No fewer than 13 migrants died in a snowstorm in eastern Turkey night after crossing the border from Iran, a human rights organisation of Van province in Turkey said late Saturday.
The people had reached the mountains in the Caldiran district, where they were caught in a snowstorm and frozen to death.
Mehmet Bilmez, the Governor of the province, said he had been notified that 13 people had died after crossing the border illegally, in remarks to state news agency Anadolu.
Bilmez said the weather conditions had prevented the emergency services Afad from reaching the area.
He said that the migrants’ nationalities were not confirmed but according to a report in the Evrensel newspaper, 10 came from Afghanistan and three from Kobane, a town on the border between Turkey and Syria.
The CBS News chief called threats against journalist Gayle King “reprehensible” Saturday as backlash grew against rapper Snoop Dogg and others critical of King for an interview where she asked about a sexual assault charge against the late Kobe Bryant.
Snoop Dogg issued a warning to King online this week following her interview with WNBA player Lisa Leslie about Bryant, the former Los Angeles Lakers star killed in a helicopter crash with his young daughter and seven others on Jan. 26.
“We fully support Gayle King and her integrity as a journalist,” CBS News President Susan Zirinsky told The Associated Press. “We find the threats against her or any journalist doing their job reprehensible.”
CBS would not discuss the nature of any private threats against King. Her friend, Oprah Winfrey, said in an NBC interview that King had received death threats and was traveling with security.
The rapper had joined with others, including LeBron James, 50 Cent and even Bill Cosby, in criticizing King for asking Leslie whether Bryant’s legacy had been complicated by the accusation that he raped a woman at a Colorado resort in 2003. Bryant said the two had consensual sex, but he later apologized for his behavior and settled a civil suit against him.
In a profane video posted on Instagram and shared on other social media platforms, Snoop Dogg criticized King for attacking “your people.” He told her to “back off ... before we come get you.”
King’s questions had attracted little notice as part of a wide-ranging interview shown on “CBS This Morning.” But then CBS mistakenly, it said later posted a video online that focused strictly on the discussion about the assault case.
“The interview with Lisa Leslie was comprehensive and thoughtful,” Zirinsky said. “We are a country where differences of opinion are welcome, but hateful and dangerous threats are completely unacceptable.”
King’s critics essentially voiced some variation of what Leslie answered that the media should be more respectful of Bryant so soon after his death and not discuss this stain upon his record although usually in sharper terms.
A twitter user, @TheFavouredWoman has narrated how a mom of three lost her life after her estranged abusive husband strangled her to death.
According to the twitter user, the woman in question had left her husband three months ago due to excessive beatings, but he located where she moved to and strangled her to death.
She tweeted: "A mother of 3 was beaten to death in my neighborhood by her husband. Crazy thing is, she had left him 3 months ago because of the beatings. He then found where she was to go and beat her there. He strangled her. He's been arrested."
"Crazy thing is how people in the area talked about it. So casually. The women shook their heads sadly and everyone went about their business. The men said na wa o & left the conversation. My cleaning lady said she can't leave her husband because the next one might be worse."
"I kept thinking about the young children. Family came and took them and I kept wondering where they were when all that was happening."
A lightning bolt is believed to have struck the mountainside of Uganda’s Mgahinga National Park, killing four gorillas.
Three adult females and an infant male were found covered in ‘gross lesions’, which conservationists said indicated they had been electrocuted.
The gorillas were part of a band of 17, known locally as the Hirwa family. One of the females was pregnant.
The Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) described the deaths as a ‘big loss for the species’, of which there are only about 1,000 in existence.
‘This was extremely sad,’ Andrew Seguya, executive secretary of the GVTC, told the BBC.
‘The potential of the three females for their contribution to the population was immense.’
He added that the 13 surviving members of the Hirwa family have been found and are feeding well.
Mountain gorillas live only in protected areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
The Hirwa crossed into Uganda’s Mgahinga National Park from Rwanda
Post-mortem examination results are expected within three weeks, the GVTC said, when authorities hope to confirm the cause of death.
Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has claimed Kano is the most peaceful state in the country.
The Governor made the comment when he led a Kano delegate to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Friday.
