Police Set To Arrest Saraki; Northern Group To Embattled Senate President: Resign Now

Senator Bukola Saraki lurching from one crisis to another since being elected president of Nigeria's eighth senate

…await tribunal’s order

•Judge rejects lawyer’s assurance to produce Senate President later
•Adjourns to Monday for his arraignment

The police yesterday declared that they were awaiting orders to effect the arrest of the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki. The Senate President was billed to be arraigned before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) sitting in Abuja yesterday, but he failed to turn up, relying on an injunction he purportedly secured from a federal high court.

The development angered the Justice Danladi Umar-led tribunal, which promptly ordered that the police or other relevant security agencies should produce the Senate President before it on Monday.

The Senate President is being accused for false and improper declaration of the assets he allegedly acquired during his tenure as governor of Kwara State between 2003 and 2011.

Sir Alex Ferguson: Family Bereavement Prompted Manchester United Retirement

Sir Alex Ferguson retired as Manchester United boss in May 2013

Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed he would have stayed on longer as Manchester United manager had it not been for the death of his sister-in-law. The 73-year-old Scot shocked the football world in May 2013 when he announced his decision to stand down as United boss after 26 years in charge - having delivered the club's 20th top-flight league title and 37 other trophies.

David Moyes was appointed as Ferguson's successor but his reign lasted just 10 months before he was sacked in April last year as United failed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since the 1995-96 season.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Governors, Stop Killing Nigerian Children — Olabisi Deji-Folutile

A school in a northern state (Image source: nairaland forum)

This is a picture of a so-called block of classrooms for some hapless Nigerian children. It’s a school building for children whose parents are obviously not members of the nation’s political class. Their parents are probably hard-working, but hard work is not wealth. This is a popular proverb in this part of the world.

Of course, one would have thought school buildings like these should only be in war-torn countries or the poorest countries of the world. But then, they are right here in Nigeria- the world’s sixth largest producer of oil.

U.S. Ties Approval Of US$472.8 Mln Tanzania Aid To Graft Fight

President Jakaya Kikwete

The United States told Tanzania on Friday it must do more to fight corruption if it wants to receive a US$472.8 million financial aid package next year. Tanzania has made big discoveries of natural gas and hopes to start large-scale production within a decade, but investors in the east African nation of over 45 million people have long complained of graft.

"Despite some efforts to address corruption, it remains a serious concern affecting all aspects of development and government effectiveness," Mark Childress, the U.S. ambassador to Tanzania, said in a statement.

Tanzania won a five-year package of grants in 2008 worth US$698 million under the U.S. government's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) program, but the award of a second round of grants will now depend on the government's anti-graft effort.

The MCC board acknowledged Tanzania's steps to reform its institutions, but said more needs to be done before additional aid can be approved.

In Niger, U.S. Soldiers Quietly Help Build Wall Against Boko Haram

Niger soldiers provide security for an anti-Boko Haram summit in Diffa city, Niger September 3, 2015. Reuters/Warren Strobel

Despite years of intimidation by the violent extremist group Boko Haram, the people of southeastern Niger's Diffa region had never held a summit to confront the threat - perhaps with good reason. "One person could come here and kill us all!" Diffa's prefect, Inoussa Saouna, told 75 village leaders assembled along with politicians and military commanders in the city's pale blue-walled cultural center.

That same early September day, a double suicide bombing that bore Boko Haram's hallmarks killed 19 people in nearby Cameroon.

The group, best known for its kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls in April 2014, has expanded from its base in northern Nigeria to threaten the region. It has menaced U.S. and European allies in west Africa, and leader Abubakar Shekau in March pledged its loyalty to Islamic State.

Scrap 60 Embassies, Ex-Diplomats Tell Buhari

Embassy of Nigeria in Vienna, Austria

Some ex-diplomats and experts on international affairs have backed President Muhammadu Buhari’s call for a review of the number of Nigeria’s foreign missions abroad, saying that they should be cut by at least 60. The experts and ex-diplomats, who said the number of Nigerian missions abroad was too many, disclosed this in separate interviews with our correspondents on Friday.

They said Nigeria’s economy, which has recently been on a downturn, could not sustain its 119 foreign missions.

Buhari recently ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review the number of Nigeria’s foreign missions abroad, which are set to cost the country ₦34bn in 2015.

