Congolese forces have killed the leader of an offshoot of a Hutu militia in the restive east of the country, the army said on Sunday, two months after killing the leader of the main faction. Juvenal Musabimana led a splinter group of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group founded by Hutu officials who fled Rwanda after orchestrating the 1994 genocide. His killing is the latest blow to the FDLR, which has been weakened in recent years by arrests of several of its leaders and military pressure from Democratic Republic of Congo’s armed forces, the FARDC,…
Author: Ekpedeme Umoh
Coke is one of the most popular soft drinks on the planet, but if you think it can be used only for drinking, here’s a surprise! It can be used as a cleaner for various household items like battery terminals, clogged drains, windshields and door handles. If you have extra cola at home and you are planning to abstain from drinking it use it in daily life to resolve various problems. Scroll down to know more. Defroster Just pour some coke on the windshield of your car and let it sit for a few minutes. Ice will eventually come off…
More than 30,000 people are without homes in Zongo in north-eastern DR Congo due to floods. Heavy rains and rise in the water levels of the Ubangi River, since mid-October caused the disaster. Mayor of Zongo Placide Kumugo Soko said those affected include some 24,000 children Isabelle Yata is in charge of organizing a site for displaced people. “It has been three-and-a-half weeks now that we are under the mango trees as you can see with women, mothers, with no shelter, no covers and there is no clean water to drink. We are struggling. We need help, tell the government…
These days, everyone seems so busy that it can be hard to find time for family activities whether they are weekend trips, week long vacations, gathering for lunch or dinner, or even just brief visits. Home For The Holidays. is more than a popular phrase. For most people it’s an integral part of the season. It is a quiet indicator of how important family ties are regarded. Committing to be with parents, siblings, children, and extended and blended family members communicates with actions that these people are important and worth the effort involved in making the journey. They are the…
Nigerian industrial conglomerate Dangote Group has signed deals to make phosphate into fertilizer and build a cement factory in Togo, the small West African country said on Friday. Togo’s vast phosphate resources are mostly exported in their raw form, and Dangote’s project would process some of that phosphate to make fertilizer in-country, aiming to export it to the region. The cost of the project is around $2 billion, a statement from Togo’s government said, without specifying how much of that would come from Dangote. Dangote also signed a deal to build a cement factory at a cost of around $60…
The Federal Government has declared Monday November 11, 2019 as Public Holiday to mark the 2019 Eidul-Mawlid Celebration in commemoration of the birthday of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, who made the declaration on behalf of the Federal Government, congratulated the Muslim Faithful on the occasion and enjoined them to live within the virtues and teachings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which are; love, courage and perseverance, adding that doing so would guarantee peace and security in the country. Aregbesola expressed confidence that the challenges confronting Nigeria at the…
Former presidential aide and popular social media activist, Reno Omokri has expressed that the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has “audio power”, and not real power. He made this known through his twitter handle. This is coming after the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, on Monday took a bill to President Muhammadu Buhari, who is in London on a private visit, for signing. According to Omokri, Abba Kyari is the De Facto leader of Nigeria in the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari. See his tweet below: You go on 2 week “private visit” and you cant have…
An investigation has been launched by the Catholic Church into two nuns who took a vow of chastity, yet returned to Italy pregnant after a missionary trip to Africa. One of the women, who is 34 years old, learned that she was expecting when she went to the hospital with stomach pain, while the other, who is a mother superior, discovered she was pregnant after one month. An investigation has been launched because they both breached strict rules of chastity. The nuns may choose to give up their monastic life altogether and focus on raising their children.
