A PROFESSOR AND CHILD KILLED IN MAIDUGURI BOMBING

A professor at the University of Maiduguri and a child were killed and 17 people wounded on Monday in a twin suicide bombing in the city in Nigeria's northeast, officials said.

State emergency agency NEMA said two suicide bombers blew themselves up at different gates to the university in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, the former stronghold of Boko Haram Islamist militants, at around 5 a.m..

There was no claim of responsibility but the attacks bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million during a seven-year insurgency to set up an Islamic state in Nigeria's northeast.

The group has stepped up attacks in the past few weeks as the end of the rainy season facilitates movements in the bush.

Read more here

SOURCE : REUTERS

Read More

Six Premier League fixtures you don't want to miss over Festive period

26 Dec: Chelsea v Bournemouth, 3pm


Antonio Conte’s team go on the search for win No 12 in a row. He is up against Eddie Howe, the great young hope of English football management. Watch out!


26 Dec: Manchester United v Sunderland, 3pm


David Moyes goes back to Old Trafford for the first time since his 2014 sacking. He still has not forgiven the club...lol


31 Dec: Liverpool v Manchester City, 5.30pm


The last game of 2016 pits Jurgen Klopp against Pep Guardiola for the first time in the Premier League in what should be a banquet of high-pressing, high-risk, high-octane 21st century football with added goalkeeping flaws.


1 Jan: Arsenal v Crystal Palace, 4pm


Sam Allardyce is back in the game and just look who he is up against: the old enemy Arsene Wenger whose team are going through a wobble. Big Sam will be desperate for points. One of the league’s most hostile managerial handshakes awaits.


2 Jan: West Ham v Manchester United, 5.15pm


Mourinho’s team in the Olympic Stadium for the first time against a West Ham side who got a draw at Old Trafford in November then lost in an EFL Cup tie there three days later. Last time in east London, the Manchester United bus was bricked.


4 Jan: Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea 4 Jan, 8pm


Their battle royale at Stamford Bridge at the end of last season was an FA disciplinary classic. Now it is Part II with Spurs desperate to get even, but this could be the game Chelsea win their 14th in a row and equal Arsenal’s 2002 record.
Harry Kane

Source : THE TELEGRAPH

Read More

Nigeria proves to be Giant of Africa once more as Traders from Chad, Cameroon and Niger rush to Kebbi for rice

According to Leadership Sunday, the state has turned into a beehive of local and cross-border market activities following the current rice production boom in the state, which is being driven by the government of Governor Atiku Bagudu.

Merchants from the neighboring countries of Niger, Benin and Cameroun are reportedly trooping into the state.


According to eyewitnesses, in most of the major markets in the state, no fewer than 100 trailers, loaded with bags of rice leave the state on a daily basis.



Kebbi’s flagship rice is Faro. Other brands have names like Labana and the newly introduced LAKE Rice-which came about as a result of partnership between Lagos and Kebbi.


Meanwhile, a British media source has quoted, Lagos customs chief Haruna Mamudu who said 102 bags of fake rice was smuggled into the country to be sold during the festive season.

Preliminary examination of the product branded as "Best Tomato Rice" showed "how sticky the rice was and only God knows what would have happened if our people consumed it."

Read more here

Source : NAIJ.COM

Read More

Berlin Christmas market attack suspect a refugee, CNN says

The man suspected of deliberately ramming a large truck into a Christmas market in Berlin is a refugee from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, two German intelligence officials and a police official told CNN


The sources said the suspect in Monday evening's attack, which killed 12 people and injured dozens more, arrived in Passau, a city on Germany's border with Austria, on December 31, 2015, after traveling through the Balkans.

Latest developments

Security officials say truck driver is from Afghanistan-Pakistan region

Merkel says incident is being treated as a terror attack

Case has been handed to German federal police and public prosecutor

A second man found dead in truck was Polish, not at wheel when crash occurred

At least 48 people hospitalized when the truck hit the crowd

Victims yet to be formally identified, no name released

SOURCE : CNN

Read More

Nigeria Army Chief Gives December Deadline To Wipe Out Extremist Group

Nigerian Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai ordered the military to wipe out all elements of Boko Haram from the country by December. In a statement Sunday, Buratai called on the country's soldiers to end the insurgency that has been ongoing for the last seven years.

The Nigerian has ramped up its military offensive against the group, pushing Boko Haram out of territories it has held for years in the northern region of the country. Buratai urged the troops to remain focused and patriotic to their duties and to President Muhammadu Buhari.

The militant group, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (also called ISIS) in 2015, has been active in Nigeria since 2009, and in 2015, spread its activities across the country’s borders into Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The extremist group, which aims to establish an ISIS-style government in Nigeria, has killed thousands of people since launching a brutal insurgency in the country.