UPDATE: Death Toll Rises To 183 In South Sudan Fuel Tanker Explosion

South Sudan map with Western Equatoria highlighted

The death toll from a fuel tanker explosion in a rural South Sudanese state reached 183 on Friday, a regional official said, as medical staff and volunteers struggled to keep up with the influx of severely burned patients. At least 60 more people are unaccounted for, said Commissioner Wilson Thomas Yanga of Maridi County in the state of Western Equatoria, where the fuel tanker exploded.

The truck carrying petrol overturned Wednesday outside Maridi and then exploded shortly after hundreds of villagers had gathered around to siphon fuel.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said the explosion was an accident caused by a cigarette, but many survivors told the AP that soldiers or police had been shooting guns near the overturned tanker and that may have sparked the explosion. Yanga said an official investigation has not yet started.

Cattle Leukaemia Virus Found In Milk Linked To Breast Cancer – Study

© Jim Young / Reuters

Women exposed to bovine leukaemia virus, a routine presence in bulk milk tanks at large dairy farms, are 3.1 times more likely to develop breast cancer than women whose tissue was not subject to the virus, known as BLV, according to a new study.  These odds are higher than those associated with other top breast cancer risks, including obesity and alcohol consumption, according to researchers at the University of California Berkeley.

The research team analyzed breast tissue from 239 women, some who had breast cancer and some who did not. They found that 59 percent of breast cancer cells showed exposure to BLV in their DNA, while cells from women who had not contracted breast cancer only had 29-percent exposure to BLV.

The link between BLV – which, while common in dairy and beef cattle, only affects 5 percent of cattle that have the virus – and breast cancer is significant, the researchers said, but not a conclusive cause-effect.

Tanzania Stops Malawi Burning Ivory Stockpile

Malawian President Peter Mutharika (pictured) postponed the burning of a separate ivory stockpile in April (Photo: AFP)

Tanzania has blocked Malawi from burning 2.6 tonnes of ivory, saying it needs to use the tusks as evidence for the prosecution of suspected poachers. The nearly 800 tusks were intercepted by customs officials as they were being smuggled into Malawi from Tanzania. The director of Malawi's wildlife department said he was disappointed with the court order, which bans the burning of the ivory for three months.

Malawi's elephant population has halved since 1980, mainly due to poaching.

Tanzania's has declined by 60% in the past five years.

FOR THE RECORDS: “Missing” Bauchi Aircraft Lands In Nigeria

The allegedly missing Bauchi State-owned aircraft, has landed in Nigeria from Morocco where the state government claimed it was found. The Embraer ERJ 145 touched down on the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport Bauchi at about 10 am Friday. Its whereabouts had been a subject of controversy as the new government suggested the aircraft was stolen by its predecessor and hidden in Morocco.

In an address two weeks ago, Governor Mohammed Abubakar announced the airplane had been found in the North African country.

Mr. Abubakar said the state’s Public Property Recovery Committee traced the plane.

Gang-Rape As Power: Africa Experts Seek Ways To End Sexual Violence/Crimes

A woman carries a child past a banner during a drumming session in downtown Johannesburg, Friday, March 8, 2013 to protest against violence against women and children. As the world marks International Women's Day, South Africans are locked in public soul-searching over the high level of murders and rapes perpetrated against women. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell; Image source: huffington post)

One in four South African men have committed a rape, most of them during their teenage years when young men use gang rape as a way of demonstrating their power when they feel slighted, said a researcher on sexual violence.

"A boyfriend organizes to have sex with his girlfriend and then he tricks her into a situation where his other friends come into the room and then the gang rape is perpetrated," Rachel Jewkes said by phone from South Africa, where experts met this week to assess research on preventing violence against women.

"Sometimes it is done purely as sport...You get groups of boys hanging round in rural areas who have got nothing better to do."

UPDATE: Soldiers Crush Protests As Military Seizes Power In Burkina Faso

General Gilbert Diendere sits at the presidential palace in Ouagadougou, on September 17, 2015

Heavily armed troops crushed protests in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou after a former spy chief seized power in a military coup on Thursday, derailing a democratic transition that had inspired many in Africa. At least three people were killed and more than 60 injured, according to hospital sources, when members of the presidential guard fired warning shots to disperse crowds and used batons to beat back stone-throwing demonstrators.