After a failed $7 billion acquisition of Nokia’s smartphone business five years back, Microsoft has announced a strategic collaboration with the Finnish company to accelerate transformation and innovation across industries with Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT). The new partnership brings together Microsoft cloud solutions and Nokia’s expertise in mission-critical networking, to help enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs) transform their businesses. “Bringing together Microsoft’s expertise in intelligent cloud solutions and Nokia’s strength in building business and mission-critical networks will unlock new connectivity and automation scenarios,” Jason Zander, executive vice president, Microsoft Azure, said in a statement on Tuesday.…
The World Health Organization, the Congolese government and other partners are concerned about the worsening security situation in areas affected by the Ebola epidemic in the DR Congo. Members of the various institutions condemned the attacks that killed a health worker involved in the response to the Ebola virus in northeastern DRC. “The World Health Organization, UNICEF, United Nations Ebola Emergency Response Operations and the Congolese Ministry of Health condemned the violence that took place last night in Lwemba, Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The violence caused the death of a health worker and his wife was seriously…
Burna Boy, has been announced as the winner of the ’Best Africa Act’ award at the 2019 MTV Europe Music Awards. Burna, who was nominated alongside fellow Nigerian, Teni the Entertainer, South Africa’s Prince Kaybee and Nasty C, Harmonize from Tanzania and Togo’s duo TooFan, won the award at a star studded event held in Seville, Spain on Sunday. With his 2019 MTV EMA win, Burna Boy joins an exclusive list of Nigerian artistes who have won the much coveted international honour. Past Nigerian winners of the MTV EMA Best Africa Act award include 2Baba Idibia, D’Banj, Tiwa Savage and…
Extramarital affairs are very common among men and women alike. Earlier times, marriage life and relationships were concerned divine bonds than a social setup of life. But today, as a result of the modern thoughts and lifestyle, the divinity in life is overpowered by materialistic factors and people often consider the family life as just a necessary social structure. Extramarital affairs and premarital affairs are not a taboo when looked at from a social point of view, but of course, unaccepted from a subjective view point. No wife or husband may agree if the partner maintains an affair along with…
Oil trader Vitol [VITOLV.UL] has quit a consortium that was set to buy a stake in two Nigerian oil fields from Brazil’s Petrobras (PETR4.SA), its former partner said on Friday. Africa Oil (AOI.TO) said it would conclude the $1.5 billion purchase alone after Vitol and Delonex Energy pulled out of the deal to buy half of Petrobras Oil and Gas, known as Petrobras Africa, from the Brazilian company. [reut.rs/337lQXN] “We remain committed to completing this acquisition and look forward to working with Petrobras and all stakeholders to accomplish that goal,” Keith Hill, chief executive of Vancouver-based Africa Oil, said in…
Speaking calmly through tears, in a hearing streamed live on YouTube, former beauty queen Fatou Jallow told how Gambia’s ex-president Yahya Jammeh locked her in a room and raped her. The 23-year-old’s testimony on Thursday concluded three weeks of public hearings dedicated to sexual and gender-based violence under Jammeh’s presidency, part of a broader probe by the current administration into abuses during his tenure. “Yahya Jammeh did not want sex with me or pleasure with me. What he wanted to do was hurt me,” said Jallow, explaining that he violently assaulted her after she refused his advances. The Thomson Reuters…
Around 100 people were arrested on Wednesday as part of an operation to disperse a group of refugees and asylum seekers who had staged a prolonged sit-in near the United Nations refugee agency in Cape Town, South African police said. The refugees and asylum seekers have been camping outside the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for weeks, asking to be moved out of South Africa, where they say they do not feel safe after a wave of xenophobic violence. Local media showed footage of police firing water cannon into the crowd of protesters, some of whom were…
South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Mali and Libya were listed as some of the worst countries in the world, for one to be a woman. Research organizations Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Peace Research Institute Oslo said the state of women’s rights has improved in some 60 countries, but in deteriorated in many war-torn nations. The researchers looked at 167 countries since 2017 when the first Women, Peace and Security Index was compiled, weighing variables such as access to bank accounts, jobs and security. Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Iraq were…
The African Development Bank and the New Development Bank have signed an agreement to promote new impact projects to improve lives of millions of Africans. Under the deal, the New Development Bank −a multilateral development bank established by BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will work with the African Development Bank to jointly identify, prepare and co-finance projects in countries of mutual interest. The two insitutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreement on 18 October, on the sidelines of the World Bank annual meetings, formalizing the partnership and general cooperation between them. “Through this cooperation, we…
U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed himself during a daring overnight raid by elite U.S. special operations forces in Syria, in a major victory as he fights a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry. Baghdadi died alongside three of his children by detonating an explosives-laden vest when he fled U.S. forces into a dead-end tunnel during the attack, which took place in the Idlib region in northwest Syria, the Republican president said in a televised address to the nation from the White House. Under Iraqi-born Baghdadi’s rule, Islamic State — which at one point…
So fragile, yet lovely; this is the most fitting definition to any relationship, be it marriage, romance or living together. No one is perfect in the world, at least when it comes to relationships. People often commit mistakes. It is a common rule referring the human behavior that men learn from mistakes. But at the same time, some mistakes, if committed may cause irreparable damage to relationships and life itself. It is always advisable to avoid relationship mistakes as relationships are union of two people; thus a mistake committed may affect both of them. Certain mistakes may lead to unfixable…