“Kano state, as of today, is the most peaceful state in the country,” Ganduje said. “No armed robbery, no banditry, no tribal conflict, no religious conflict, even the few cases of kidnapping, the kingpins have been arrested.”
His comments come amid increasing reports of insecurity across the country.
The Governor credited his claims of peace to the introduction of information communication technologies into the state’s security administration. “That’s why we are succeeding,” he said.
He also noted that inter-agency cooperation is high among security officials in the state.
“There is full cooperation among the security agencies and Kano state is providin'g an enabling environment for the security agencies, especially in terms of community policing,” he said.
“Also we have succeeded in establishing a very powerful command and control centre where all security agencies, their representatives, do communicate with each other. And from that centre, the security agencies are being able to communicate with all the DPOs across the 44 local governments of the state.”
An Abuja-based civil lawyer of the Federal Capital High Court, Oluwatosin Ojaomo has filed a suit against Hanan Buhari, daughter to President Muhammadu Buhari for using the presidential jet for personal purpose.
The lawyer prayed the court to compel Hanan to pay N2 million amount into the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to “fuel Nigeria Air Force Presidential Aircraft” which conveyed the defendant to Bauchi state.
Ojaomo in the suit also asked for a declaration that Hanan, a daughter to President Muhammadu Buhari has no statutory right to private use of Nigerian Air Force Presidential Aircraft, Daily Trust reports.
According to the suit filed on Thursday, February 6, Hanan was invited to a private function in Bauchi state which she attended on January 10th. The suit alleged that Hanan arrived at the venue of the event in one of the aircraft in the presidential fleet meant mainly for public officers in power in Nigeria.
Ojaomo said: “An order of this court compelling the defendant to pay the sum of N2m as the cost of litigation.”
The Federal Government has given marketers of cooking gas two months to clear out illegal and roadside dealers or face a clampdown on activities of retail outlets in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The ultimatum was given by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) at a forum where an agreement was reached with the Liquefied Petroleum Gas unit of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) on Friday.
According to the DPR’s zonal operations controller, Buba Abubakar, the union is aware of the inherent dangers of not registering and the DPR is ready to look at their grievances objectively.
He added that the retailers will not be given preference when it comes to giving suitable locations for their business around the FCT.
“We are going to give gas retailers two months to talk to their members on the dangers of not registering or just setting up their cylinders and start selling.
“They have agreed to talk to their members, they will register and we will look at it objectively because of the location; we cannot give them site suitability anywhere,” he explained.
Two serving corps members in Kano, Mohammed Alhaji Musa and Hauwa Yahaya Bagudu have tied the knot. The couple met during the 2019 Batch ‘A’ Orientation Course, and fell in love.
One thing led to another and they promised to spend the rest of their lives together. The rets they say is history. Below is how the NYSC Official Forum shared their story;
''The ancient city of Kano stood still today when two serving Corps Members, Mohammed Alhaji
Musa and Hauwa Yahaya Bagudu exchanged marital vows.
The new couple met at NYSC Kano State Orientation Camp in Kusallah Dam Karaye during the 2019 Batch ‘A’ Orientation Course.
NYSC Kano State Coordinator, Malam Baba Ladan, who led other NYSC Staff and Corps Members to the wedding reception which took place at Nigeria Air Force Base in Kano, commended the new couple for maintaing their relationship which blossomed into marriage.
He also praised them for fulfilling one of the objectives of the NYSC Scheme which is to achieve national unity and integration.
The Coordinator used the ocassion to appeal to other Corps Members to build relationships that would bring good memories in the future.''
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged the Federal Government of Nigeria and Cross River State Government to ECOWAS Court of Justice in Abuja over what it termed “the prolonged, arbitrary detention, unfair prosecution, persecution, and sham trial of journalist Agba Jalingo.”
SERAP said Jalingo, who is the publisher of CrossRiverWatch, was arrested on August 22 over a report alleging that Mr Ayade diverted N500 million belonging to the state.