The coup leaders' authority did not appear to extend beyond the capital and soldiers stood aside as youths demonstrated in several other cities and towns.

The protesters were demanding the release of the interim president and members of his government detained by the presidential guard on Wednesday, and the organization of elections as scheduled for Oct. 11.

Cash Crunch Hits NASS; Senate Forced To Halt Hearing On Power Probe

The Senate

Cash crunch has hit the National Assembly and forced the Senate to put on hold the public hearing on power probe. According to a Senator, who did not want his name mentioned, the cash crunch was also largely responsible for crippling oversight activities of the various committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Making reference to the cash crunch being experienced in the National Assembly, a member of the Senate’s ad hoc committee on power, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa (PDP Abia North), said the much-expected public hearing on power sector cannot hold for now due to non-availability of funds to run it.

Apocalypse Looming? Antibiotic Resistant Diseases Will Cause Social Breakdown, Say Scientists

© Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters

The impending failure of antibiotics to treat life-threatening diseases could cause a social and economic “apocalypse” in Britain and throughout the first world, scientists warn. Medical experts predict many dangerous diseases will become completely resistant to antibiotics in the near future, causing social unrest on an unprecedented level.

The crisis could result in people barricading themselves into enclaves as the health system collapses under the strain of chronic diseases, scientist Adam Roberts told the British Science Festival last week.

The senior lecturer in microbial disease at University College London warned the failure of antibiotics could result in wars and civil unrest and people fight over medical treatments.

American Incomes Shrink With No Decline In Poverty

© Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters

The median annual household income in the US last year fell 1.5 per cent to US$53,657, according to Census Bureau data released on Wednesday.

"In 2014, real median household income was 6.5 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession," said the Census report.

The report also showed no change in the poverty rate during the year. 46.7 million US citizens, or about 15 percent of the population, lived in poverty last year. The number hasn’t changed since 2013.

FOR THE RECORDS: Buhari Cancels Visit To Cross River For Groundbreaking Of 260km Highway

President Muhammadu Buhari

The proposed visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Cross River State for the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a 260km superhighway has been cancelled. A statement by Christian Ita, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River, on Thursday, confirmed the cancellation.

It stated that the decision to postpone the ceremony was communicated to the governor in a letter signed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari.

“The presidency attributed the shift to a letter written to the president by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Environment, Nana Fatima Mede.

FIFA’s Jérôme Valcke ‘Released From Duties’ After World Cup Ticket Claims

Jérôme Valcke denies allegations that he sought to profit from ticket sales for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Photograph: Sebastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images

• Allegations that Valcke agreed to sell tickets above face value
• FIFA has requested formal investigation by Ethics Committee into Valcke

Football’s crisis-hit world governing body has dramatically released its secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, Sepp Blatter’s right-hand man since 2007, from his duties “until further notice” in the wake of allegations involving the resale of World Cup tickets. FIFA, in turmoil since a series of dramatic arrests in May and subsequent US corruption charges, said in a statement that Valcke had been put on leave after being implicated in a scheme to sell World Cup tickets above face value and share in the profits. He has denied the allegations.

“FIFA today announced that its secretary general Jérôme Valcke has been put on leave and released from his duties effective immediately until further notice,” it said. “Further, FIFA has been made aware of a series of allegations involving the secretary general and has requested a formal investigation by the FIFA ethics committee.”

At Least 85 Killed, 50 Injured In South Sudan Fuel Truck Explosion Sparked By A Cigarette

Image source: BuzzfeedNews

Man sits atop a petrol tanker as they remain stranded in a flooded section of a road while driving from the Ugandan border into South Sudan at Nimule August 27, 2013. At least 85 people were killed and 50 injured in a fuel truck explosion Wednesday in South Sudan, the Associated Press reported.

The explosion occurred in the country’s rural Western Equatoria state.

UK Met Hit By Biggest Police Bribery Scandal In Decades

New Scotland Yard police headquarters is seen in London

Scotland Yard is facing the biggest corruption scandal to hit the Metropolitan Police force since the 1970s. Officers are alleged to have accepting bribes from security firms working for strip clubs and bars across London’s West End. Anti-corruption police are also investigating three security bosses at two separate companies, one of which frames itself as an official partner of Scotland Yard in delivering the government’s counter-terror strategies. 

