Moscow Confirmed To Host 2018 FIFA World Cup Opener, Final

A general view shows the Otkrytie Arena stadium in Moscow, Russia, in this July 9, 2015 file photo. Reuters/Maxim Shemetov

Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium will host both the opening match and final of the 2018 World Cup after the match schedule was confirmed by FIFA on Friday. Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Sochi, Samara will be the quarter-final venues while St Petersburg and Moscow will stage the semi-finals. Russia, allocated as team A1, will play in the opening match on June 14. The final will be held on July 15.

The 2017 Confederations Cup, an eight-team tournament featuring the champions of each continent plus the hosts and world champions, will be held from June 17 to July 2, FIFA said.

Nigeria Rejects Online Degrees, Warns Students Against Virtual Schools

Bayero University, Kano Main Gate

The National Universities Commission, NUC, on Thursday called on Nigerians to stop patronizing online universities and other degree awarding institutions operating online. Speaking at a press conference, the NUC’s Public Relations officer, Ibrahim Yakasai, said that degrees obtained online are not accepted in the country.

“Nigeria will not recognize online degrees. Online degrees are not accepted in Nigeria at the moment,” he said.

Mr. Yakasai warned Nigerian students and parents against patronizing Maryam Abacha American University in Niger Republic.

Kenya's Little Obamas: An Inspired Generation - Video

Since Barack Obama took office in 2008, children across Kenya have been named after the US president. Now in K'Ogelo, the home town of his father, little Obamas are preparing for the arrival of their more famous and powerful namesake.

Obama broke boundaries in the US by becoming the first black president, and Kenyan parents hope that their sons will go on to emulate his achievements.

DOPING IN SPORT: WADA Chief Howman Concerned About Teenagers Doping

David Howman, Director General of WADA; Drugs in sport: WADA says doping and organized crime 'too big to manage' | Sport | The Guardian

Young athletes could be using performance-enhancing drugs as they try to make the breakthrough into elite sport, fears World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman. Howman also believes 10 percent of elite athletes could still be doping as WADA continues its efforts to weed out drugs cheats and those that supply them with illegal substances. Speaking to the BBC, Howman said: "The area of most concern for us is the level of young athletes who have not broken through into the elite who are trying to get that breakthrough and are susceptible to taking drugs because that's a shortcut.

World's First Malaria Vaccine Gets Go-Ahead From EU Regulators

The signage for the GlaxoSmithKline building is pictured in Hounslow, west London June 18, 2013. Reuters/Luke MacGregor

The world’s first malaria vaccine got a green light on Friday from European drugs regulators who recommended it should be licensed for use in babies in Africa at risk of the mosquito-borne disease. The shot, called RTS,S or Mosquirix and developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, would be the first licensed human vaccine against a parasitic disease and could help prevent millions of cases of malaria in countries that use it.

Recommendations for a drug license made by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are normally endorsed by the European Commission within a couple of months.

Mosquirix, also part-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will also now be assessed by the World Health Organization, which has promised to give its guidance on when and where it should be used before the end of this year.

Malaria killed an estimated 584,000 people in 2013, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 80 percent of malaria deaths are in children under the age of five.

Death Toll In Czech High Speed Train Crash Reaches 3

Rescue workers are busy at the scene of a collision between a high-speed train and a truck in the city of Studenka, eastern Czech Republic, Wednesday, July 22, 2015. Two people died in the collision and more than a dozen were injured. (AP Photo,CTK/Petr Sznapka)

The death toll in a collision between a high-speed train and a truck in eastern Czech Republic has reached three after a passenger died in a hospital over the night.

Tomas Oborny, spokesman for the University hospital in the city of Ostrava, confirmed the death Wednesday. He said three other people remain in serious condition.

The train hit the truck at a rail crossing in the eastern town of Studenka on Tuesday as it was traveling from Bohumin to the western spa of Frantiskovy Lazne.

The truck driver was unharmed. He was detained by police as investigators believe he entered the crossing despite the warning from flashing red lights.

Boko Haram Burns Down Chief Of Army Staff’s Home

Chief of Army Staff, Maj. Gen. Tukur Buratai

Suspected Boko Haram terrorists have burnt down houses, including the family home of the Chief of Army Staff, Maj. Gen. Tukur Buratai, in his village in Borno State.

At least, two people were killed and eight injured during the attack on Buratai village on Tuesday, sources told our correspondent in Abuja.

Jonathan’s Ministers Behind Oil Theft –Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari

The near future of some former ministers and top government officials appears to be behind bars as President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday confirmed that he had started receiving some documents, which showed that they were thieves.

The President vowed that the ex-ministers would be prosecuted based on the indicting documents while the proceeds of their fraud would be repatriated to government coffers from their multiple foreign accounts, which he said were opened for the purpose of laundering money.

110 Pipeline Vandals Roasted In Arepo Inferno

Sympathizers wept profusely in Arepo area of Ogun State yesterday as no fewer than 110 suspected petroleum pipeline vandals were roasted to death. The incident occurred along the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) pipeline.

Leadership newspaper gathered that the vandals were scooping fuel when it ignited the fire, which raged for several hours.

Peru To Make Contact With Isolated Tribe For First Time

Members of the Mashco-Piro tribe observe a group of travelers from across the Alto Madre de Dios river in the Manu National Park in the Amazon basin of southeastern Peru, as photographed through a bird scope October 21, 2011. Reuters/Jean-Paul Van Belle

Peru will try to make contact for the first time with an Amazonian tribe that largely lives isolated in the jungle, part of a bid to ease tensions with nearby villages after a bow-and-arrow attack in May, authorities said on Tuesday. Government anthropologists will try to talk with a clan of Mashco Piro Indians to understand why they have been emerging from the forest, said deputy culture minister Patricia Balbuena.

In recent years the Mashco Piro have increasingly been spotted seeking machetes and food outside their jungle enclaves in the Manu National Park in southeastern Peru. Villagers, Christian proselytizers and tourists have all interacted with the tribe, often giving them clothes and food.

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Death Toll Rises To 37 After Blasts In Nigerian City Of Gombe

Multiple bomb blasts at two bus stations in Gombe on Wednesday

The death toll from multiple bomb blasts at two bus stations in the northern Nigerian city of Gombe on Wednesday has risen to 37, with 105 others injured, a Red Cross official said on Thursday.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of the Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed thousands of people in the last six years as it tried to establish a caliphate in the northeast.