“Commitment” is considered to be a very important and mature aspect of a man-woman relationship. It is considered to be the culmination of a love relationship between two individuals which signifies that the people involved in the relationship love, sacrifice, understand and are ready to spend their whole life with each other. Commitment means a decision making the procedure in a person’s life where he/she chooses the person he/she loves most as a life partner. Commitment needs to be displayed by both the individuals to make any sense of the word. The benefits of a committed relationship are many as…
Nigeria has no plans to tap the international debt market this year due to the time constraints before the end of its budget cycle, the head of the government’s debt office told Reuters on Friday. The West African country had its last eurobond sale in November, its sixth outing where it raised $2.86 billion. Foreign borrowing had been set at 824.82 billion naira ($2.7 billion) for the government’s 2019 budget. “We will only raise the new domestic borrowing of 802.82 billion naira as provided in the 2019 appropriation act. We won’t be in the international capital market in 2019,” said…
A group calling themselves “Shadow Kill Hackers” has infiltrated the City of Joburg and its online services. In a tweet, the City said it had detected a network breach “which resulted in an unauthorised access to our information systems”. The serious data breach was reported on Thursday evening. The group – who identified themselves as the Shadow Kill Hackers – left a note on the Twitter page, claiming to “have control of everything” in Johannesburg. “All your servers and data have been hacked. We have dozens of back doors inside your city. We have control of everything in your city.…
The World Health Organization welcomed an “historic step” towards a polio-free world on Thursday as an expert panel certified that the second of three types of the crippling virus has been eradicated globally. The announcement by the Global Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication means that only wild polio virus type 1 is still circulating, after type 2 was declared eradicated in 2015, and type 3 this week. Global polio cases have been cut by more than 99% since 1988, but type 1 polio virus is still endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where it has infected a total of…
The 39 people found dead in the back of a truck near London are believed to be Chinese nationals, police said on Thursday, as they questioned the driver detained on suspicion of murder. Paramedics and police found the 31 men and eight women’s bodies on Wednesday in a truck container on an industrial estate at Grays, about 20 miles (32 km) east of the British capital. For years, illegal immigrants have attempted to reach Britain stowed away in trucks, often from the European mainland. In the biggest tragedy, 58 Chinese were found dead in a tomato truck in 2000 at…
President Muhammadu Buhari has renamed the Ministry of Communications following the request of the new Minister, Isa Ali Pantami on Wednesday night. The Ministry of Communications will now be known as the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. ” The Ministry which supervises the ICT Sector has been renamed The Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to further expand its mandate to capture the goals of digitalisation of the Nigerian economy in line with the Economic Growth and Recovery Plan (EGRP), one of the key agenda of the present administration,” the Government announced in a statement. The statement signed by…
Always says it’s removing the Venus Symbol ♀ historically used to represent the female sex, from the packaging of its menstruation products to be inclusive of transgender and nonbinary customers. This is coming after the transgender activists and allies began speaking out, arguing that not all people who menstruate are women and that not all women menstruate. This is the latest in a series of actions by companies and governments are taking to affirm the identities of transgender people as transgender equality activism surges. The move has unfortunately sparked a transphobic backlash, particularly in the UK, where the Daily Mail published an article…
South African Airways (SAA) and Comair on Wednesday returned some grounded planes to service, a day after safety regulators flagged maintenance problems. Flights were departing Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport as normal on Wednesday morning, a passenger service representative for Airports Company South Africa said. Comair said it expected no disturbances on Wednesday, after at least eight of its domestic flights were disrupted on Tuesday. SAA, which had 25 aircraft affected by the regulators’ safety audit, declined to comment. Reuters
The notorious serial killer, Gracious David-West, yesterday pleaded guilty to nine out of the 10 count charges preferred against him. The suspect was arraigned before a Rivers State High Court on a 10-count charge bordering on conspiracy and murder at the Justice Adolphous Enebeli court in Port Harcourt. “My Lord, I killed all other girls in the hotels but that one in Bendel Street, which is the 10th charge. I did not have in mind to kill her, I only tied her to the chair,” the accused told the court. He, however, pleaded for forgiveness after pleading guilty to nine…
OPEC and its allies will consider whether to deepen cuts to crude supply when they next meet in December due to worries about weak demand growth in 2020, sources from the oil-producing club said. Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, wants to focus first on boosting adherence to the group’s production-reduction pact with Russia and other non-members, an alliance known as OPEC+, before committing to more cuts, the sources said. OPEC members Iraq and Nigeria are among the countries that have failed to comply properly with pledged output reductions. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers in the Organization of the…
The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs Maryam Uwais on Monday disclosed that $76,538,530 has so far been disbursed from the Abacha loot from the August/September 2018 to the September/October payment cycle. She added that the figure was in addition to $27,099,028 from the International Development Association/World Bank credit spent on alleviating the plight of the poor an vulnerable Nigerians. The presidential aid said that the Federal Government, through the National Social Investment Office NSIO, had been distributing the funds to beneficiaries of the National Cash Transfer Programme (a component of the National Social Investment Programme N-SIP).…