Details of the corruption scandal surfaced in an investigation published by BuzzFeed News on Tuesday. Following a lengthy investigation, the news outlet uncovered a secret 48-month operation that has plunged Scotland Yard into crisis.

Following interviews with security staff, sources within the Met’s licensing unit, Westminster Council and several West End club owners, BuzzFeed News shed light on a frenzied battle for control of Soho’s nightlife that has culminated in a number of high-profile arrests.

Oxford University Granted Record EU Loan To Renovate Ancient Buildings

Oxford University dates back to the 11th century

Oxford University has secured the largest ever European Investment Bank university loan as part of its programme to renovate some of its 500-year-old buildings and expand research facilities. The 200 million pound (US$310 million) loan is a major boost to the university's fundraising campaign, which has brought in over 2 billion pounds since 2004.

However the figure still pales in comparison to the sums gathered by its U.S. counterparts. Harvard University, the richest in the world, raised US$1.16 billion last year alone.

UPDATE: Burkina Faso Coup: Top Ally Of Former Dictator, Compaoré, Named Ruler

A Burkina Faso general, who served as top military aide to former dictator, Blaise Compaoré, for three decades, was named Thursday as the leader of a coup that sacked the West African nation’s interim government. Gilbert Diendere, a former chief-of-staff to Mr. Compaoré, was named the head of the new junta called the National Council for Democracy.

Under Mr. Compaoré, Mr. Diendere, a spy operator, played a central role in negotiating the release of Western hostages seized by Islamist groups in the arid Sahel, reports Reuters.

The military had earlier announced the dissolution of the transitional government, a day after personnel from the country’s elite presidential guard unit arrested the interim president and prime minister.

UK Backs Saudi Prisons Despite Impending Child Crucifixion – Legal Charity

Despite Saudi plans to crucify a child for anti-government offences, the British government will continue with a bid to support the Gulf Kingdom’s prison system, the legal charity Reprieve has claimed. It was reported this week that the final appeal to the Saudi courts by 17-year-old Mohammed al-Nimr had been dismissed, meaning his sentence to death by crucifixion for anti-government activities in 2012 is likely to be carried out.

In a statement on its website, Reprieve says the British government has had to backtrack on its claim that the bid to service Saudi prisons could not be cancelled because to do so would incur “financial penalties.”

Parliamentary records were instead amended to suggest the bid could not be stopped because “withdrawing at this late stage would be detrimental to [Her Majesty’s Government’s] wider interests.

COUP D'ÉTAT: Burkina Faso Military Officer Announces Coup

L'annonce vient d'être faite. COUP D'ÉTAT AU #BURKINA FASO. (Image source: Gue Amelie o Twitter)

Hopes for the completion of a democratic transition in the West African state of Burkina Faso were derailed on Thursday with a coup by army officers loyal to the strongman ousted last year in a rare case in sub-Saharan Africa of street power toppling a president. After members of the 1,300-strong elite Republican Guard—a holdover from President Blaise Compaoré's regime—nabbed interim President Michel Kafando and other officials during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, an unnamed officer appeared on state television on Thursday morning to formalize the military takeover.

South Africa's New Human Ancestor Sparks Racial Row

Maps and photo of Homo naledi, whose fossilized bones were discovered in South Africa

Some prominent South Africans have dismissed the discovery of a new human ancestor as a racist theory designed to cast Africans as "subhuman", an opinion that resonates in a country deeply bruised by apartheid. "No one will dig old monkey bones to back up a theory that I was once a baboon. Sorry," said Zwelinzima Vavi, former general secretary of the powerful trade union group Cosatu, a faithful ally of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

"I am no grandchild of any ape, monkey or baboon -- finish en klaar (Afrikaans for "that's it")," he said on his Twitter account, which is followed by more than 300,000 people.

His comments were backed by the South African Council of Churches (SACC), which was historically involved in the fight against apartheid.

Burkina Leaders Must Be Freed Immediately — U.N. Joint Statement

People protesting against the presidential guard block the traffic in Ouagadougou. Photograph: Joe Penney/Reuters

Burkina Faso's presidential guard should immediately release leaders of the interim government, including President Michel Kafando, the United Nations, African Union and regional bloc ECOWAS said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The statement in French said that perpetrators from the elite military unit had violated the West African country's constitution and would be held responsible for their acts.