently clash with police inside and outside of stadiums. They are deeply politicized and many participated in the country's 2011 uprising that forced out President Hosni Mubarak. Many consider them as one of the most organized movements in Egypt after the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which the government later outlawed as a terrorist organization following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The violence comes as police face increasing scrutiny following the shooting death of a female protester in Cairo and the arrest of protesters under a law heavily restricting demonstrations. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has pledged to bring stability to Egypt amid bombings and attacks by Islamic militants, but also has said Egypt's emergency situation meant that some violations of human rights were inevitable, if regrettable.

Soccer fans hold lit flares at the stand as they watch a match between Egyptian Premier League clubs Zamalek and ENPPI at Air Defense Stadium in a suburb east of Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015

The deadliest riot in Egypt soccer history came during a 2012 match when Port Said's Al-Masry team hosted Cairo's Al-Ahly. That riot, at the time the deadliest worldwide since 1996, killed 74 people, mostly Al-Ahly fans.

Two police officers later received 15-year prison sentences for gross negligence and failure to stop the Port Said killings, a rare incident of security officials being held responsible for deaths in the country. Seven other officers were acquitted, angering soccer fans who wanted more police officers to be held accountable for the incident and other episodes of violence.

In response, angry fans burned down the headquarters of Egypt's Football Association, also protesting its decision to resume matches before bringing those behind that 2012 riot to justice. They've also protested and fought officers outside of the country's Interior Ministry, which oversees police in the country.

TERRIBLE: Newly-Married Couple Stabbed Themselves To Death, Abandoning Their Son (PHOTOS)

The 18-month old baby boy pictured with his deceased parents, Mr and Mrs Michael Tabacchi both died from stab wounds and were pronounced dead at Englewood Hospital and Medical Centeron Saturday, Februar 7, 2015. (Photo Credit: Facebook)

Residents woke up on Saturday, February 7, 2015 to be greeted with the shocking death of a newly-married couple who were stabbed to death from what the police referred to as ‘murder-suicide’ in their house at about11 p.m. on Friday, February 6, 2015.

The couple, Michael Tabacchi, 27, and Denise Pars Tabacchi, 41, were discovered dead in their home on High Street in ClosterNew Jersey couple have been found stabbed to death in their own home.

The deceased couple’s 18-month old son was found unharmed at the residence and is now being cared for by relatives.

The mystery surrounding the death of the duo is yet to be unraveled as different speculations crop up from people and investigators recovered a knife from the scene.

A police officer holds a roll of barrier tape outside the house in Closter, New Jersey. where a couple, Mr and Mrs Michael Tabacchi was found dead in a possible murder-suicide. (Photo Credit: Facebook)

 Some believe the couple must have stabbed themselves to death whereas others were trying to figure out which of the duo was responsible for the tragic death.

It was alleged that the man had initially sent a message to his parents inviting them to their house and on arrival, he was discovered dead together with his wife.

The parents raised and alarm which attracted the neighbours before the attention of the police was called to the scene, who arrived with an ambulance according to ABC 7.

They were rushed to Englewood Hospital and Medical Center nearby where they were confirmed dead by paramedics.

One of their neigbours Myles Evans said, ‘It’s shocking, yeah of course, I mean it’s especially heartbreaking because they looked like a young couple, and they have a baby – it’s terrible.’

The abandoned 18-month old baby boy and his deceased daddy, Mr Michael Tabacchi who was found dead with his wife on Saturday, February7, 2015 in his house in New Jersey. (Photo Credit: Facebook)

The Facebook page of the deceased man disclosed that they have been married for just nine months and neighbors say they couple moved into their home less than a year ago.

The Medical Examiners are left with the task of unravelling the mystery surrounding their death to determine who possibly who killed who.

INEC: Nigeria postpone February14 Presidential elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which oversees Nigeria's elections have postponed the  February 14 and 28 presidential and legislative elections for six weeks to give a new multinational force time to battle Boko Haram, and secure North East Nigeria.

According to reports presented by INEC to the Council of States meeting on Thursday, millions could be disenfranchised if the voting went ahead while the Islamic extremists hold a large swath of the northeast and commit mayhem that has driven 1.5 million people from their homes.

A major offensive with warplanes and ground troops from Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria already has forced the insurgents from a dozen towns and villages in the past 10 days. More severe military strikes by more countries are planned.

Officials in President Goodluck Jonathan's administration, political parties, presidential candidates, as well as civil society groups have been agitating for postponement, which is opposed by an opposition coalition fielding his chief rival, former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari.

Supporters of both sides are threatening violence if their candidate does not win. Already, hordes of southerners living in the North are moving back to their states of origin. Majority of them are Igbos from the five South East states. It will be recalled that southerners in the north were the biggest casualties during the electoral violence that followed Jonathan's victory over Buhari, back in 2011.

A postponement also will give INEC enough time over 30 million voter cards, which are still not given to voters, seven days to elections. The commission had said the non-delivery of cards to nearly half of the 68.8 million registered voters was not a good reason to delay the vote.

Harvard University officially bans relationships between undergraduate students and professors

Harvard has banned relationships between undergrads and professors Photograph: Porter Gifford/Corbis

Harvard University has officially moved to ban s - e - x and romantic relationships between students and their teachers.

Relationships between undergraduates and faculty members are prohibited. Faculty are also prohibited from relationships with graduate students who are under their supervision, while graduate students are prohibited from relationships with undergraduates only “if the graduate student is in a position to grade, evaluate, or supervise the undergraduate”.

The actions follow those of Yale University, which banned student-faculty relationships in 2010; the University of Connecticut, which banned them in 2013 and Arizona State University, whose faculty voted to prohibit themselves from dating students whom they might “reasonably be expected” to have academic authority over in January, according to Arizona Central.