Read Buratai's statement here

SOURCE: IBTIMES

Read More

Chief says: "Pakistan, Russia to sell warplanes to Nigeria, air force"

Nigeria is expecting the arrival of warplanes and helicopters it ordered from Pakistan and Russia, its latest effort to counter terrorist and militant activities, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar said on Sunday.

Nigeria is battling jihadist group Boko Haram, which has waged a seven-year insurgency in the northern part of the country aimed at creating an Islamic state. Thousands have been killed and more than 2 million displaced.

It also faces threats in its crude-producing heartland in the southern Niger Delta, where militants have been blowing up oil pipelines. The subsequent loss of crude oil output has hurt government revenues.

The air force chief said it was assisting the army and navy in countering activities of terrorists and militants.

Nigeria's foreign minister said in May the government hoped the United States would sell it aircraft to fight Boko Haram militants, because its human rights record had improved enough for a blockade on arms deals to be lifted.

Read more here

SOURCE: REUTERS

Read More

The Guardian view on aid for Nigeria: return corrupt cash to the poor

A preventable, human-manufactured disaster appears to be unfolding in north-east Nigeria. While the spotlight of media attention is facing elsewhere, the spectre of starvation stalks an area staked out by jihadists as their caliphate. One small state in Nigeria has more displaced people than the entire refugee influx that arrived in Europe last year. The brutal armed conflict has sent a million children out of school. Health services have been decimated and cholera and polio, once eradicated, have returned. The violence of Boko Haram, the jihadist group that still controls parts of the region, is characterised by child killing, abductions and sexual abuse – an oppressive, murderous atmosphere hardly conducive to stable government in a part of Africa them size of Belgium. .

Farmers are unable to harvest their crops and aid agencies say they are unable to reach isolated communities.

Now Save the Children is warning that there is a “real and immediate” threat to the lives of 400,000 children who are malnourished and starving. The charity rightly says the crisis is being crowded out of the humanitarian agenda by the more highly visible disasters affecting Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Nigeria cannot excuse itself as a failed state. It is Africa’s second-biggest economy. However, more imaginative ways of helping the country are also needed. Save the Children suggests turning ill-gotten gains into crisis-denying cash. Since September illicit Nigerian cash laundered through Britain and seized by British police can be returned to Africa to help with development projects.

The sums are not small: recently a former Nigerian state governor pleaded guilty to a £50m fraud. In 2001, it emerged that a former Nigerian dictator laundered $1.3bn through London banks. Nigeria ranks 136 out of 167 in Transparency International’s corruption index. Its current president asked Britain to return assets held by dishonest Nigerians, shrugging off David Cameron’s suggestion that his nation was “fantastically corrupt”.

More details here

SOURCE : THEGUARDIAN

Read More

On 25/11/16, Android 7.0 Nougat comes to the HTC 10

HTC in a tweet yesterday announced that Android 7.0 Nougat will be rolling out to the Unlocked HTC 10 starting today, November 25.

On the official HTC USA Twitter account, the company said it finished TA testing. Since it finished it (successfully), Android 7.0 Nougat is ready for the public to download and use

HTC didn’t provide details yet on what it all includes. You’ll, of course, get all of the goodies that Android 7.0 Nougat brings, but we have yet to see any details on some HTC-specific additions.

You should start seeing the update on your own HTC 10 over the next couple of days.

SOURCE: TALKANDROID

Read More

Atletico Madrid Fan Sues UEFA over Sergio Ramos' Champions League Final Goal

Atletico Madrid fan Jose Antonio Campon is not letting his team’s 2016 UEFA Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid go just yet, as he’s ready to sue European football’s governing body over the result.

As reported by Manu de Juan and Aled Bryon of AS, the Atletico fan’s gripe lies in the fact that Los Blancos defender Sergio Ramos was offside when he put Real ahead in the Milan showpiece in May. Now he’s looking for damages of €1,660 (£1,412) from UEFA.

“We demand the system to apply technical means that exist and are already used in other sports,” Campon said of the decision to award the goal. “These errors are always to the detriment of the
weak.”



The Atletico season-ticket holder also suggested Ramos’ controversial strike, awarded by English referee Mark Clattenburg, “altered the game, benefiting one of the teams.”

Per the report, Campon is seeking to be refunded the cost of his match ticket €160 (£136) as well as a further €1,500 (£1,276) for what’s described as “moral damage.”

SOURCE: BLEACHER REPORT

Read More

Awareness: Dial 622 to report any telecommunication issues to NCC

NCC gives Nigerians a number to call. Dial 622 to report any telecommunication company that deducts your money illegally through dial tunes, SMS etc or arbitrarily without your consent. Place the call whenever you need to, it's toll free. . This has been in existence for a while but many ain't aware.... Help circulate this information

Read More

AMAZON AWARDED FOR DEVELOPING A POCKET SIZED DRONE : A BODYGUARD

Amazon has been awarded a patent for a pocket-sized, voice controlled drone that can be used to help police in chases, aid firefighters in tackling blazes, and even find lost children.

