About £20k cash withdrawn from accounts of 4 passengers on missing Malaysian plane

Click banner for more info

According to new reports, approximately £20,916 has been withdrawn from the accounts of four passengers aboard the missing Malaysian plane which disappeared on March 8th while on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A bank in Kuala Lumpur, claim that they noticed the discrepancies in their accounts on July 18 and lodged a complaint to the police. The management of the bank said money from the accounts of three passengers was transferred to the account of a fourth passenger before the money was removed.

Assistant Commissioner to the crime investigation department, Izany Abdul Ghany, confirmed getting a report from the bank.

Why President Jonathan orders sack of striking doctors

Click banner for more info

Recently President Goodluck Jonathan approved the sack of doctors across federal hospitals in Nigeria, citing the current challenges facing the health sector as the reason for the action. The doctors under the auspices of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) had embarked on a strike to press home their demand for an improvement in their welfare on July 1 and several attempts to resolve the issue have ended in a stalemate.


The government had earlier accused the doctors of neglecting their oath to protect lives and continue to turn down the request to suspend the strike, particularly during the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus and the ongoing insurgency in some parts of the country. In a letter signed on behalf of the health minister by L. N. Awute, a permanent secretary in the ministry of health, the president ordered that the action should take immediate effect.
Continue..

"I don't owe you any explanation' - says Minister who approved Sawyer's trip to Nigeria

Click banner for more info

The Liberian Minister who approved late Patrick Sawyer's trip to Nigeria has angrily reacted after he was criticized for letting Sawyer, a staff of the Liberian government, leave Liberia for Nigeria despite Liberian health officials placing him on Ebola danger list.

Deputy Finance Minister Sebastian Muah Omar told a Facebook user who asked him why he made such a decision that he does not owe him any explanation. He also said he wasn't late Sawyer's doctor to stop him from traveling.

One of the minister's followers queried him, saying, 

“As his superior, if a man tells you his sister died from Ebola and he could have beenexposed do you not think it is your duty to ask the hard questions or maybe you could have reported this to the health officials?...

See the minister's reply after the break.

Ebola: Experimental drug developed by Nigerian arrives Nigeria

Click banner for more info

An experimental drug developed by a Nigerian in diaspora for the treatment of Ebola is expected to arrive the country today, the Minister for Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, has said.  The drug, called “Nanosilver”, has been approved for use by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an experimental treatment ethical in the case of the Ebola epidemic. The Federal Govt yesterday approved the use of experimental drugs in the treatment of the deadly virus.

Lagos doctor infected with Ebola as nurse who escaped from quarantine is returned back to Lagos

Click banner for more info

A doctor who attended to late Patrick Sawyer at the First Consultant Hospital has been confirmed positive with the Ebola virus. Speaking at a news conference today, the Nigerian Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu said the physician happens to be undergoing treatment at the quarantine centre in Lagos.

Prof Onyebuchi revealed  that a few of the 169 secondary contacts of Sawyer were no further under surveillance and have been released, having completed the 21 days of incubation period.  The Minister also said the nurse who'd escaped the quarantine center in Lagos and traveled to Enugu state has been returned back once again to Lagos with her husband in a special traveling ambulance.

Continue..

Boko Haram abducts 100 young men in Borno as military intercepts mass movement of 57 youths

Click banner for more info

Boko Haram have abducted 100 teenage boys in Doron Baga, a village in Borno State during an attack on the village on Sunday August 10th. In accordance with a resident of the village, Halima Alhaji Adamu who spoke with journalists, she said the sect men killed at least 10 people and abducted 100 young children and men during the attack...

"The attack was on Sunday, in my family they killed six people, I don’t know about the other families but the Hadaijawa community which I belong also had 100 of the men abducted by the insurgents.” she said.

Halima also revealed that she lost her husband during the attack. ...

Graphic image: Headless human body of a person found in Mile 12, Lagos

Click banner for more info

 Residents of Agiliti, Mile 12 Lagos, woke up today to a gruesome sight. The headless body of a son was found on the street. On closer inspection, it was unearthed that his manhood had been cut off. People suspect it was ritual murder but nobody knows for certain what happened. The murdered man has since been identified by those who claim to know him. See the graphic pix after the jump.

FG orders indefinite suspension of Resident Doctors in Teaching Hospitals

Click banner for more info

 Resident Doctors in Nigerian Teaching Hospitals have now been suspended by the Federal Government starting yesterday August 13th. According to a letter delivered by the Permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health, the indefinite suspension is supposed to greatly help the Federal Govt'appraise the challenges facing the sector '. 

Army battle to retake gwoza as Boko Haram kills 20, kidnap women

Click banner for more info

Nigerian troops have massed around Gwoza to retake the town from members of the Islamist group, Boko Haram, military sources have disclosed. The battle for control of Gwoza rages as reports emerged that Boko Haram insurgents yesterday killed 20 people in Doro Baga in Kukawa local government area of Borno State. The residents of the embattled village also disclosed that the militants kidnapped several women in an early morning raid. Continue...

Ebola: Singapore isolates Nigerian Woman.

Click banner for more info

Authorities in Singapore sent a woman from Nigeria into a hospital isolation unit today on suspicion that she might have Ebola, the Straits Times reported on Thursday. The woman, in her 50s, was believed to have flown into Singapore recently and arrived at a hospital emergency department with a fever, the newspaper said. She was immediately isolated and transferred by ambulance to a communicable diseases centre, the newspaper said.