In the suit number ECW/CCJ/APP/10/2020 filed last week at the ECOWAS Court, SERAP is arguing that: “The sole objective of the government of Nigeria and the Cross River State Government of governor Ben Ayade is to perpetually keep Agba Jalingo in arbitrary detention and to silence him simply for expressing critical views and carrying out his legitimate job as journalist.”
According to the suit: “This is not the first time the government of Nigeria and the Cross River state government of governor Ben Ayade have taken actions to intimidate, harass and suppress journalists through the instrumentality of trumped-up charges and use of overly broad and unjust laws, including section 24 of Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act, 2015, which provides for the offence of cyber-stalking.”
The suit filed on SERAP’s behalf by its solicitor Kolawole Oluwadare, states: “the government of Nigeria and Cross-River state government are using vague laws that give officials massive discretion to undermine human rights. They are punishing Agba Jalingo and other journalists and silencing them for their reporting, thereby undermining Nigerians’ right to information, to public participation, to open and democratic governance in the country.”
A husband has admitted bludgeoning his wife to death during a cruise ship’s murder-mystery night.
Kenneth Manzanares, 41, flew into a rage with Kristy, 39, during a voyage to Alaska with their three children and a large party, including other relatives.
After a huge row when she told him she wanted a divorce, two children saw him beating her with his fists then trying to throw her over a balcony.
But staff who found the bloody scene in the couple’s cabin at first thought it could be part of that night’s murder-mystery themed dinner.
And some people on board the Emerald Princess thought the captain’s urgent announcement telling the crew to rush to the scene must also be part of the entertainment.
Passenger Megan Morr revealed: “The captain announced , ‘Everyone, we need all medical, security, all personnel to deck 9 and deck 14’. He was very worked up. People were running through the hall with blood all over them”
The family, from Santa Clara in the US state of Utah, had set off from Seattle, Washington, on a week-long cruise along with 3,400 other passengers.
When their row first broke out Manzanares told two children who were in the couple’s cabin to leave but then they heard “blood-curdling” screams and tried to get back in.
From a connecting balcony they saw Manzanares on top of his wife hitting her, then trying to throw her over a balcony. The ship’s security and medics were called but could not save her life.
Asked what happened after the ship docked in Juneau, Alaska, Manzanares told police he had snapped because his wife “would not stop laughing at me”.
He admitted hitting her “once with a closed fist, seeing blood and striking another time”. He said he had no memory after that point and told detectives: “My life is over.”
The couple had been married for 20 years and Mrs Manzanares was an estate agent with Sotheby’s in St George, Utah. An autopsy found she was killed by blunt force trauma to her head and face.
Actress, Beverly Naya, has said that she has been able to stay away from controversies because she doesn’t do things that would lead to scandals.
She told Sunday Scoop, “I don’t do things I shouldn’t be doing. It’s easy when one is living one’s life and one stays away from certain things. That’s it really. I am not hiding anything. If I were hiding anything, it would have been revealed by now. I just don’t do things that would lead to scandals. It’s just the way I am.”
Naya also maintained that society should put less pressure on women to get married. She said, “It’s only an expectation if one allows it to be an expectation. It’s all about what one feels and when one is ready to do (certain) things. When one starts allowing people determine how one lives, it becomes an expectation. It becomes pressure. It all begins and ends with one.
“I also believe that pressure on women to get married should be reduced, especially in this part of the world, . That’s how people– men and women–end up in wrong marriages. And that is what leads to divorce. A lot of people are miserable all in the name of pleasing society and they end up in miserable situations which lead to divorces and toxic relationships. I feel it’s important to do things when one is ready. Ensure that you are with the right person. Don’t just marry someone out of convenience or under pressure. Marry someone because you genuinely love that person and want to spend ‘forever’ with that person.”
Without doubt, one of the common themes in Nollywood is money rituals. While such stories could be entertaining, especially with the mystical manipulations embedded in them, Minister of Works and Housing and former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, during the week asked moviemakers to stop telling such stories, because, according to him, money ritual is a myth.
Fashola, who was the guest speaker at the fourth annual public lecture/symposium organised by the United Action for Change, themed, ‘Security of citizens as a social contract’, said that belief system, reinforced through Nollywood movies, could be fuelling kidnapping, given the number of persons the police have arrested with human skull and other body parts, with the motive of money ritual.