A spokesperson for Yale told Bloomberg that several faculty had been disciplined since the rule was imposed. 

In a statement given to the Guardian by email, a spokesperson for Harvard said that as part of the process of reviewing the university’s Title IX policy, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ committee on s - e - x - u - a - l misconduct had “determined that the existing language on relationships of unequal status did not explicitly reflect the faculty’s expectations of what constituted an appropriate relationship between undergraduate students and faculty members”.

“Therefore, the committee revised the policy to include a clear prohibition to better accord with these expectations,” the statement concluded.

Faculty are also prohibited from relationships with graduate students who are under their supervision, while graduate students are prohibited from relationships with undergraduates only “if the graduate student is in a position to grade, evaluate, or supervise the undergraduate”.

Alison Johnson, the professor who chairs the committee on s - e - x - u - a - l misconduct, told Bloomberg that the decision had not been particularly contentious on campus. “Undergraduates come to college to learn from us,” she said. “We’re not here to have s - e - x - u - a - l or romantic relationships with them.”

Other universities take a more laissez-faire approach to the issue. “The best time to date your professor, if at all, is after you have graduated from school,” is the advice given by the University of California, Santa Cruz, and reproduced on the website of the Women’s Center at Northwestern University.

“While it is true that some students have been able to date their professors without any problems, this is the exception rather than the rule.”

Toronto named world's best city to live: Economist magazine

Yahoo Canada News/Wikimedia Commons - Toronto skyline

If you ask any Torontonian, they’ll probably already tell you they live in the best city in the world, but thanks to a series of ego-inflating studies by The Economist, now there’s some validation.

The city was named the best overall place to live, after scoring highly on the U.K.-based magazine’s business environment, democracy, food security, safety and livability indices.

Montreal, the only other Canadian city in the rankings, clinched second in the shortlist of 25 cities. 

“Deciding where to live is a personal choice for many city residents. For some, safety will be paramount. Others will prioritise culture and creativity. Two neighbours may hold opposite views on democracy and the cost of living,” acknowledges the Economist’s Intelligence Unit in the report. “The average rankings for the 25 best-performing cities are set out below – Toronto in Canada is a consistent performer across the five other indexes, putting it top overall.”

While, Toronto placed fourth on both the Business Environment and Livability rankings, the city only scored eighth in the Safe Cities index, which was topped by Tokyo. Indicators include pedestrian friendliness, gun regulation and enforcement and drug use.

Toronto’s weakest ranking was in the cost of living category where it sat at 70, smack dab in the centre of 140 spots, behind cities like Tehran, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi and even San Francisco.

Surprisingly, Toronto’s bar-raising former mayor Rob Ford and billboard-dancing hip hop superstar Drake weren’t considered in the metrics.

Best overall place to live:

10. Chicago

9. Sydney

8. Washington, DC

7. Zurich

6. Melbourne

5. San Francisco

4. Amsterdam

3. Stockholm

2. Montreal

1. Toronto

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao met face-to-face at the Heat game

"Mayweather and Pacquiao attend the same basketball game" is the closest we've ever come to a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

Frequent NBA attendee Floyd Mayweather is at Tuesday night's game between the Heat and the Bucks. Manny Pacquiao is also at Tuesday night's game between the Heat and the Bucks. The Heat decided to put them together on the big screen:

of course, the two boxers have been rumored as potential opponents for what seems like a decade, although it seems as if the possibility of a fight between the two is more real than ever.

This is the second time Mayweather has been reminded of his would-be rival at an NBA game -- when Mayweather attended a Clippers game last week, he was heckled by fans screaming "FIGHT PACQUIAO."

ISIS fighters in Iraq 'have contracted Ebola' : World Health Organisation

According to three media outlets an undisclosed number of militants displaying signs of the disease attended a hospital in the ISIS-held city of Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, the Daily Mail reports.

While the reports, from Kurdish and pro-Iraqi sources, remain unconfirmed, WHO spokesman Christy Feig said the group are trying to reach out to officials in ISIS-held areas to offer help.

Feig said: “We have no official notification from [the Iraqi government] that it is Ebola.”

“UN workers are currently banned from entering ISIS-controlled areas in both Iraq and Syria so it is unlikely an operation in the region could be carried out,” according to the report.

According to a report in Iraq's pro-government newspaper, al Sabaah, the disease was brought to Mosul by 'terrorists' arriving 'from several countries' and Africa.

'Unruly' SA woman causes international flight diversion

Cape Town - A 30-year-old South African woman has been arrested for allegedly assaulting two Air Canada flight attendants, causing Flight 869 from London to Toronto to be temporarily diverted.

A CP24 report states Nomantangwa Angel Babhekile Johansson of Sandhurst, Sandton is facing three counts of assault on an aircraft, one count of assault with a weapon, one count of causing a disturbance and one count of endangering an aircraft under the Aeronautics Act.

The Chronicle Herald states Johansson's charges were based on the use of a "water bottle" during the assault as well as disturbance caused by "screaming and swearing". 

The Air Canada diversion to Halifax Stanfield International Airport was also confirmed in a tweet by the airport.

The plane was carrying 239 passengers on board and police confirmed nobody was hurt during the incident.  It continued to Toronto 40 minutes after the incident. 

Johansson, who will be staying with relatives in Oakville Ontario, and has since appeared in the Dartmouth Provincial Court after the arrest, has been released on R10 000 bail. She also agreed to surrender her SA passport and report in person or by phone to authorities every Friday, beginning December 26.

The matter is expected to return to court on January 22.