Ebola: FG Postpones Resumption of Schools until further notice.

Click banner for more info

To prevent further  outbreak of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD), the Federal Government has reportedly approved the extension of the present holiday of primary and secondary schools around the country until further notice.

NewTelegraph reports that the development, government stated, is part of measures to curb the spread of Ebola. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Students Matters, Comrade Jude Imagwe, who disclosed the postponement of school resumption in Abuja yesterday did not state 

Over 22,400 Sign Petition Demanding UN to Recognize Luhansk, Donetsk People’s Republics

Click banner for more info

More than 22,400 people have signed an online petition calling on the United Nations to recognize independence of people’s republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.
“We should try to help the people gain independence by our votes, rather than just sitting on the couch in front of a TV-set,” said Vladimir, a Russian-speaking person living in Germany, who started the petition with Avaaz Community Petitions a month ago.
Continue..

Medvedev's Twitter Account Hacked, Resignation Tweet False – Press Service

Click banner for more info

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s Twitter account was hacked and the tweet about his resignation is untrue, Medvedev’s press service told RIA Novosti.

“[Medvedev’s] Twitter was hacked, the tweet on his resignation is false. We’re working on the problem,” the press service said.
“I’m resigning,” appeared on Medvedev’s microblog Thursday morning.
Medvedev’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said it was most likely a hacker attack.
“I don’t have any information, but I’m pretty sure that this was a hacker,” Peskov said.

Continue..

The Russian appeal to Germany

Click banner for more info

My name is Egor Prosvirnin, I am the chief editor of the Russian site sputnikipogrom.com which advocates European values. I’ve heard that one of the aspects of life that Europeans, and Germans especially, cherish is history. If we were to recall recent history, we would remember that a vast army of 300,000 Soviet troops along with 5,000 tanks, 1,500 aircraft and 10,000 artillery pieces (including tactical nuclear weapons) simply left the then just-united Germany without firing a shot. 

It was an operation unprecedented in scope and brevity, when the entire Soviet army withdrew literally to open fields. Tens of thousands of Soviet officers, obeying the orders of the supreme command, went from their warm barracks to live in moldy tents set up in the middle of sodden snow-covered fields. In many instances along with their families.

The Nigerian soldiers’ wives mutiny

Click banner for more info

November and December of 1929 saw thousands of women stampeding the Native Administration outposts in Calabar and Owerri to protest both the imposition of taxes on women and the appointment of warrant chiefs by the colonial administration. The protest, to be later described as the Aba Women’s War, saw employment of both guerrilla strategies and traditional acts such as “sitting on a man” – the practice of ridiculing men through song and dance performances carried out all night long.
Continue..

Ebola: 21 persons isolated in Enugu

Click banner for more info

This is official. Lagos is not the only state in Nigeria that has been hit by the deadly Ebola Virus Disease; Enugu has become the next in line.

Twenty one persons out of the 198 so far quarantined because of the virus are in Enugu, says the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku.

Maku told State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja on Wednesday that Enugu came into the picture because one of the nurses that treated the American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, shunned medical advice and travelled to the city.

Sawyer, the index case of EVD in Nigeria, died on July 25 in an Obalende, Lagos hospital five days after he arrived in the country.

Court stops panel from probing Omisore

Click banner for more info

A High Court sitting in Osogbo has ordered the Commission of Enquiry on Disturbance of Public Peace set up by Governor Rauf Aregbesola to put on hold the investigation of Senator Iyiola Omisore.

The Chairman of CEDPP, Justice Moshood Adeigbe, said at the resumed hearing of the panel in Osogbo on Wednesday that the panel had received an interim order from the court stopping it from probing Omisore, pending the ruling on the application filed by him before the court.

Counsel to the petitioner, Mr. Lekan Olayiwola, urged the panel to allow the petitioner to go on with the hearing of the matter despite the interim order of the court.

Continue..

Ebola vaccine trials set to begin in September

Click banner for more info

Officials at the World Health Organisation said that the first round of clinical trials of a potential Ebola vaccine made by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline could begin next month.

A vaccine resulting from the trials could possibly be available by 2015, MSN News reported Sunday.

Late last week, WHO declared the outbreak of deadly Ebola virus in West Africa a “public health emergency.”

The outbreak, which has already claimed 961 lives in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, “constitutes an ’extraordinary event’ and a public health risk to other States,” WHO said in a statement.

Continue..

Ebola & the $1bn question

Click banner for more info

Like Boko Haram’s crazy insurgents who kill their victims and the soldiers who fight to protect them, the Ebola Virus Disease kills its victims along with some medical personnel who battle to save their lives. These are the twin devils of the season.  The twin scourges of 2014 share many other characteristics. Their roots date back to decades, but their ravages of human souls across the sub-Sahara Africa only peaked this year, even as a disbelieving world is left agape by their ferocity.

Continue..

Ebola: FG employs 490 environmental health officers

Click banner for more info

The Federal Government on Wednesday assured Nigerians so it would recruit 490 trained environmental health officers who will soon be deployed in borders within strategies being employed to fight the deadly Ebola Virus Disease.  The  government also pledged to educate people on the best way to stop the spread of the illness and other related diseases in the country.