But the former governor, who titled his lecture, ‘Insecurity: Taking actions against organised crime’, however, said it was high time moviemakers and policymakers changed the narrative, to save innocent lives from being wasted.
Fashola said, “Some people believe that if you get a man’s head or a woman’s body parts, they could be turned into money. It’s not true! And when you ask people who believe in it if they have seen it happen before, they tell you someone said they had seen it.
“However, it has become a reinforced belief through entertainment, social media and Nollywood. How can human head bring money? Money is paper invented by man, not God. They put the paper in a machine to print what we call money and that is the only place money comes from.
“But the challenge is the belief system. Just think about how many people have been missing – through kidnapping – because some people believe that it exists. The police could tell us the number of people they have apprehended with human parts, such as skulls. This belief system must go.
“Therefore, all of us, including those who make the films, must reverse the story and start selling a new story that money is printed in a machine and not through any other way like money rituals.”
He also faulted the fears that engulfed the populace last year when there were reports that cyber fraudsters were stealing women’s briefs to make money.
Fashola said, “It is not true, or how does that happen? What is the connection between paper (money) and cotton (pants) or has anybody seen cotton money before? Those of us who have influence and authority must take positions to see to the reversal of this kind of beliefs.”
The coronavirus death toll in China has risen to 811, surpassing the death toll from the SARS epidemic of 2002-3, according to official data released early Sunday.
The number of confirmed infections rose to 37,198, according to China’s National Health Commission. Eighty-nine deaths and 2,656 new cases were recorded in the preceding 24 hours, most of them in Hubei Province, the heart of the outbreak.
The SARS epidemic, which also began in China, killed 774 people worldwide.
Many doctors believe that deaths and infections from the current epidemic in China are undercounted because testing facilities at hospitals and laboratories are under severe strain.
The number of new cases confirmed in the country has stabilized in recent days, but World Health Organization officials cautioned against reading too much into those numbers, saying that Wuhan and Hubei Province were still in the midst of a “very intense outbreak.”
“It’s very, very early to make any predictions,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the W.H.O.’s health emergencies program. “This is still a very, very intense outbreak in Wuhan and Hubei.”
Nollywood actress, Faithia Williams is off the market. She got engaged to her man on her birthday, 5th of February, 2020. She was formerly married to Saidi Balogun but their marriage crashed in 2006. They have two kids together.
The actress who recently marked her birthday said "YES" after her boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed to her. We say big congrats to her.
Mr Oladele Oluremi, Cross River Branch Controller of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has blamed parents and guardians over the spate of poor academic performances of their wards in the country.
Oluremi stated this at a pre-varsity forum titled ‘Admission Processing: Laying a Solid Foundation,’ on Saturday in Calabar.
The symposium was organised by the Deeper Life Schools Outreach in collaboration with WAEC and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
Represented by Mr Aderibigbe Adeniyi, the Head of Result and Certificate Department of the Council, Oluremi noted that many parents contributed to their children poor performances by aiding malpractice which in-turn made them lazy.
He alleged that parents pestered officials of the Council to change grades of their wards after they had written the examination and performed poorly.
“It is sad that when you go to the examination venues, you see as many parents as the number of students writing the examination.
“Many of them even stay outside with phones to send answers to their children who have smuggled phones into the examination halls.
“For you to excel, as a student preparing for an external examination, you need to be ready by reading your books and refusing to procrastinate.
“You need to read wide and deep, practice with past question papers and ensure you get appropriate instructions from the WAEC platform,” he said.
Men of Ogun State Police Command have arrested a 50-year-old man, Kayode Oladehinde, a resident of Olope Street Ogijo for defiling his 13-year-old stepdaughter.
The suspect was arrested following a report from the mother of the victim who complained at Ogijo Divisional headquarters that her daughter informed her that the suspect who is her present husband forcefully had carnal knowledge of her as a result of which she got pregnant.
The mother stated further that the suspect, having realized that the victim was pregnant, gave her drug to abort the pregnancy resulting to her bleeding seriously.