The unmanned aerial vehicle will have a built-in software that will allow it to understand commands spoken by a user or controls from an app, according to a United States Patent and Trademark Office filing from Tuesday.

Amazon did not mention Alexa ,but as the e-commerce giant already has experience in this technology, it could potentially build it into its drones.

The drone will have a microphone and a camera that will allow it to carry out several functions outlined by the patent including:

• Finding a lost child whereby the drone's camera will identify a person's face or perhaps a barcode printed on the kid's clothes

• Locating a vehicle when a person can't find it a parking lot by recognizing trait such as the make, model or color

• In search and rescue missions to find downed airliners, sailors or ships lost at sea

• To identify people trapped in a burning building

• Following a suspect so that a cop car could cut off the runner

• Recording stunts or other activities, effectively replacing current helmet cameras.

Very interesting and impressive

Read more from source

SOURCE : NBC

Read More

Qualcomm-powered 5G devices may arrive in 2018

 

 

Verizon has stated that it's aiming to implement 5G at some point in 2017, but today, a mobile chip giant has given us a more specific time frame. At the Qualcomm 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong, the company announced its very first 5G modem, the Snapdragon X50, which will support download speeds at up to 5 Gbps -- a super impressive number considering that we've only just started tapping into the Gigabit space with 4G LTE, let alone the more common 450 Mbps, 300 Mbps or even just 150 Mbps download speeds on our phones these days. 

 

Furthermore, we're told that X50-powered devices "are expected to be available during the first half of 2018." Qualcomm does stress that this modem is designed for early 5G deployments, in the sense that it's leaning more towards the experimental soft rollouts. There's also no word on the specific type of devices -- be it mobile routers or smartphones -- that the X50 will land on, so don't expect to hear any flagship product to be announced with this chip any time soon.
The whopping 5 Gbps download speed is achieved by using a generous 800 MHz bandwidth in the mmWave spectrum. While it's true that such a high frequency is limited by its penetration range, such modems and cells will make use of MIMO antenna technology with intelligent beamforming and beam tracking to bounce signal off walls, in order to go around obstacles.

Read more here from source

SOURCE : ENGADGET

Read More

Mourihno expected more from pogba

Jose Mourinho expected more from £89 million ($109 million) summer signing Paul Pogba in Manchester United’s 0-0 draw with Liverpool on Monday.

Speaking after the game, however, the Portuguese boss explained how he expected more in attack from pogba and believed his team could have won the game.

Mourihno said “Had it been 1-0, it would have been finished.Where Pogba was playing, I was expecting more penetration.Defensively we did really well, we should have had a little bit more. We had a big chance that I thought Zlatan was going to score.It was a very difficult game for us and for them. More difficult game for them than us. We started really well and were completely in control.” sky sports reports.

The point leaves United at seventh in the Premier League, with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool up in fourth. After a midweek Europa League tie against Fenerbahce, Mourinho will return to Stamford Bridge for the first time since being sacked by Chelsea in December.

SOURCE : NEWSWEEK

Read More

One person still missing after chemical plant explosion in Germany

One person is still missing after an explosion at chemical firm BASF's plant in the southwestern German city of Ludwigshafen that left at least two people dead.

The fire at a river harbor in the sprawling facility was extinguished on Monday night, about 10 hours after the explosion, BASF said. As of Tuesday morning, one person was still missing. Ludwigshafen fire service chief Peter Friedrich said that person is believed to be in the harbor, but it hasn't yet been possible to send in divers.

Eight people were seriously injured and another 17 had light injuries, BASF said. Two members of BASF's fire service have been confirmed dead.

Some of the injured had "very severe burns" and six of them were in intensive care, city official Dieter Feid said.

The explosion followed a fire in a pipeline between an area where liquids are unloaded from ships on the Rhine river and storage tanks. The BASF fire service had arrived at the scene when the blast occurred.

BASF said that the substances that burned in the subsequent blaze included ethylene — used in producing solvents and insulation — and propylene, used in producing car paint and adhesives.

It isn't yet clear what caused the blast.

SOURCE : AP

IMAGE CREDIT:  Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa via AP

Read More

Governor Rauf aregbesola appeals to nigerians: " lets return to when we eat our indigenous rice"

 

Governor of Osun state, Rauf Aregbesola, appealed to Nigerians while speaking at an event to mark the 2016 International Day for Eradication of Poverty in the state yesterday. to stop eating imported rice and go back to eating indigenous ones. He said ; “Rice was not a staple food in Nigeria before 1980. Ofada rice was the only rice eaten during festivities. We should return to the time when we were eating indigenous rice. We have cassava, plantain, beans and yam. We should return to the time when we were eating our indigenous foods".

The economy situation and exchange rate  makes it such that imported rice and even the one produced internally  are so expensive.Many can,t afford bag of rice. At the same time, many dont trust the rice that is claimed to be produced in nigeria due to quality factor and control.

Read More