Michelle Obama visits S.Africa with family

(AFP) – 3 hours ago

PRETORIA — Michelle Obama began what officials have billed as her first major overseas trip as US first lady Monday, a visit to South Africa and Botswana focused on young women leaders and the legacy of the anti-apartheid struggle.


Michelle Obama's Africa trip will include stops
in Pretoria, Cape Town and Gabarone

 She is travelling with her daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson -- but without her husband, US President Barack Obama.
She left Washington on Monday morning and was due at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria late Monday.
Obama is scheduled to meet South African President Jacob Zuma's wife Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma in Pretoria on Tuesday morning before heading to Johannesburg for a visit to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, where she will get a tour from the former president's wife, Graca Machel.
On Tuesday afternoon, Obama will visit a daycare centre in Johannesburg and tour the Apartheid Museum, which chronicles the history of the struggle against white-minority rule.

The N40b NigComSat Mess

The N40b NigComSat Mess

Written by Anza Philips, Abuja Bureau

Sunday, 23 November 2008

After keeping the truth from Nigerians for weeks, the federal government has finally admitted that NigComSat-1 has broken down

Bankole Docked, Pleads Not Guilty



Dimeji Bankole

  The embattled former speaker of House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, was docked yesterday at the Federal High Court, Abuja by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged corruption charges.

Bankole, who was brought to the court at about 8:30am, however, pleaded not guilty to the 16–court charge.

The court has remanded him in the custody of the EFCC till tomorrow for the commencement of the case proper.
Meanwhile, the anti-graft agency has invited some former principal actors of the sixth House of Representatives to explain all they know about the allegations which were leveled against the former speaker.

The Coordinates of Radicalism: Sharia compliance correlates with violent attitudes among American Muslims.

Andrew C. McCarthy

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/269080

These are the principal takeaways from an important study just competed by Israeli academic Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. As detailed in a just-published Middle East Quarterly essay, "Shari’a and Violence in American Mosques" (available here), the authors’ "Mapping Sharia" project surveyed 100 randomly selected mosques across the United States. Onsite, fully 81 percent of the mosques featured Islamic texts that advocate violence. In nearly 85 percent of the mosques, the leadership (usually an imam or prayer leader) favorably recommended this literature for study by congregants. Moreover, 58 percent of the mosques invited guest lecturers known for promoting violent jihad.

Spanish court upholds ban on face-covering veils

 MADRID (AP) -- A Spanish court has upheld a ban by a city on face-covering Islamic veils worn in municipal buildings.

In 2010, the city of Lleida became the first Spanish one to impose such a ban. But the Catalan regional Superior Justice Tribunal suspended it following an appeal by a Muslim association that claimed it violated basic rights.

Nigerian speaker Dimeji Bankole arrested

 

Monday 6 June 2011 10.50 BST



Dimeji Bankole is the outgoing speaker of Nigeria's house of representatives. Photograph: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

Nigeria's anti-corruption agency has arrested one of the country's leading politicians on suspicion of defrauding the country, an official said.

Officers arrested outgoing speaker of the house of representatives, Dimeji Bankole, at his home in Abuja on Sunday, after he resisted arrest for more than four hours, said Femi Babafemi, a spokesman for the economic and financial crimes commission.


Outgoing speaker arrested by

 anti-corruption agency on suspicion

 of fraud after four-hour

standoff at his home in Abuja

Babafemi gave no additional details about the allegations facing Bankole, other than to say that he would be held "in custody to enable him to have sufficient time to answer questions on the numerous fraud allegations against him".
Bankole apparently refused several requests by officials to be interviewed.
"An intelligence report ... showed that the former speaker was planning to leave Abuja for Lagos on Sunday evening and thereafter flee the country through an illegal route," a statement from Babafemi read.

It was not immediately clear if Bankole had a lawyer. His spokesman, Idowu Bakare, previously issued a statement saying Bankole "never benefited" from his position, including taking a more than $66m (£40m) loan from United Bank for Africa PLC for his office. That was on top of his annual salary and money already budgeted for his office, which runs into the millions of dollars.

Positions in Nigeria's national assembly are highly lucrative, where even low-ranking members earn more than $1m in salaries and benefits, plus the ability to direct a swollen budget in a nation where billions in oil revenues routinely go missing.

Ban Ki-moon: we must end Aids by 2020

UN secretary general tells world presidents, ministers and diplomats to unite 'as never before' to eradicate disease

• Associated Press 
•  Thursday 9 June 2011 08.51 BST

Aids campaigners rally outside UN building in New York Link to this video

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has called for global action to put an end to Aids by 2020 and relegate the disease to the history books.

Opening a three-day general assembly meeting in New York to assess progress in combating HIV/Aids, the UN chief told presidents, ministers and diplomats from across the globe that if all partners involved in the fight unite "as never before" the goal can be met.