On the strength of the report, the DPO, Ogijo Division, CSP Suleiman Muhammad detailed his detectives to the suspect’s residence where he was promptly arrested.
On interrogation, the suspect who was dumbfounded when confronted by his wife only pleaded for forgiveness from his wife and the victim who is his stepdaughter.
Investigation revealed that the mother of the victim got married to the suspect after the death of her first husband who was the father of the victim some years ago and had a child for him.
The Commissioner of Police, Kenneth Ebrimson has ordered the transfer of the suspect to Anti-human Trafficking and Child Labour unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further investigation and possible prosecution.
A yet to be identified man in Lagos has died after an early morning s.e.x with a woman. In a video that has gone viral, the sex worker, who identified herself as Precious from Akwa Ibom State said she alerted the hotel staff early Saturday, when she found that the man was not responding when she tried to nudge him to pay her, as she was about to leave the hotel.
Policemen who interrogated the girl in the video found some drugs in the man’s bag and it was believed the man used them before going to bed.
In the video, Precious said she was introduced to the deceased by someone who told her that a man who just ‘came back’ needed a lady to spend the night with.
Precious met the man and they finally lodged in a hotel. After taking their meals, they slept off. The man woke up around 5am and they had s.e.x. Precious insisted that they must use the condom, which she brought out.
According her, after having s.e.x, the man stood up and went into the bathroom to dispose the condom. When he returned, she remembered asking the man for the time. And he said around 5am, meaning they only had a quickie.
One hour later, Precious woke up to leave. She tried waking the man up but the man didn’t wake up. That was when she alerted the hotel staff.
One of the drugs found with the dead man is called Meinnah, a member of the Viagra family.
Like all Sildenafil, it is a common medication used to stimulate erections in men with erectile dysfunction (ED) and treat certain heart conditions.
Also found on him was an anti-malarial drug called Coatal Forte, Chinese made, but distributed in Nigeria by Geneith Pharm Limited.
Investigators looking into the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna say there is no evidence of a 'catastrophic internal failure'.
The interim report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) 12 days after the accident also said examination of both rotor assemblies found damage "consistent with powered rotation at the time of impact."
The preliminary findings pointed to no obvious signs of mechanical problems that may have contributed to the fiery crash on January 26.
New images have been released by the NTSB which show the doomed helicopter moments before the crash that killed everyone on board.
The death of Bryant, an 18-time all-star in the National Basketball Association and one of the world's most admired sports figures, prompted an outpouring of shock and grief from fans and fellow athletes around the globe.
The retired Los Angeles Lakers forward had been on his way to a youth basketball tournament in which he was coaching and his daughter and two other girls aboard the luxury chopper were due to compete.
The report did not rule out that mechanical issues might yet be identified when the engines and other parts recovered from the wreckage of the Sikorsky S-76B are disassembled and more closely examined.
NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy said two days after the tragedy that clouds, fog and limited visibility reported in the vicinity of the crash would be a key focus of the investigation.
Videos and photographs taken by the public in the area depict fog and low clouds obscuring the hilltops around the crash site, including security video footage showing the helicopter disappearing into clouds moments before it went down, according to the report.
The NTSB also quoted a witness from a mountain bike trail in foothills surrounded by mist who recounted briefly glimpsing the helicopter emerging from clouds as it rolled to the left before crashing seconds later a short distance away from him.
The pilot, an experienced aviator certified as an instructor, was navigating by visual orientation, not by instrument guidance, during the entirety of the ill-fated flight, the NTSB said.
"An experienced but nevertheless single pilot in bad weather is a bad formula for the safe operation of a helicopter," he told Reuters.
Shortly before radar contact with Bryant's helicopter was lost, the pilot had told air traffic control he was trying to climb above a cloud layer, the NTSB said.
Moments later the aircraft banked to the left and began to descend, slamming into the ground at more 45 miles per hour (72 kph) and bursting into flames.
"The entire fuselage/cabin and both engines were subjected to a post-crash fire," the report said.
The wreckage, strewn about an impact crater, was found in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains near the town of Calabasas, about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The agency said the conclusions it reaches on the cause of the crash and contributing factors will be published in its final report, which is expected in 12 to 18 months.
